Debating Cultural Hybridity Introduction 1

H}FBATING CULTURAL HYBRINITY
ulti-Cultur:al l dent.ities aucl the Politics of Anti-[tacisrn

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EDITED BY PNIN/,T WERBNER AND TARIQ MODOOD
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Dehating Cultural ltybritlit:y rr,,as firsr published in ryg7 by Zed Books Ltd, 7 Cynthia Street, London Nr 9JF, uK, anci r6_5 First Avenlre, Arlantic Highlands, Nerv Jersey o7716, usa
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Litrr:ar:y
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AMBIVALENCE AND MULTIPLICITY
IN THE CONSTRUCTIONS OF RACISM AND ETHNICITY Pnina

Wbrbner
FEAR OF ESSENTIALISH
it seems. has becorne the boge.v- rvord of the human scicnccs. an accllsation generating a virtnll 'paranoia' (Fuss r99o: r). Againsr essentialisrn, social constrllctionists stress the contingent, fractr,ired. arntrivalent and rellexive natLrre of culture and identitl' as these are played
Essentialism,
out in the conlext of power and dondnatiorl. In the study of racisur and ethniciry the founding assllnlption of antiessentialism has been the {luiditv hybridity and operuless of national cr-rlture and diasporic collcctive identities.Yet the schoiarly fcrr of essentialisrn
has also inspir:ed a grorving interest in the -sirc-r of essenrialism - in the question of .uvho essentialises lvhom, rvhen and for rvhat purposes. Such constrlrctionist questions hiuhlight the paradoxical fact thar. as Fuss ptrts it.'there is no essence to essentialism'(r99o: xii). Eqi-rallr' significant is a grorving sense that constructionisrrt has qone too f;rr - in denying the ontolosical grounds of experience as a source of cuitural meaning, and palticr,rlarll' so rvith regard to the 'phenomenologn of embodiment' (Shilling 1993: 8o), here considered as it r:clates to rhe expericnce of racial violence and sr-rflering and the coliective identities this experience generates. Although the rise of organised racial violence in Europe during thc r99os has been a much-publicised social fact (see Bjorgo and 'Witre rgg3;Witte rgg4; Bjorgo rgg-i), there has been a tendencv to gloss or-,,-r thc increase in racial violence in llritain itself, most scholars preferrine.
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insteacl. to focus their deconstructive gaze orl the stereorypes and texrual narratives of racialisinu discourses. Nevertheless, the fiqures adrl Llp to a depressing record: in Britain in r99z-93, for exarnple. therc- rverc 8,ooo otficially recorded inciclents of r:acial violence, a figure r,r'hich disgr-rises the
extent of the violetrce, thought to havc been a rnultiple of this nurnber (Rwrnyrncde Bulletin, Septenrber 1993). In September 1993, a canrlidare
ij'orn the British National Party', the neo*Nazi fascist party, rvas tbr the firsr tinre elected as a mlrnicipal councillor in a London borough (he l:rter lost his seat). An anti-racist clernonstration aqainst the llNP, r,vhich demanded the banning of explicitly racist politic-al partics, endecl in violence r,vith a large tntmber of policemen ancl tlernonstratols injured. Since 1992 the nunrber of recordcd incidents has risen; therc has been an itrcrease in 'u'igilante activisnr of ethnic nrinorirv youth, minor 'rACe' ric-tts in Ilradford and Brixton. and firrther evidence of unwarrantecl police
'u'iolent:e against rncrnbers of rninoriw groups. Srrch processes of escalating racial and xcnophobic violence in Britain appear to gencrate contradictory social rrajectories. On the one hancl, the
palhways of mediatecl allianccs ancl crosscuming ties berureen the rnajoriry and ethnic rrrinority groups, which nrighr counrer the grou'ing cycie of
violence, beconre increasinglv flasile. In Greuory Batcson'.s ternls, we lllay say that violence gelretates colrrltcr-violence in a schisnrogenetic process of conrmunal polarisatiorl (on schisnrogenesis, see Bateson r9j8
[rq:6j:
17S-97).1
On the other hand, opposinu this trend,
anri-racisr
movelnents mobilise an increasingly broader and more conrrrittecl spectlullr of ethnic groups fbr joint action against this escalating violence
(see lr.4iles rgg4a).
In this chapter I analyse the exper:ienrial consequeuces of ethnic violence as a social force lvlric;h ;rbsolutises ethnic identities. My arp;r-rnrent starts frotl tlre prenriss that violence is perdtrrnatirre ancl exentplarv: an extrellle act of syntl-olic cotlnrunicration rvhich generatcs a transfbruration irt hunrau relationships. The nroral philosoplrer Emnranuel I-errinas conlrasts violence with altruisr-n, rvhich he defines as tl-le human recognition of personal resportsibility to an other in his or her clifTerence. Unlike ;rltruistn, r'iolence, he aruues, denies othenress its legitimate right to exist and to be difterent. For Ler.inas.'faL:e', the acceptance of hurran alterity, contrasts r,vith the 'siletrce' of violence, 'nvhich is the turning arvav of face, a siience which is tl-re cleniai of- otherness (Levinas r987). In the tblio.'ving anaiysis. I build on Levinas's c-ontrast to arque f{lr a critical ditlerence betrveen processes of ol--rjectification ancl reiflcation: t.,enveen 'ethnicirv' as a shifting, hybriclised poiitics ot- iclentity or collective selt-representation, ancl 'racisr-n' or xenophobia - ethnic absolutisnr - as .] progressively esseutialising politics of violation an<1 absolute neqation
228
DEBATING CULTURAL HYBRIDITY
responcls in px11 also to a conternporary clelrate anti-racisnr and rrir-rlticultural iclentities. lt is a clebate r.vhich has highlightecl some of the intractatrle dilenrrnas inherent in the rnttlticultural privileging of singtrlar, cliscrete anrl exclusive ethnic or racial identities in the public sphere. At issr-re are problerns of both represerltafion and self-representation. The clistinction is critical, for it raises questions about rhe nroral and political right to represelrt a c:ultural other. Increasingly, the ter-rdency has been to label all collective representatior-ts - u'hether of ethnic: and relisious groups. or classes and nations - :ls rnisplacecl esselltialisrns (so that as anthropoktgists lve can no longer stucly a 'society', a 'conlnlllnity', a'culture' or a'people').Yet this incliscrirlinate accusation of essentialisn-r. appliecl nncritically to ail objectifications of collective asents, has tencled, I shall argtle here, to obscure processes of collec-tive reFre\cn[ation anc] self-representation r,vhich are tt()l essentialist. To appreciate this further, I tnrn first to a consideration of the meaning of essentialisnr. Tir essentialise is to irnpute a tirnclamental, basic, absolutely necessarv constitutive qr-rality to a person. social categc)r\', ethnic group, relisious communify,, clr nation. [t is to posit falsely a tirneless contir]uity, a discreteness clr bottncledness in space, ancl :rn orgarric unity'. It is to irnl-r1l, an internal sameness and extern:rl clifference or otherness. The charge of essentialism attaches to any fbrm of analvsis r,r'hich nray be sairl to obscure the relational aspects of group culture or identin. and to valorise inste:rci the sr-rb.ject in itseif, as autonomous irntl sep:rrrrte. as if such a subject could be denrarc:rtecl out of Lrorltext, unrelated to an extern:rl other or discursive purpose (see l{or4,- ryg"). T'he c}rarge erf essentialisnr is alsc, ievellecl at structnralist analyses that highlight rhe irrternal coherence of'synrbolic patterns or social systelns, and at phenomenological ones that stress the errlotional power of rlistinctive cultures to define experience: the social force of taken-tor-granted sentirnental
of alterity. IVly argurnent
in Britain about
cultr-rral attachments. As a political perFornl;rnce. essentialisins is defined as a tbrnr of clisplacetnent,'rvhich serves to disguise ant-l disrort the real thing', in Edrvard Said's terlrls (Said r98-s: zz),to obliterate peopie, he says, as'htruran beinqs' (ibid.: z7). I{epreser}tation as rlistorrion is seen here as a rnode of silencins and sttppressing the voices of oppressed sLrbgroups. In this respecr essentialisnr is a perforrnative act, a nrode of action. Attenrpts to avoid essentialisinq the social collectivities u'e stucly leacl. horvever, to a series of conunclrurns. If to nanre is to re-presellt, to irnply a colltir-ruitv and cliscreteness in tinre and place, then it follou,s that all collective narnings or labellings are essentialist. and that :r11 tliscursir-e
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of a group or collectivity necessarily implies a continuetl unity in tilre of integration, ir rnor:ld seclnl ro follo',r, thar all tornrs of objectification essentialise. In seeking a wav out of this apparcnt afroria, Donringlrez suggesrs that ethnographic rvriting shoulcl focus rlot on groLlps br,rr on the process of objectification itscif; the rvay coilectiviries describe, reclescribe alcl
ancl space, and a nleasllre argue over r,vho they are (Donrir-rgticz 1989: 38; see also yr-rva1-l)avis and in Cliapters rr :rnd rz above). Her work. like thac of other fbnrinists and post-colonial critics. reiterates that rvho has thc rishr to otrjecti$, is itself a political qllestion, because objectification iniplies 'a
construcliotls of social collectivities * r,vhether of conrmi,initl,. class, nation. or gendcr - are essentialising. If 'Western Orientalisnt constrltcted a ialse tron--Weslern Other, the Saidian critirlue of Oricntalisnr runs the danger of constructinq false counter-Occidentalisnrs of the West (Cliflord t988: z5g, z6z passin4 Carrier r99-s: r-3 ltdssiln). Since anv objectificatiol
race
Ilaumam
senriotic appropriation of seiiby rhe orher' (ibid.: r66) and, by impiication, a siiencing of the <-rther. Thc issuc is not, u.e need to lenlenlber, merely discursive. a linguistic
paradox disclosing the lindts of langr-rage. Policv decisions, srate fulcl allocations, racial nrurders, cthnic clelnsing, anti-racist struggles. nationalist couflicts or revivals, even genocide, follorv on essentialist conslructions
of unitarv organic cr-rltural collectivirics. The very heterogeneity of that list points, hc'nvever, ro the tanglecl issues I r.vant to acldress here: citizenship rishts ancJ nrr-rlticulturalist
or ethnic cleansing. It is therefore critic;al to establish clearly the difti:rence between rnocies of objectificatittn ancl rtroiles of rciJtcrttion. I watlt to suggest that reitlcation is representation rvhich clistorts ald siletrces, and hence is essentiaiist in the pernic;ious sense inrpliecl by this terul. In this chapter I explclre the ciiffer:ence bet'uveerr such reiflcatiops
mut'clers ancl nrrrtnal ethnicity
agendas :lre as nluch dependent on collective objectiflcations as arc racist
etlrnicisrrt or rac;isnr. is,
a nrocle of ohjectification that, unlike xenophobia. suueest, a rightful perlbrnrance or represelta-
tion of- inr-rltiple. r'alorisecl and aestheticiseil idenrifications. That the problein of collective objectiflcation is political, ancl not
rllerely theoretical, is r-rn<lerlinecl by the enersv derrclte<l by ethnic acti'v,ists and acacletrtics in l}:itain to arguinr about the nroral appropriateness otulollp labels. Such labels seenr to capture the essence of a group, anci this has leaci to fler:ce clebirtes about u,hat ethnic nrinorities should call therrtselves, atrcl be callecl. Label afier label is lejected. First. the label of-'migrant' w:ls rejected, then o1-'irnnrigrant'. then of 'biack', then of'Asian' (see also Modood and llonnett. chapters ancl ro above). 9
230
PUBLIC ARENAS AND THE SELF.IMAGINING OF COMMUNITY The areunlent about ethnic naming highlighrs the fact that it is not only Western representations of the Other which essentialise. In their perfbrrnative rhetoric the people r,ve study essentialise their ima{rined cornnrunities in order to rnobiiise for ;lctiolr. Within the spaces of civil sociefy, the politics of ethnicity in Britain are not so much imposed as grounded in essentialist self-im:rginines of conununity. Hence, ethnic learJers essentialise conrmunal identities in their competition for state Flrants
and formal leadership positions. But - equally inlportantly - such leaclers narrate and argue over these iclentities in the social spaces u4rich they thenrselves have created, fbr from the public eye. Hence nruch of rhe irnagining that goes towards rnobilising ethnic or religious cornrnunities irr Britairi oc-curs tn inuisible public arenas, Lrefore purely ethnic audiences (on the significance of such popular cultural pr-rblic arenas in lndia and nlore eenerall,v, see Freitag 1989). In other words, self-essentialising is a rhetorical perlbrnrance in u,hich an imagined cornnrunity is invoked. In this regard, the polirics of ethniciry are a positive politics: they serve to Lronstruct nioral and aesthetic comnrunities imaginacively.2 These rnoral and aesthetic contmunities are not fixed: they overlap anri vary in scale. They enrerge situationalll,, in opposition to other moral and aesthetic r-:ornrnunities. Seen over time, this multiplicity of contingent, shifting anrl ernersent collective identities enact a conposite, unreflecrive, 'natural' and t-hanging hybridity. The politics of race, extrerne nationalism or xenopholria, Lry c-ontrast, are a violent politic:s. The cotrununities essentialiseil bv the perpetrators of violent acts of aggression are not inlagined situationally but clefined as fixed, irnrloral and darrgerous. ln being tlernonised. rhey are reified. Violence is an act rvhich clemands retribution. It creates, as Kapferer arflues,
its
or.rrn 'tneaning' and 'order',
each other (Kapfer:er, forthcoming). It is pertormarive, a 'display' of self-sufficient autonorny and rejection of otherness lvhich becornes in time rotttine practice, grourlded rn cofilmon-ser]se social constructions. Through this process, rhe signifiiing practices of racial violence conle to be constitutive of self and identiry - as happens, for example, arlons 'uvhite r,vorkins-class adoiescents (see Heu'itt r986; I\attansi r99_j). Unless it is checked, violence generates an escalating cycle of fear ancl counterviolations, leading to an unbreachable moral chasrn. To achieve this end, xenophobic actors'theatricalise'and 'ritualise'violence, in order ro destroy the natural syncretisms, hybridities and multiple affiliations of everydav life and 'magnify' cr-rlttrral differences (Tarnbiah r986: rr7).
ot|
in
uthir:h ethnic identities 'flash
PNINA
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23r
such a cycle rvhich 1ed to the racialisation of British Muslirns in the course of the RushcJie atlair. Thc cnrotionalll' charged developmenr of tlrc Sntanic I,r:rses aftair can thus serve to illunrinate the schismogenctic nature of essentialism as a social process grounded in violence.
Il
.uvas
AGONISTIC MORAL PANICS: THE SATANIC VERSES

Tht: Sttiatic Wrses was a politically polenrical ncrvel irrsertecl into an already charge<l political fielcl. The fielci rvas rnarked try a cycle ot- asonistic nroral panics, which generated a chain ot- essentialisrns arril counter-essentialisms.
Moral panics denronise tangible sr:rftce [argets through a process of 'clisplacenrent'(see S. Cohen rgTz:9). ln a moral panic, underlying social
coltffadictions converlle on apparentlv concrete
overlap, as the 'dentons proliferate', tlre sense
caLlses.
As ntoral panics
of threat reaches a point of crisis in rvhich ordinary people begin to tbar 'the breakrlor,vn of social lifb itselt" thc contir.rg of chaos, the onset ot- anarchy' (Ha1l et ttl. tg78: 3zz-3) - in short, apocalypse, u,hic;h only au 'exceptiorial' respclnse can
ftrrestall.
The historical rotrts of the l{ushdie affair in lJritain can be traced to
llritish
ancl Atnerican irnperialisrn
in Iran, an intervention r,vhich violated
lrauian national integritv. Supportecl by the West, the Shah of lran's nrodernisation <lrirre attacked not only political fi:eeclonrs but Islanr as
the national religion, evoking instead a pre-lslanric Persian l'ristorl'. clating back z,5oo years to Cyrus the Great (see Lewis rg79. The Shalr's delibetate attack on Isl;rm gelreratcd the first nroral panic, led by rhe Islarlic clerg1', r,vhich uitinrately sparked the lranian revolution" The Ilanian t'evolution lecl to the seconcl nroral panic;, this tinre in the West. i'vhich rvas firelled b.v a tcar of a violent. farratical 'lslanric funclatttentalistn'. Rushdie. and secular Muslinr intellectuals like hinr. sha.red rhat fear, as other Islarnic countries like Pakistan besan, follorving the Irrrnian t-evolution, to :rbolish harcl-u'on civil liber:ties, ancl especially the' riehts of 'uv<lnten (see Mumtaz and Shahced r9ti7). lJoth nroral panics generated essentialist definitions ot opponents. Iraniatis, in their: tbar, clenronisecl the Shah and essentialised Americ;a
:s 'The Creat Satan'. The West, and ur:lranised liberal Muslims in Is....nric countries, detnclniseil the A1'atollah I{homeini anci essentialised the \luslinr lrotrles. Thc Saf,urir: Ii:rcc-i cau Lre set:r.r as a cultural respoltse to ::i. t'eal sense c;f fear experiencecl by a lr4uslinr cosnropolitan eiite.
The publication of rhe novel

--'rb,allv perceived
it
as a
spar"keci a new nroral p:rnic. N4uslinrs public syr-nbolic violatittr-r, a-Western ar-rd Zionist
232
collspiracy to defarne ancl mock Islam ancl its sacred s,vrnbols. In Britain the rnoral panic \ /as a tarrgible symptollr of the contradictiorrs Pakistani immigrants were experiencing betureen their aspirations as economic rnigrants and the cultural alienatiorr r,vhich perrnanent settlement implied (see P Werbner ryg6a). The flct that the book seerned to rnock and cleride Islamic: cnlture and values matle it a svrnbol of racisrn, of the hr-rrniliation Pakistanis experience daily as black victirns of racial abuse and rliscriminaticrn.
Hence a novel which might at another tirne have passecl unnoticed calne to be displaced as the devilish loc:ns of a moral panic. Tire author r,vas literally demor-risei-l in the islarnic press ancl cinerna, his slantecl eyes and long ears lending thernselves to the creative imasination of Nluslirr.r cartoonists. A literature defbnding Mr-rslim interpretations of the book ernerged (see, for example, Ahsarr and l{iciwai rggr). A deep sense of hurt pride :rnd ofTence generatecl a carrrp.riun aglir-rst the auttror, evel-l before the Ayatollah's -fatu'a. The violent response of Muslims tc) the ar-rthor and the book trissered
a lJritish and-Westerrr corulter-nroral*panic. This last
in the
c:ycle
of ago-
nistic rnoral par-rics c{isplac:ed and essentialised local tsritish lVlr-rslims as ftilk devils. It papered over the contradictiorr in Britain betrveen the'nation', invoked as an expression of a shared, unifiecl and homoseneoLls culture
and historli and the rriulticultural, rnulti-racial nature of conterrrporary/ British sociery British MLrslirns came to epitolxise the tlanger to the n:rtion as a moral comrnunity', to freetlom of expression, to physical s;rfety'. to unirrersal cultural crtrnrnunicntitrn bet'ween all citizens. 'lslamophobia'- the fear of Muslirns - became a direct expression of this rnoral panic. IVtuslirn and English nroderates attempteci to clissipate the panic bv refocusing attention on the blasphemy law ancl its bias in thvour of Christianit,v. lndeed, the u'hole debate has consisterl of such refocusings, e:rch side fbregrounding ancl essentialisinu different dirnensiorrs of the cycle of agonistic panics and counter-panics (on this process in scientific discourse rnore gener:all1', see Str;rthern rggi). As the afl"rir continued, if bec:ure clear that Muslinr relisior-rs feelings were not protected under the British blasphemv laluv. British Muslims discovered that their religion couid be violatecl and rnocked rvithour the l:nv affording them any protection. In response, in a schismogenetic process of polarisation. they essentialised English socriery :rs hostile and unfeeling. At the sarne tirne, they recorlstituted thernselves as a conlnrunity of sutTering.
PNINA WERBNER RACISM AND AMBIVALENCE
233
A digressioi-r is in order here: rly clainr tlra[ racism reifies anci absolutises cultural clifference is clrallenged by a contenrporarv stress on the inherently ambivalent nature of relations betr,r'een racist and racialised. coloniser
and colonised, in u,hich 'tear anrl ciesire double ior one ancither arrd pla,v across the structures of- otherness' (Hall i99z: 256).ln the postmodern r,vorl<1, Rattansi argues. 'racist identities are clecentred, fragmented bv cotrtradictory discourses and the pull of- other identities ... flthey are] not necessarily consistent in their operation across clifferent contexts ancl sites' (Rattansi 1995: 7o). For: the racist,'the racist object is not only disgusting and hateful. but por,verfirl. fiscinatinu, erotic ancl possessinu qualities acinrired by racist subjccts' (ibid.: 7.4). This seenrs to accorcl r,vith Fanonls claint that the arnbivalence of- racist (or colonial) 'clesire' is rnir:rored by the r:acialised subject'.s dreanr oi dispossessing ancl replacint his oppressclr: 'tlrere is no native -uvho cloes not cirearn at least once a day of setting
hirnself up in the settler'.s place' (Fanon 1967:3o). Hence rhe colonial situatiotr is characterisecl by a continual fluctuation betrveen attraction and repulsior-r (Young r995: 6r). Rellecting on such arrbivalent desires, it might seerr that racist subJectivities are ti-actabie, situaticrnal and partial, not unlike anv other collective iclentiries. There are. in other wolds, 'no r,vatertight clefinitions to be had of ethnicitl', racism ancl the rnyriacl terms in betu,een.... Inrleed. all these ternls are penllanently in-betrveen, causht in the ir-npossibility of tlxitv and essentialisrn' (Rattansi r99_s: 53). The clangers of such a thesis are obviotts: in conflating the niultipiicities and hybriclities of evervclay ctl-rr-ricity rvith the arnbivalences of racisnr or ethnicisnl, ethnic sentinrents are, in eflbct, criminalised. whiie racist rnotivations are, by the same token,
Ail is ambivalence. or l{altansi's vier,vs nrerely echo the stress on i:nbivalence in the encounter between racist anc-l rai:ialised in the rvork
exonerated.
At first
glance, Hali's
,.,i Hortti tshabha. Like llhalrha, Rattansi'.s psychoanalytic fticus on sexu.,irrv ir-nportantly recognises the erlotiorral roots of ider-rtity. Yet he fails, -:'e Bhabl-ra, to appreciate the critical difference betweerr racisnr and : " irvdry ethnicity - that is, benveen reificadon and objectification. There .:: inrpor"tant paraliels betu,een my critique of his approach here and :. : criticisms leveiled by sonre post-colonial rvriters at tshabha\ rearling
Faiton.
\ccordins to JanMohamecl (rqBS), tshabha fails to reco{nise that

. -.:-.'n viervecl the colonial conllict as an irreducible Manichaean struggle. -.-::c.'1. reariins 'I'ht lN'ratclrcd oJ'tlrc Earth one cannot escape the proures-
:, Fanon
traces
fiom the ilroment of colonial repression
an.-l mutnal
234
enw and/or desire to the polarised liberatory violence of the nationalist rrrovement (the point stressed by Parry 1987) pitched against the utter brtrtality of colonial counter-r'iolence (Fanon 1967). For (lates, reviervirrg this arl4r'lrnent, it sinrply reflects the porousness of Firnon'.s r,"o'ork whicl-r makes it amenable to rnultiple, positioned, clitical re;rclinss (Ciates rggr:458). Frorn rny perspective, rvhat Fanon ir-nportantly recognised is that all relations between racists ancl r,ictims, colonisers arid colonised, are imbricated in violence. This is ultirnately whar clitTerentiates racisrn. ethnicism or xenophobia fronr banal, everyd:ry ethr-ricity, hor,vever corrlpetitive, interested arrd ethnocentric identity politics may be. ln a racist relationship desire :lnrl attraction are schisrnogenetically transformed into an impulse to violarte, to rape and to molest. The key is to be ftnnd in the process itself, u,hich is enunciatory, performative ancl dynarnic, not stntic and logocentr-ic. The interpretative diflbrences between Fanon-sazers are thlls also differences in the interpretatior"r of racism itselt; 2r questiolr of rvhat happeus wheu rvords become acts. l\'ly proposal is that violent :rcts erase the arnbivalenc:es of racism to reveal a'fularichean r,vorld' (Fanorr 1967:3r). In this sense the 'third space' of pre-revolutionarl', blurrecl ancl compromised identities r,vhich Fanon describes - a site r,vhere racist and racialised nirror ancl are drarvn tor,r,ards each other, inversely and perversely - rs ,fi'om the start a space of clistortecl specr-rlarities: a patltttlogical spnce. One should be carefirl not to conflate spatial rnet:rphors of heterotopia, cultr.rral ambivalence, rnultiplicity or h;-bricliry rvhich rnay tlenote (lLlite different relations.3 In Bhabha's or,vn r,vork, an optinristic evocation of an 'intervening space' in urhich a 'ne$r transnational ancl translational sense of the hvbridiry of imagined comrnunities' rvi11 replace the polarising violence associated u,ith it'leas of a 'pure, "ethnically cleansed" national identity' (rgg4: -s) is arnbiguously located uis-i-t,is his analysis of the 'splittins' of the colonial space of consciousness in a 'Manichean delirir"rnr'; 'a p;rranoid fantasy of boundiess Lrossession' (ibid.: 43-j) in r,vhich the arrrbivaient figure of the deracinated tlolui, doubll', tteuroti.dlly, as I read it, different accordirlg to Fanon, occupies a lirnirral space betu'ixc-andbetr,veen t-:olonised and coloniser.
ln rny reaeling of Bhabha, the ptr-i/-colonial
space
of the rnigrant
he
evokes is nrarked ambiguousl.v Lroth by patholosical anrbivalence and violence and by multiprliciry: of split sutrjects and identities which deny the possibilitv of 'claitning an fauthentic- :rncJ u.holel orisin for the self', since the diasporic sense of self is necessarily disrupted by a consciousness of ditlbrence (r994: 47): one 'is continually positioned in space betw-een a rarU4e of contraclictory places that coexist' (itrid.). The niistake llhabha nrakes is to conflate the third space of rnLrlticultural multiplicity rn'ith the
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Fanonian. pre-revoltttionarl'. perverted and tbar-driven space of colonial specularities (ibid.: -so-5t). Thrs contlation obscures the spccificity of the reilcmptive prcrject unclcrlaken by Third World and Illack r,vriters: ro r,vrite
the counter-narratives of the nraruirls. not nrerely
in
order
to
uiisettle
'atry sitnplistic polarities and triirarisrns' (ilrid.: "53) - th.l task of remaking the n:rtio' i' its r--onrplcx cultr-rral a'd ideological heterogeneity - br-rr, above all. in order to t:xposc rhc violence ancl sufTering generaced b1, the cncor-illter. This is Paul Gilroy's central poinr (rqq:): thar black aesthetics and poienrics rvere produced by the engagenlent lvith the darker, destructive sicle of modenrityr, Unlike Gilro-v. however, both llhabha and l{attansi fail in the frnal analvsis to distingtrish clearly betrveen the interruptive juxtapositions rvhich objectifv h),bridised ethnic and cultural difTercnces ancl rhe violating anrbivalences oi racisnr.
THE EMERGENCE OF A COMMUNITY OF SUFFERING
-,:c in other indr-rstrialisecl societies. Every vear there are thollsancls ot -eses of domestic violence, violenr robbery and homicicle. Racisnt. xetlo:rot'tia or extt'eltte nationalisrn ciifTer:, however. from these other acts of'.':oletrce in beins <lirectecl against individr-rals bv virtue of their (ethni- .lir. biolouically or cuirurally 1.111L"O) group menrLlerships. The violence ' lirccted syrnbolically against the rvhole group by violatine indiviclual -,-:iilt.'ers of-it. Fronr this perspective. etlrnic violcnr:e ('ethnicism') - even - :rrvcen gr'ollps pr:tatively of the sanre 'race', as in Sri Lanka, lJosnia or t-::rl-'rrbu,e - is a f?rlnr clt racisrn, since r,vhat is critical is tlre r,vay in --::h qroups are essentialised violently in onler to sr-rborclinate or exclude
Ily contrast to everyday ethnicitli ethnicist or racial violations creatc comtnttttities of sufferinu. Counterposecl against the self*declared ethnic 'ptiriry' oi the racists. a conll11unit.v of suffelinu is ofren a hybrid assorrlllenl of Others. The 'Musliils' racialisecl in the afterntath of the Iranian revolution or of the llushciie atlhir, form a contposite unity ot- nationalities attcl ethnicities. TLr r-rnderstand hor,r, such a cor"nmlurity of suffering clllerges, we tleed to cctttsirler: the ontological strllctl'lte of racisn"r as i-iolence, rrnd lo exanrine the specificities of its violations. lly cloing so, \"'c call begin ttl rlisclose hor,v these generate the creative cultur-al narratir.es of conrrnunities of sufferinq. Violerlce and violation are, of ('olll'sc. ;rervasive in lJritain. as they
'-::rr pel-lllanentll'. Ir ntakes little diflerence, in this respect. lvhetlrer
--
'--:s are nrarkecl out by colour, language, religion, territorl,. or clailred
suclr
-:tr)lt origin.a
236
FIGURE
l3.l
Racist rriolations and anti-racist novernents

Erner{ettt
tlt0r
t('r1r
Thrpef
: the iluliridual.
tnfs
Body
'Face'
Economic rights Political rights

Thrpet: tteslhetic and ntt,ral atrnmunitl,
Joint supra *ethnic,/ra cial civil rights movernents and the crealion of a 'new'
con)rnon identity
Entatgen
til(t tvfl t en I s
Conrnrunal Conrmunal Conrrnunal Conrmunal
icons 'face'
Separate cultural
nlovenr ents: nrul licr-rltura]
property
alliances: cuhural/racial
separ;rtisnr
cultural rights
I{acial or xenophobic attacks are rneant to Lre exemplary. T'he messagt-r of the attackers is clear: these irnmigrants, black people, Muslinrs, rlon't belong here. They rnLlst llo or be eliminated. ln this sense violence is a 'theatrical' locutir-rnary act. arj :rct of public cornrnunication. Hence, although racial violence seenls to be haphazard and uncontrolled, in rc.rlity
it
is systenlatic.
As in tribal fbutls, contintring violence e-onles in tirne to be perceived as an essential fearure of intergroup relations. Where agqression goes unpunished, it conres to be legitinrised icleologically In order to highlight the svstematic nature of racial, xenophobic or quasi-nationalist violadons, I turn now to a cclnsicleration of the dirnensions of personhood and soci:rlity that racism as viol:rtion invariabll' trlrgets. Against the trend, I anr arguing for the rreecl to go beyond rhe recognition that there are rnany historically contingent racist tliscourses (I'. Cohen 1988), and to seek the ontological structnre oi racism in the violations r,r'hich repeat thernselves dc?)-is these and make the experience of racisnr ontologically comparable in the perception oi its r,ictirns.t My focrrs is partictrlarly on the rnaterinlity af racism, its ernbodirnent, r,r,hich is revealed graphically in the ob.iects that racism targets: I.
the lrtrnran body (through torture, death, rape. physical rnutilation,

slavery); inclividr-ral and group prlperty (through dispossessiotr of 1and, persotral property, corporalc posscssions, national estates);
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237
sacred ilmfiunml syrnbols (through physical destruction
or desecratioll
4.
places of u'orship, of religious and cultural icons, of aesthetic rvorks. or b_v suppressinu language)t group politiral autonon4r (bv jailing, exiling or executing leaders and rlismantling regirnes, ancl try :rttacks on vulnerable nrernbers of the group, such as wonlell anci childrcn).6
of
Efrectivel)', then. ethnic violence targets the bodl', the body politic, the material bases of physical and sociclpolitical repr:oduction, and the enrblematic represent:rtions oi sul-ljectivitl'. personhclod ancl sociery. 'Westerlr Evervclav banal racisnr, the kincl nrost often encour-Itered in denrocracies, replicates this series in parallel acts of sonretinles invisible
agaression: Ia.
a.)
asainst the person or subject (through verbal insults anc-l abuse, and deliberate sociai exch-rsiorr); asainst equal opportunities ancl citizenship rights (in housing. emprloy-
3a.
rlrent, etlucation, etc.); against sanctified cultural icorts (via siurs anrl attacks
on a
group's
4a.
culture by the rneclia, or pul-'lic political denrands that the lirorlp assimilate ctr'inte{rafe'); tlrrough a silencing ai gror4t uoices rn the public sphere; this u,as a pertinent feature. of course, of the Rushdie affair.
As a qr-rotidian enactnrerlt, racists try to force thc redefinition of social situations as confiontarions betrvcen culturally or biologicalll' nrarked collcctive acfors.l-l-ris contrasts rvith the normal political process of collective boundarv construcrion r,vhich is fundarnentalll' reculsive and situational, reliant on the sited play of different subjective identities. Racism is thus a vortcx which srvallou's up all other iclenticies. In so doing it violates 'nornul' expectations of sociality Lry generalising all situations that inch-rde cultr-rral Others as Manichaean. Bec;ruse racism and xenophobia are ontologically stn:ctured in violent frolarisin{l acts, this nrakes the cxperimte of racism ontoloqically comparablc irr the pcrception of victinx duo-cs culturdl rcynruutitics antl beyond che hisrorical specificities of particular racisms. The early politics of the llritish Black anti*racist nrovement exernpiitl, this hybrid transccndence of nrigrant itlentitics. As Sivanandan recaiis:
We learnt ... to weave from the ditlering bllt colnnlon traditions o{- our anticolonial struggle a colllrlron struggle against racisrn. We related to troth the struggle b;rck trorne ancl the struggle nou',the struggle of Gandhi and Nehru,of Nkrunrah and Nyerere ... a beautiful nr;rssir,'e texture. (Sivanandan r99o: 66)
238
of- history strbjugaticrn, dominatiorr, diaspora, clirplacer-nent' (llhabha ry94: r7z), a rnernorialising of 'a solidarity fbunded in vic:timisarion ancl sr-rtfering' (ibid.: r9r). In surt, lhe moral table of collective suflerirrg is an allegory that can travel, as exernplifierl by Black slaves' aestheric rer,vorkins of the
ing of the experience of those rvho 'sr:flereri the senrence
The vital sedimented memory of cornmon suffering ancl resistance is sharecl 'text' for firtr-rre cultural creativitv. Involved here is fbr more than a lnere 'invetltiorr of traclirion'; at stake is the imaginative reu,rit-
the
n'ryth of Exodus (Gilroy 1993: zo7-8). Racism. xenophobia or qttasi-narionalisrrr are the very opposite of altruisrn anrl rnoral proximity, as lJaurnan has arguecl (Bar:man rggg; r9g2: +7-53). It is the inversion of the nror;rl cornmunitv (and hence of .r1-t11git1,)i a denial of 'tace' in Levinas'.s terrns (Ilaurrrar-r rgg2); an act of violent 'silencing' in Fottcaulcliarr terms. The 'silences' arisins tl-om vioiept grorlp subordination need thus to Lre distinguisheri fr-onr the 'silences' of quoticliarr ethnicity: a recursive an,-l reiterative process through ',r,hich multiple iclentities are selectively highlightecl - now figure, norv 'siienr' cround. Tcr purstte this statement further, I turn nclw to an analvsis of the 'silences' of ethnicitv.
MORAL COMMUNITIES
Like corntrtunities of suffering, moral cornmunities disguise their conrposite rnultiplicity under a sernblance of unity'. Irideed, the challenge tbr the nroral comnruniry is to transcencl its internal cultLrral, political ancl gendered diflbrences. Hetrce, although British Pakisranis are nlost known for their violent public protests in the afternrarh of the publication of
in reality rheir ruain work of comrnunity forrnation fuas been hidden, rrirtually invisible, antl has taken place in rhe spaces rhey
have created
'I'he Satanic lbrsts,
for
thetnseh'es.
lt is in
nrobilise
Geertz
to
these public arenas that Pakistanis
celebrate
or
fr-rnd-raise, and
fbrrri oi unilateral giving, a sacrificial oflering in the sight oi Goc1, an of pubiic responsibility'. The linrits of rhe ntoral conrmuniry are flre limits of such unil:rreral giving or, alternatirrel),, of sharing. Kli,lrttttt is thtis an ertrbodied, nletonyrnic act o{ identiJtcution wlnch expresses
exprressiott
rhc:y tell thernselves stories about rherlselves. The fundatnental notiorl of public service for Pakistanis is khitlntat, service renderecl selflessly with no expect.ltion of return. Khithual rs a
irr r,vhich - to echo Cliffcrcl
personal conrmitrnerrt stenlning lrom a share,.l iclentity. During the l99os. tilr exanrple, Pakistanis, :rlong u'ith other British MLrslirris and concerned citizerrs, \ /ere enqaged in a rnajor philanthropic fund-raising elrive throughotrt Ilritain to raise nredical aid and food for the Mr-rsli1rs
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in Bosnia. The drive included vohrntarl' functions, concerts and political nlcefings, as rvell as the organisation of convoys of food. clothing and nredicine across Europe to Bosnia. Mr-rch of this ftrnd-raisinu is highly politicised and conpetitive, yet evr:n at its nrost auonistic, philanthropic uivinu of this rype constitutcs a synrbolic statenlent abouc the recognised limits of trusr. The category
encolltF)assitrq donors and recipients is, frorn this perspective, inragined as a nroral courmunirl'. Through his/her donations. an individual expresses mernbership in a circle composeci of nrutually trusting others. But urost inrportantly for the argument put fbrth here, rather than khidnmt signitving identification r,virh a single, essentialised conrmunity-, giving enablcs subjects to reach out to a varietv of overlapping and progressively r,viclening imauinerJ nroral conununities * fronr a circle of knor,vtr intimatt:s to rhe r,vhole ethnic or religious conlnnlnin'. includinq nlany unkno."vn persons, and finall1', to a scaltered diaspora or the national hornelatrd (sce P Werbner r99o). Hence the other is transinuted, through giving, into an extension of thc self. Unilateral giving qrounds hvbrid identities in dialogical relations, b,v connecting the self to significant others. Li clainring public recounition, nroral conruruniries asserl a beneficent equality rarher th:rn superior uroral \\'orth, positioning themselves rvirhirl a system of nanred moral comurunities. Giving (like racial violcnce) is perfornrative - a syntbolic, incleed theatrical, gesture. Ilut r-rnlike violence. it is a gestLlre of reaching ttut, of responsil'rility and irlentification. signalling nroral contmitnteut or 'proximity'in the sense suggested b1' Levinas. Identities, in othcr rn'ords, are livecl nol otrly discr-rrsivell but through gestures of iderntification or
r-e,jection.
Anthr:opologists
in
logic trature of conrnrunitli A nroral conrmurrity is not a unitli It is tr-rll ot-conflict, of internal debate about right arrcl \\rrong (on this feature of\4r-rslinr societv. see, firr: exnnrplc, Fischer ancl Abecli r99o; Ilorven r98g; P Werbner r996b, r9g6c; ancl nrore generally on internal moral argllnrents .riidentity, Paine rg89; l)ominguez tg89; R.Werbner r99r). Sr,rch debates inrply fierce conrpetition firr leaclership. They also involve conlpetition fbr rhe right to nanre: Who are r,ve? -Wl-rat do r,ve stand fbr? What are we :o be calleci? Are rve fuluslirns? l)emocrats? Pakistanis? Socialists? lll:rcks? l-rians? The por.ver to nanre, to inscribe. to describe, to t:ssentittlise, impiies .i power to invoke a rvorld of n-ioral relationships, a power unclerlined :n the ntyth of Genesis. Naming constitutes a forcefirl act of lea<lership ::r its ou'n right.
re.:ettt 1'eals har.e incr-easingly recognisecl the dia-
,:e inragitratively critical
Solidarities are not givens but achievenrelrts. usually ephemeral.Yet they nronrents: anti-essentialist arglrnrents attacking
74A
the false construction of 'culture'. or 'corrrlunity', fail to recognise the

importance tbr participants in rnoral debates of an im:rginative belief in tlre reality of such achievecl solidarities (see Friedman rgg2; Friedman and Baumann, Chapters i;rnd rz above). Strategic esserrtialising has to be grasped as a reality beyond a constructivist historiography of subalterri consciousness (Spivak i987: zo_s): in fact, the subaltern r/ocs speak, even if her or his voicre does trot aiways reach 'us' - cloes not necessarily -teck to reach us. The perfcrrmance of iclentity eintside ancl bevoncl the ofTicial public sphere, in altelrrative pr-rblic sp;lces (Gilroy r993: zoo), precedes and anticipates any public action in the larger narional arena. In Britain, diasporic public arenrs are spaces in rvhic-h local-level Lronlrnrlnity leaclers erlglrge in ntoral argnrnents ancl dialoslres afitor]g theurselves, in tront of local audiences. in such rxeetings, leader-s prolnote not ortlv 'ethnic' but a variety of civic values - democratic. natior-ralist, religior-rs. Their speeches stress that people are locked in moral interclependerrcy; that - as one local-level Pakistani leader prlr it - 'A person callnot exist cttttside the cornrnunity. as a wave canltot eist outside the oce:ln.' The rl-retoric of such organic leaders evokes vivid irnages ancl tropes, appealing (in the case of Pakistani settlers) to Punjabi ancl Islarnic cultural idioms ant-l rnoral icleas in order to score points ancl move their aucliences. In their perfbrmative rhetoric local leaclers evoke not only
rnoral communities but aesthetic ct.rnrntunities as rveli.
THE AESTHETIC COMMUNITY

lf the mor;rl cornnrunity is constituted through acts of eiving, the aesthetic cotntnunity is c{efined Lry cultural krrorvledge, p:rssion and creativit,v. This is particularly inrportant in the case of South Asians in lJritain, tbr whonr langr"rage and poptrlar culture crlt across diflerent Sourh Asian national and religiotrs atllliations to create a broader, hybridised unitv (on this. see Hutnyk and lJaunrann, Chapters 7 ancl rz above). Aesthetic corrlrnutrities have their r-ultural experts: their orators, poets, priests, musicians, saints and intellectuals. Their menrbc:rs share cornrnon idiorns of humour, love, tragedy, popular culture, festivals, cricket and rlyrhs of the pasr: of natiollal or religious exenrplary heroes, of sreat Lrattles and victories, of oppression and freetlom. They share aesthetic ideas of spatid separations betu,een the profane and the sacrecl, sensuality and spiritualiry, 'tun' and sobrietv. Tb perpetuate and repro,.luce these, Asians, Pakistanis and Muslirns in Britain incorporate themseh'es in a mvriacl of associ;rtions: Iiterarv societies, religious orgarrisations, orders and sects, sports clubs, wornen's
cultr-rral irssociations, anc-l so forth.
In their
artistic celebrations and rituals Pakistanis pertbrnr irnplicit
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of identification u'ith
severirl tlifferent aesthetic comnrunities. As
inunigrants they evoke nostalsically their Pakistani honrelanrJ and the villaqes of the Punjab. Sindh or the Frontier; they cite the poetry of their national porrt. Muhammad lc1bal, u,hich is laced rvith heroic irnagcs oi rivers, eagles, and metaphors of a Muslinr nation. The moral lessons thcy -Westcrn-denrocratic. dralv are Islamic, but also Thc aesthe tic cornilr-urity is intertr,vined r,vith thc rnoral comnunitv. Ideas alrout prurity and polh-rtion. good and evil, sin and rcdemptiorl, arriculate the trvo. In their symlrolic and rhe torical perfornlances Pakistanis .firse their complex identities as Purtjabis, Pakisrani nationals, socialists, clernocrats, I3ritish citizens, Asians ancl Muslims. This tirsing of rliscrece identities appeals to the deepest sentiments of their audiences, to their nostalgic yearning fbr anorher place rvith its srnells and physical sensatiorls, [o their religior-rs taith and to their sense of national loyaltv. Paradoxically-, such tusings of ditlerent idcntities untlermine singular, essentialist self-representations while at the same tirne they inftrse thcnr lvirh ernorive por,ver (see P.'W.erbner tgg6c). In practice, then, the nroral and aesthctic irnaginings of cthnic diasporic comuutnities shilt continuouslv betrveen poles of olrjectificarion and reif-ication. This is reflected in the politics of ethnicity and multicr-rlturalisnr in thc priblic sphere. In llritain, ethnic parricipation in the r,vider public spherc concerns trvo kev orietrtations: a cJernand for ethnic rights, includintt religious riqhrs. ancl a cJemancl for protection agains[ racism. I)iffercnt itlenritics rincl identifications unJ)(rLt,ct'these tlvo orierrtations. pointir-rg to the critical .ilflbrence in lJritain betu,een the poiitics of- ethnicity and the politics
oi race. Vcry gener:allv the politics of ethnicity in the public sphere are tbcusecl cln culturai rights, public consurnption in the voluntary sector and the aliocation of- state resources ancl jobs (see P.-Werbner r99ra). Within this context. ethnic iclentities are evokecl situationallv. depenrling trn the source an<l purpose of fr-rnding, the specifrc activities of-voluntal,v c'rrqanisatic'rns anci the constellation of gr:oups seeking reFresentation. grants ()r posts. In their: negcltiation r,vith the local state, etl-ulic identities are hiqhlighted praunratii;allv and otrjectifred relationally ancl contingentl)'. llv contrast to ethnic politics, the politic;s of race rrreate fixed. op1'rosed iroLlps confiorrtirtg each other across :r moral chasm, a 'clonrinant cleavage'
Gli,tcktttan r9.4o, r9_56; ll.ex rg86).7 l)espite the contrrtotr vieu' that con:::uclions of conlnrunity by the state ancl local state reify cultural catego:i:s. the realitv is nrore complex. Fictions of uniry in the pulrlic sphere rrc gener:lteci rvithin a bureaucratic nroral econonry basecl oll attempts to :.: ihe speciiicities of each case into a franrervcirk governecl bv notions
: 'c.y-riry' ancl reclistributive 'flirness'. T'he very multi-reibrentjality of- the .:rir-r'conrr-nunity'and its application enables the state and local state tc')
242
respond flexiblv to cornpetir-rg ethnic demantls ftir public resources and positive action. This ambiguiry alkrr,vs for contextual redefirritions rarher than fixed reifications. T'he moral econolxy of state allocations on a right budget is thus quite rational: ir attempts to allorv for the special needs of ethnic nrinorities '"vhile selecting the lLugest possible constituency. rlefined (variably) by race. laugr-raee. religion, national oriein or r-reishbonrhood. capable of rnanagine the allocation arnicably, r,l'ithont too much internal conflict. The wehare state thus corrstantly attempts to match scarcre resources r,vith claimed and perceived neer-ls ancl coliective group 'labels'. As a result, public fictions of communal unitv vary situationally. and are coltstantlv evolvins through neuotiation arrd tlialosLre betr,veen administrators ancJ ethnic represer)tatives (see ll-Werbner r99ra). This tbrniliar featttre of ethnic politics cliffers radically fi'orn the esserltialising processes of public reificatiorr rvhich nrark fixecl cultural exclusions ernd sr,rbordina-
tion, often violerrtl;' enacted. The ntorally pararnount clivision senerated hy the violations of racisrn rnight be expectecl to encclrrlpass :rnd subsume all other cr-rltural and religious divisions in a sinp5le comlr. ur.rity of sr,rtTeling.Yet in conternporary
I3rit:rin, the seeking of cornlnon aesthetic arrd noral narratives by the victims of racisrn has turned ollt to be highly problenratic. Whereas racists essentialise and reify their vic:tirns diflerentially, these victirns of racism strussle to find a sharecl, unitary identity they can ail agree upon.
ESSFNTIALISING SILENCE
Anti-racist cliscourses do not sirnpl.v rnirror difli:rentialist racist cliscourses, with its 'ot\tlt' anti-racism. IJecause racial violence is an ernbodied, material att:rck suflered .lCroSS racialised grolrps, it creates the potential ground for a mobilisation of broad, inter-ethnic alliances. Such alliances include also members of rhe nrajority group lvho are concerned with the broader .lefence of the nation-state's cir.ic culture or citizenship
each racism
iclentity (see also l{ex r99z: 5D. Cliven their conunolr experienct-s of rar-isnr ;rnd the sliared sentiments these generate, anti-racists as a cornrnunitv of suflering can, potentiallv el'olve their own cottnter-discourses and selt-identifications in the political arena. B-v doing so, they calr transcend their particular ethnicities, class origin or gendered identities to fbrge new rnoral and aesrhetic comnrunities imaginatively. But, paradoxicall,v, rac:isrn, r,vhether randorn or lrerpetrateci by rhe state and police, violates selectiueht: Ilangladeshis in London suffer rnore street violence, blacks are subjected to nlore police harassnrent, inrmigration
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243
colltrols affect Asians nrore; black women are doubly ntarginalised; the ctiltural icons of particular groups are desecratecl ditlerentialil,. This differentialisrtr clrives a rvedge between ethnic groups. It r,vas highlightecl by the Rushdie atTair, rvhich separated Mr-rslirns as a conlrlrtrnitl,' crf suffbr-ing fiom the secuiar 'black' conrmunity. The paraclox that rac-istn nor only unites victirns br-rt also divides
thetl culturally has bcen highlighted bv a political and
acaderrric detrate
betrveetr atrti-raciscs regarding the validiry of thcir sharecl identification as 'black', I3lack beinq originallv used as rhe banner of a social movenlerlt oi dor-rblv oppressed rvorkers u,ithin the broadcr socialist radical canrp (on this dc-bate, see Sivanrnclan rggo: 7j-r4; Anthias and ynal-Davis 1992: 7, t3z-56 Ilrah r99z). In its hevday, as we have seen, the black solidariry moverllerlt denied
thc significance of erhnri: cuhures, focusing singularly on the colonial .lnd class strugele. A-long u'ith this focus came a sustained critique of anrhropolouical srudies of ethnicitli rvhich were attacked for being divisive, :rPoiitical and essentialising. Ethnicitv it rvas argued. collurded w-ith the :apiralist ancl bourgeois donrination of a diviclecJ black rvorking class. 'Culture' in this neo-Marxist critique was not ethnic but rvorking-class ,rr,-i popular (see l{cbdige rgzil.Anthropologyi in stressing the uniclueness .ri ethnic cultures, t"aiied to recosrlise the class and racial clirnensions of ::runigrant existence in Ilritain (CCCS r98z). The Manichaean rvorlcl inraginerl bv the nlovellent essentialisecl all hites as r:rcists. At the san-re tinre the subtle racisrn clf <lifferential''. ..; .lisctturses projected a distorted ethnicisnr. Insteacl oi clemonising :l:itain'.s ethnic nrincirities as non-human. the Ner,l, Right stressecl the .,.r:lues of English natiortal cultulal solidarity and the clangers inherent ..: nrulticulturalisnr" Rather than blatant colour racisnr. nrenrlrers of this -:lr- sotrial nrovenrent stereotl'ped the cultures of llritainls rrarious eth...:,- r.r.rinorities as inferior or pliniitive. They appealed to the virtues of :.:Eiishness and [he nroral su1-reriority of English culture,'uvith its trieci -:.1 teste.l clenrocratic, liberal ancl enlishtenecl values. They attacked the --j'lrate urtr,villingness of- imrnigrants to assiurilate and embrace this ----:i;re ri'holly (fbr: a cliscnssion, see Miles r989; see also Gilroy r99o fbr
:--.r)-M erxist repronse).
In the light of these develo;rmelrts. alrti-racism as a nro,.le of correcting t.,.c frctions of otherness tvas increasir-rgly acknor.r'leclged
as a devastating
t,-...rc. r-rot only by conservative critics but by raclical activists thernselves .==. fbr exanrple, lL Colren r988; Gilroy rg87; Mur-plry r987; Moclood -!:r One clrallenge to the radical position took the fbn-n of a rejection : " \'ian intellectuals clf- a unitary 'black' label. Iri .r series of ar:ticles culnrinating in his contributicln to this volume
244
DEBATI
NG CULTURAL
HY-B_&LDITY
(Chapter 9 above), Tariq Moclood arsued that a 'black' identiry is being 'coercivelv'imposerl on Asi;lns against their: rvill; as ruch it disernpor.vers - arrd, indeecl, harms - thenr. There is a difference, Modoocl argues, between a 'mode of oppression' - a neqation - and a 'rnode of beinc' - a pt.rsitive, elt-tpou'erins cultural and psychological fbrce u,hich enabies a groLlp to'resist its oppression'. Indeed, he clairns, not all racist violations are the salne. The most virulent r,vhite English hostility is reservecl fbr comntttuities which reproduce their cultural clistinctiveness. The manufacture of a black iclentit;' out oi black American, African and Afio-Caribbean history, Mocloocl continues, serves to marginalise 'Asians' in relatiorr to Afio-Caribbeans uot onlv culturally, but economicallv ancl politically In the fice of such arqurnents, ancl the evielent vitalitv of Asian culfilral
creativily
in lJritain,
Stuart Hall,
in sirnilar vein,
revises an earlier posi-
tion lvhich attacked'ethrricity srudies'(CICCS r98z). He reflecrs rher'rve
tlie 'great collectivities' of class, race and nation: trtore homogeneously" rnore unifred, less contradictorily than they ever \\rere, orrce yorl actually got to knorv anytfiinn alrout therrr' (tggr : 4()).Asiarr people, he continues,
alrvays reconstructed'
'lttore
essenti;rll1r,
thev ciune using their o\\'il lesolrrces of resistance, '.hen they r.vanted to r,vrite out their own experience ancl reflect their orvn position, rvhen they w'anted to c-reate, they rraturally created within the histories of-the[ir] langtrage, the[ir] cultural tradition ... (ibid.: 56) "vhen
The problem r.r,ith this debate is that it appears to replace one reificarion ('black') by another ('Asian'). The latter, in turn, disguises morallv and
cuirurally divisive opposirions among Asians betrveen reliqious, nationalist
anrl lineuistic grollps: Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs, Indians, Pakistanis and Bangla.leshis, Punjabis, Gujeratis antl Sindhis. Asianness, like Ldackness, is locked in a rnisplacecl corlcreteness. lt is not, after :r11, prirnarily ,4sian collective sacred icons and cultures rvhich are violently targeted by racists in Britain, but the discrete natioiral :rnd religious icons of subgroupings within the trroader South Asian collectivit.v. As r,ve h:rve seen,
the most violent racistn rrt present is clirected asainst l3ritish futusiirns. 'When, however, the prrimary battle is tbr state allocations or posts, the basic reiationship which is publicly represented is not racial, but ethnft. Here the dynanrics of fission and fusion ratirer than of a single dorninant cleavage are the main operator, the 'voices' and 'silences' the product of relationally ollectified ethnic sesrrentarl' oppositions rather than of
violent, reified srrppressions. Stuart Hall's discussion of the arnbivalences of the politics of representation fails to distinguish between these trvo silences. His tliscr-rssion is
nevertheless insightful Lrecause
it discloses,
perhaps unintentionall,v, the on*
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lnd phcnomcnolosical tlinrensions of thc segmentary principle

ancl
of fissiort
argues,
fusion (that is, of situational ol'rjectifications). Oppositcs, Hall
not only repel, but are ;iiso attractccl ro onc another; they bc:rr thc trace of their rcsenrblatrce. articlll;rted in an encorlrprrssing ternt of idcntification rvhich, in turn. 'silcnces' those clifferences. The relarionship t-ietlveen conrlrlllrlal represenlalions or idcntities, seen thus, he conlinues,
is inhcrcntly dy'nanric ancl 'positional'. Irs fi-rrther complcxitv lies in tht: rvay rnultiphrertic. ovcrlaprping ideirtities are rllanased in pracrice, or sinqrilar identities irighlighteel in political conresrarions. lJuc such 'silenccs', rhe silences of cthnicirl', are - and this is a key, ;roint in the preselrt argument * cluite ditlcrent fronr the vioiently pro* .luccd silcnces of racisnt. Ethnicity tloes not eleny proxiniry ancl alterir,v; it nrerely highlights differencc. Ethnicity is an arqtrnlerlt u'ith other opirtions - a clialogicai hetcroglossia in Bakhtinian terms. The violent silcnces of suppressed rtoices dcnied a political prcsence in the public iphere are qenerated b,v a denial of otherness - a denial of 'tlce' and 'opiition' in Levinas's terrns. The tr,vo silences of ethnicitv ancl raclsnr,'efhnicisnr - arc thus r1r:ire differenr, indeed. opposed. Thcre is no 'L-'ccouinu' in lhe silence of r:icisnr, because no proxirrriry or commonal:n' is acknorvledgcd. Such a silence is the siience of ryranny., of absolute 'l'-ness or ipseity (sce Lcvinas rg87: r8*23; +7-fi).Thus Hall is right ro ,:suc for rhe need to'dt:couplc'ethnicitv fronr racism in the analysis of 'Flrglishness' (1992: 257),but he is rvrong to eqlrate the an'Lhivalences of ::hnicity u'ith tl-rose of racisll. There is aist,r a thirci, related. class of silences. u.hich I shall call .:,cthotlological silences'.These silences are cliscussed by Strathern (rqpl) .:'. hel application ot chaos theory and fr:actal gr:a;rhics to pr-ol'rlems of -'ir1 scale. lVletlrodological siiences are constitr-rteci by the gaps cr:eated . L)Lll' scientifrc cliscourses, the 'rernainder' these <liscourses genetate. As '::..rhcnr p-:Oints ollt, no representation, horvevcr conlplex ancl appar-:.:',' exhaustive, is errer conrplete; thete are always, in priuciple. fur:ther -:-. io tre ttl1ed. clcscr:ibcd or explainecl. hr this sense all knorvledge is . :,:.r1. and replete u'ith silences. As u'e' pr-oduce knorvledge,'\\re become -:-: oi creating nrore ancl nrore gaps' (Str:athern r99r: rr9). I)iscnssing -.' ;.,geple. lr'e Lreconre awAre of ignoring Asians; cliscussins Asians, rve -- :-c \{uslirls: ;rncl so forth, right dorvn to rhe individual, the seh. and
-:rr
i,-lcd self.
" ;.reh other, arrd parallel cliflerent ftrrnrs of- c:ssentiai:isnr. The voices . : -r.'.j and subetlrnic gxrups, like the voices of individuai sr-il'rjects. are ' :-ii-i:lrily silencerl bv violent suppression: they are given expression ' -- -:-:int scales of ac;tion. in particular contexts, in flont of clitterent
, -.:r-c .rre.
thcn, at least three types of 'silence', rvhich cliffer. in principlc,
246
ar-rcliences.
By colttrast, rninorities r,vhich are oppressed.
marginalised
and 'silettcecl' seek to make their voices hearrl fi'om the rvide:st public prlatfbrnrs: the national rnetlia, a carlonic:ll nation:rl hish culture, and econornic and political debating forurns. [t is in these contexts that national irtrages ancl public agenclas are ftrrnrulatecl u'hich affect the destiny of
these grollps.
Fenrinists have been key advocates asainst the rising tide of n-rulticulturalism represented by Merrlood arrd others (e.g. llailard r99z). As Yuval-l )avis reiterates in Chapter r r of this volume, fenrinists evoke the voices of ethnic tninoritr. wolrlen in Britain, silencecJ by the valorisatiorr of essentialised defirtitions of cultural comrnunities. They arllue that t<; recognise the separate rights of such comntunities is t0 pronl()te f1atriarchal values r,"',hich denv Muslim or black rvomen the eclu:riitv and 'voice' dtte to thern as British citizens (see the contributions to Sahgal ancl Yuval-l):rvis rgg2; Murphy rg87 Yuval-I)avis r993; Ali rggz; also (icrering rg%).Fixecl public cormunal labels necess;rrilf isnore the internal clifferentiations rvithin cultural cornnrunities" the mr-rlticultr-rral arrd hybrid iclentities of its members. To emlrower specific named collectivities legally or financially at rhe expense of others is to privilege a particular, situationally clefined arrd objectifiecl collectivity as .ln esselltialised, rciJied,
diseretc contirrrrity.
In arguing asainst such 'organic' political evocations of community that is, cotnrnunity as an essentialiseci ()enrcittscltaft - Anthias antl Yuval-f)avis go evelr further: they deny the very ritiliry of the ternr itself (Anthias ancl Yuvai-I)avis rggz: ch. 6, espet:ia1ly r63;Yuval*I)avis rgg3: 3; see also Eatle r99t).This rejection nrust also Lre seen in the light of the hitherto alrtrost fixed irssociation 'cornnruniry' h:rs acr-ltrired in the sociological irnagination urith Tbnnies' ideal typification as a traditional, tace-to-tace collectivity of consociates, bound in arnity (see Hetherington l99J).The liberating impact of Benedict Anrlerson'.s notion of irnagining' has been to release this restrictecJ notion of 'cornrnunitv' from the prisonhouse of sociological laneuage. Anderson traces the transfbrnlltion of 'comrnrinity' as a sociospatial collectiviq' of conternporaries (ruof consociates) who perceive themselves as sharing similar, svnchronised
everyday lives. The release
of the terrn fronr its comrllon-setlse
socio-
logical straitjacket reveals its refractive and situational fbatures. Like rierg (meaning 'horne') alnong the Nuer,'cL)rnnlrlnity' evokes sitecJ rnearilnrtc
arrd valtres conrexfitdly.
A
ever,
recognition of the sited nature of 'conrmunity' serves only hor,vto untlerlint-: the funclanrental aporias of the politics of representa-
tion: a ptrlrlic iclentity has ontological connotatiol)s
of self and strbjectivity through its ethical and
- it is consfitutive
aesthetic er,oc:ltions.
lt
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rs emporvered, empolrrerinq and passionately defended. Multiculturaiisrn crlrpowers morally and aesthctically inragined corrununities, not oppressed class fractions. Yet the irumediate thnist of multiculturalisnr is tolrarcjs a fiagmentation of solielarities. so that the politics of representation l'tecorne thc politics oi prroportional reprcscrltation, percerltage politics. The clasli of intercsts benveen clisacivantagccl groups exposes the moral hollowness of ethnic clairns (Werlrner ancl An.,r'elr r99r;Anthias and Yr:val-I)a'u'is rggz).
Sr:ch cultural fi'agmentatior] is inipotcr]t to contenrl lvirh po'uverful organised racist violence. Effective ;rnri-racist struqgles depend on the c'r.olutiorr of cornnron. unitary narrativcs ancl rhe strypressiln of cultural .lifferences between victinx of racisnr. The search thus continues tor a t',orverfr-rl 14,b,'1t1ir'rtf. essentialising alleuory rvhich can mobilise a wide ionstituencv of arlti-racists positively-, as label after label. rurrative alter
narrative, is rcjecred.
CONCLUSION
\h,ainr in rhis chapter has been to recover the pertornlative and proces,',ul diuretrsions of racisnr and c:thnicirlr; to nlovc arvay lronr a loqocenlric rlrphasis on racisnr as discourse to an understanding of the emboclied :::.rreriality of racisn'r (or cthnicisnr) as experience, and its polarising torce. --.t like racism, ethnicity, too, is niaterially ernbotlied ancl groundeci in ':rtinrent. IJr-rt r,vhereas racism negates and violates (horvever ambirra::rrlr'), etlrnic idcntities ale pedbrnred through uestures of iclentiflcatior.r, t rcaching out. J'hese trvo nrocles of re]ateclness nrarking alterity need rs to be rheorised in ternrs of the systernatically contrastirrg u-irys ir-r r:ch they ilstrloy essentialist and non-essentialist refrrescntatic'tns and '..:-t'epresentations in the public clonrain. Even u,hen racisnr hiuhlights its ,. ,'rn';rlent:es by nrasquelaclinc as ethnicit,v (as clo 'Nerv l\ight' clitli:ren. , :.t .iiscr)urses), its intentions rerlain self-eviclently aqgt'essive, transqles.': ir-rri :rbsolutist: racisnr drarvs a linel it essentialises alterity. 1Jr, contrast to racial politics, the politit;s of ethnicity depend orr scale : riruation. The hiehlighting of a particular ethnic, as ;rgairist racial,
' : -.
,:irive identity in the pr-rblic clonrlin generates a fieid of relevant :':.'ritional identities at a particular: social scale. This is because collec'.rtic'rr-rs
:Jentities are defined rvithin moral and sernantic social rvorlds of anil r"esenrblances. Tlrer:e is no cclllective iclentity in anci tor - - j. is rr positivirv r.virhout an irrrplied negation. Ilureaucratic fictions ,,:-.::r essentialise. br,rt they do so by objectifying conrnrunities situ. ..ir- and prusnraticall,v. in relation to noticns of redistributive justice. ,'i'-icctiflcation is quite different frorn tl-rc violent essentialising of-
248
strategic essentialising oi seh-replesentation. Selt-essentialising as a rnode of reflexive irnaginirrs is constittrtive of self and subjectivitv. It is cultr-rrally ernpor,verins. But it is r-rot, unlike racist reifications, fixed and imrnutable. We are cortlronteci r,vitir a duality: r.vhile ethnic identities :rre ah,r'ays positioned, ancl situationallv grounrled, racialised identities are fixed by a single dorninant opposition, highlightecl and elaborateel above all others in response to physical and rnoral r.iolations (see, lbr exaurple, l{.'Werbner rggr;Kapferer r988).This is llecause the polirics of represent:rtion or identity are rrost critically dii'isive ancl overarc:hing l',,hen thev recall past violations and evolve into a poiitics of moral accountabilit,v. In sr-rch a politics, history is invokecl as a cli;rrter of- injustice still en,aitirru restitutiorl (on such a politics. see R. Werbner r99-s). For Mr,rslims in l3ritairr, the Rushdie affair is experienced as a lbstering open r,vound. an unpaid debt that dernanrls reclress ancl rnoves thern to clrrim a sepal'ate anti-racist identity in the public sphere. But u'here rarrisrn is recognisecl as violating a whole spectrum of rninority grorlps, the shared ernbodied nateriality of their suflbring creates potential grourrd firr cornrnon oppositional fables ancl a genuiue cultr-rral fusion ir-r broatler :rlliances, as they corne to realise the reaiity of a rnajor raclical, urrbrirlce:rble rnoral hreach. Bv contrast, ethnic cornpetitioll gerlerates fission ancl fusion, ;rncl situational oppositions. IVIy argument, I believe, goes beyond the recognition of 'utrity irr diversitl.' or even of a 'univers;rl cliversitl,' - the assumption that political strtregle does not harre to be trnifclrm or united, but nrust recognise continued ditlbrences oi interest and positioning: 'othenvise any notiolt of solidarity would tre inherently racist, sexist arrcl ciassist' (Anthias and YLrval-Davis rggz: tg7; see also Yuval-l)avis, Chapter rr above). In askinq rvhat impels people tor,v;rrds solidarity ;rgainst the disniptive porver of tlifference, I suggest that it is because racisnr ancl xenopholria are (:rr least for some, if not all, nrenrbers of racialised minorities) nraterialiv enthoilied, and experienced as personal or collective r.iolation - and hence suftbring - that persons quite ditlirentl,v positioncd are able to inrerpret and fabulate this experience ideologicail,v, aesrhetically and nrorally as essentially unitar;,, rTci"ss gender. class :ind ethnic diflbrences; to create, in racism,
or the n'robilising,
other rvords, a 'ltew' identit,v. The result is that in modern, ethldcallv diverse n:rtion-states there are continuous centrifugai and centripretal pressllres: on the one hand, to assert and elaborate particular iilentities; on the other, to creare trroader, nlore universalistic: alliances. Hetlce, not all collective cultural represelltations arrd self-represerltations in the public sphere are essentialising in the salne \,vay.'lo lurnp all forrns of otrjectific:rtion together as essentialist is, fi-om this perspective,
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to essentialise essentialisnr. It is ro conflate tlvo r-rpp-rosed rclational - of objectification and reificarion.
fields
l-his is precist:lt. horvcver. rvhat nrany discrrssions of racisnr and ethnic*
ity irt Britain tend to do. This tentlency is exacerbated by the somerinrcs cxclr"rsive focus olr the icleological clinrensions of ethnicity and racism.s Yel contrarv to rhe vicrv of sonre scholars, otherness or akerity exists u'ithin a conplcx fie1d oi relalions. There is no fixed divide be trveen self rrnd other. Insread, alterities forrn a continuous series on a rising scale: tiorn the divicled or ftagnrented seli to nrajor collective cleav:rqes bctrveen erlrrrit' groups or rr.rtions. Ag:rinsl the ideological anc-l logoccnrric stress in scholarly discussions of rlcistn, I have algucd here that collcctive constnrctions of racisrn and cthnicity are forns of pcilarisinll or recursirre svrnbolic acrion, part of a host of olher acts, playecl out in public arenAs, all of r,vhic-h aim ro ctk:ct change, transform, attack, or elicit supporr. The verbal rhetoric of racisttt or ethnicitv is perfornrative ;lnd strateqic ralher than descriptive and rcpreselttational, a political wcapon in a public str:usqle for state resources, --itrzenship rights or a turivcrsal niorality.
NOTES
- lrs chapter clrarvs on rnork in progress and earlier r.vork b_v the author Listecl belor,r,, ,:^J is part of a fonhconring Lrook provisionallv enritlecl Ditspora antl llillenniurn: .' ;trt. Ltenilty atti tht' Aesthttirs of-tlrc: Rtli.qi()us lilm5.itt(rtion. An earlier version r,r,as ::erented rrs u Ke,vnote Adclress to the Sr.r,iss Ethnological and Socioloeical Associa* ., .ls'-joint Amual Conference on 'The Oriie r in Sociew: Migration and Ethniciry', -- Berne LJniversirv in C)ctober r993, and h;rs been published in the proceedings --:l-r.rt cotrfbrence (Wicker et al. ryg6).It rvas also presented to Keele uliversiry's - :l.irtllleilt of Sociology and Social Anthropologv, ancl at an ICICCR serninar at '"1-::'hester Llnir.ersitli I rvould like to thank the participirnrs in the senrin:rr fiir --.:r helpir-rl and incisrve conlrlrents. Special thanks are due to Robbv Sayyid and -..:.', Lee tor their insiehtfll suggesrions in revising this dra{t.
.,:
- : :-.rtrtic plocess of mutual oppositicln torvards greater difierentiation of vaiue;rnd , :"'gressive exaggeration of diflbrence and antagonisn, unless they are checked
--,rulltcr-tendetrcies. See Nuckoils (r995)
:. Gr-egory Bateson has argued that there are two forrns of schisrnogenesis, j on cotlplementarv airci svnrmetric:al oppositions, both of rvhich lead throueh
for an intc-resting recent
discussion
: r.f.-SOtr.S
U'Ork.
: Battntan (tSqe) ltrritrlrtes the notion of an aesthetic cornnruniry to l{ant, ',.,: L','otarci (1988). The notiotr of an aestheric conurmnitv is nrore clistinc:. Srotintiecl, horvever, iu postnroclernist theory than ir"r a Kanti:rn universJist : . .:iiu: (see Cieertz r9g3: ch. J, fcrr a su1'rs1b account ol lvh;rt makes for ;ur
.
-'-..r
eorrrrrrrrrrity).
250
3. Kevirr Hetherington has developecl the Foucauldian notion of''heterotopia' (Hetherington r996). 4.
Flence Anthias andYuval-Da-u'is (r99e: r:,) argue perceptivcl,v thar racisnr is
a
cliscourse and practice of inferic'rrising ethnic groups.... Ethnocentrism occurs rvhen orte'"s or,r,n cttlture is taken for granted as natnr-al, and is characteristic of all ethnicities to a greater or lesser extent. Xer-rophc-rbia, or the dislike of the stranger or outsider, oll the other hand, beconres racism rvhen there are
power relations involv-ed.
5. Stuart Hall
Sa-y"S,
has stressed the historical specificities
ol
racisnr.
No doubt,
he
thete ate general fe:rtures of ra.cism. But even rnore significallt are the r,vay in rvhich these general features are moclified and transformerl by the historical specificities of the contexts and enviror)nlents in rvhich they becorile active. (Hail i986: zr)
He goes on to cleny the

nrisleading vier.v that becattse lacisnr is everl-rvhere a deeply anti-liuman and anti-social practice, that therefore it is tht' srtnrc - either in its fbrms, its relations [o other stmctures or processes, or its efects. (ibid.)
The vierv presented here is that u'hile this is undoLrbtedly the case, the ontological featur-es oi racisnr as violence need to he analysed in their generaiiq', across
these diffbrences. 6. Racist ideologies, nlvths and fantasies focus on this same substantive structrlral constellation lvhich constitutes the violence in the first place, as Philip Cohen
(r988) shou's. 7. The br:each is the outconre of'the 'slrccess' or profitabilitv of violence ftir its perpetrators, rvhich marks the start of a ftir-rdanrentailv tlillbrent relationship betrveen t$'-o groups. It also creates an inrpetus to rationalise and jtrstifit the new relationship trorn the perspective of the oppressor. Fronr the point of vier,r' of its r,'ictirns, the historical act of violence becornes the basis, as nlerltioned, for a politics of rnoral accountabiliry (see R.Werbner rggJ). For the violators, politics
by a structur"e of Gar:. focus on disconlse is very general, and in the post-colcrnial critical literature tollorvs Said's use of Foucar-rlt. Robert Miies, fi-om a more orthodox Marrist perspective, also privileses discourse in his ciefinition oiracism (Miles r989, r9g4b). I rvould agree rvith Anthias and Yuval-Davis's critique oi this limitation (r992: rr).
are hencefbrth ileter:mined
8. The
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Ahsatr,
c,n
M.M.
and
A. R. Kidwai (rqqr)
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rcrys Ciuility:
l,fu1{i1,1 Perspectiues
the Rrrshilie lftair. Leicester:The Islamic Foundation. A-li,Yasnin Gggz)'Muslim Women ancl the Politics of Ethnicitv and Culture in tlre North of Eng;lancl'. in Clita Sahgal and NiraYuval-l)avis (eds) Ilqlusing Hol1, Oriers. London: Virago: roT-2i.
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Anclerson, Benedict ( i q8 :)
Im tQitte
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C,m t nun
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H}FBATING CULTURAL HYBRINITY

ulti-Cultur:al l dent.ities aucl the Politics of Anti-[tacisrn

EDITED BY PNIN/,T WERBNER AND TARIQ MODOOD

in Monofype Bembo by illunrinati,

A1l rights reserved

AMBIVALENCE AND MULTIPLICITY

IN THE CONSTRUCTIONS OF RACISM AND ETHNICITY Pnina

On the other hand, opposinu this trend,

DEBATING CULTURAL HYBRIDITY

of alterity. IVly argurnent

agendas :lre as nluch dependent on collective objectiflcations as arc racist

etlrnicisrrt or rac;isnr. is,

a nrocle of ohjectification that, unlike xenophobia. suueest, a rightful perlbrnrance or represelta-

DEBATING CULTURAL HYBRIDITY

or.rrn 'tneaning' and 'order',

uthir:h ethnic identities 'flash

AGONISTIC MORAL PANICS: THE SATANIC VERSES

The historical rotrts of the l{ushdie affair in lJritain can be traced to

ancl Atnerican irnperialisrn

in Iran, an intervention r,vhich violated

The publication of rhe novel

DEBATING CULTURAL HYBRIDITY

PNINA WERBNER RACISM AND AMBIVALENCE

\ccordins to JanMohamecl (rqBS), tshabha fails to reco{nise that

fiom the ilroment of colonial repression

DEBATING CULTURAL HYBRIDITY

ln rny reaeling of Bhabha, the ptr-i/-colonial

the counter-narratives of the nraruirls. not nrerely

THE EMERGENCE OF A COMMUNITY OF SUFFERING

'-::rr pel-lllanentll'. Ir ntakes little diflerence, in this respect. lvhetlrer

'--:s are nrarkecl out by colour, language, religion, territorl,. or clailred

DEBATING CULTURAL HYBRIDITY

Racist rriolations and anti-racist novernents

Economic rights Political rights

Conrnrunal Conrmunal Conrrnunal Conrmunal

the lrtrnran body (through torture, death, rape. physical rnutilation,

sacred ilmfiunml syrnbols (through physical destruction

DEBATING CULTURAL HYBRIDITY

ing of the experience of those rvho 'sr:flereri the senrence

'I'he Satanic lbrsts,

these public arenas that Pakistanis

irr r,vhich - to echo Cliffcrcl

re.:ettt 1'eals har.e incr-easingly recognisecl the dia-

,:e inragitratively critical

DEBATING CULTURAL HYBRIDITY

the false construction of 'culture'. or 'corrrlunity', fail to recognise the

rnoral communities but aesthetic ct.rnrntunities as rveli.

THE AESTHETIC COMMUNITY

artistic celebrations and rituals Pakistanis pertbrnr irnplicit

severirl tlifferent aesthetic comnrunities. As

DEBATING CULTURAL HYBRIDITY

thetl culturally has bcen highlighted bv a political and

revises an earlier posi-

tion lvhich attacked'ethrricity srudies'(CICCS r98z). He reflecrs rher'rve

perhaps unintentionall,v, the on*

lnd phcnomcnolosical tlinrensions of thc segmentary principle

fusion (that is, of situational ol'rjectifications). Oppositcs, Hall

thcn, at least three types of 'silence', rvhich cliffer. in principlc,

DEBATING CULTURAL HYBRIDITY

By colttrast, rninorities r,vhich are oppressed.

of the terrn fronr its comrllon-setlse

tion: a ptrlrlic iclentity has ontological connotatiol)s

of self and strbjectivity through its ethical and