By Rashida Murphy
“All our knowledge brings us nearer to our ignorance.”
T.S. Eliot
Salman Rushdie’s 2017 novel, The Golden House, has an Australian hypnotist in a transnational cast of characters ranging from Mumbai ex-cons to Belgian filmmakers in New York. It is a typical Rushdie novel, full of verbal pyrotechnics and not-so-obscure political references, but it is the Australian character I puzzle over. Nothing wrong at all in placing an Australian in the heart of Manhattan. But one that speaks with a Kiwi accent?Rushdie’s hypnotherapist speaks in a grimly unfunny and terribly clipped way that mocks the Kiwi accent, not the Australian one. Especially when you consider that Rushdie was in a brief relationship with Australian writer Robyn Davidson in the 1980s, you wonder if the gaff is deliberate or an oversight. And whether, in a convoluted way, Rushdie is attempting to reverse centuries of negative portrayals of brown people in white fiction.
As a writer of colour I notice the way people like me are portrayed by white writers in fiction. Most do not get it right. There is awkwardness or overburdened carefulness, and none of the spontaneity I see when I read writers of colour writing about themselves. The spelling and gender-specificity of our names, the cultures of the regions we come from, the food we eat, the titles we ascribe to our elders – all these things matter. And when a writer seeks to write ‘the other’ it is important that those details matter to him/her as well. It is not enough to name a character ‘Princess Anjuli’ and expect Indian readers to be thrilled that English writers portray members of a race they exploited and enslaved, no matter how deeply romantic and heartfelt these depictions might be. M.M. Kaye was an Englishwoman born in India. She was the author of The Far Pavilions, which feeds into Raj nostalgia and ventures into territory most Indian writers would enter with caution. Ms Kaye takes on sati or bride-burning, an ancient outlawed Indian custom where brides of fallen noblemen are forced to self-immolate when their husbands die. In Kaye’s glamorous saga, the British hero jumps in to shoot a princess about to commit sati, because a quick death would be preferable to a slow, agonising one. The interplay of English heroism and Indian savagery could not be more obviously displayed, while the ills of Empire are glossed over with depictions of imperial chivalry and gallantry. I accept that this particular novel should be placed alongside other Raj-nostalgia books that appeared in the aftermath of Britain’s reluctant withdrawal from the Indian subcontinent, but I cannot help noticing how offensive it is to a modern Indian consciousness. Sati is not a subject I, as an Indian-born woman, would tackle lightly, if at all. It is not an experience I could ever own or seek to depict fictionally, because the cries of the women subjected to it would silence me. My education and social status ensured that I would never find myself in such an abject position.
And Ms Kaye, sadly, is no Kingsolver or Dalrymple; writers who have, more recently, attempted to subvert the white gaze and complicate a colonial narrative that assumes the colonised were somehow to blame for the ills of empire. Barbara Kingsolver’s Poisonwood Bible demonstrates the sombre grace of a white writer reflecting on the atrocities of empire while foregrounding the complicity of her race in the tragedy of the Congo. Scottish historian William Dalrymple has spent a lifetime telling uncomfortable histories of conquest from the subcontinent. And I can’t help thinking too, of Sarah Macdonald’s hilarious Holy Cow! An Indian Adventure which details with truth and vigour all the things she hated about India. (The subaltern may not speak but she does have a sense of humour).
Closer to home, Aboriginal writers have long held the belief that white writers should not write about Aboriginal people. This view is largely ignored by those who continue to argue for the right to write from an indigenous perspective. A sympathetic perspective, they say, that would be inclusive and lead to better conversations between writers and readers. The sub-text appears to be that white readers are more likely to read white writers depicting black people. The experience of colonisation is different for each of us; migrant people of colour, Aboriginal, and refugee; and I am not about to conflate this for ease of communication. Perhaps it is precisely because of these differences that writers ought to tread carefully, especially if the common fact of colonisation is a recurring theme.
Colonial encounters are never benign. The aim of conquest is always to subdue. Whether it was the Moors in Spain, the Dutch in Africa or the British in India and Australia, native populations and landscapes never recover. Irrigation systems and railways networks are inadequate compensation for pillage and plunder. Race memory runs deep. Imagine then, the rage and distress felt by those who suffered, when colonial perspectives are superimposed over the experiences of the conquered in an attempt to respond empathically to the dilemmas of cohabitation. As an Indian born Australian, I am not especially interested in British views of how my people are perceived, (notable exceptions have been mentioned before). My Aboriginal Australian friends tell me they are not interested in white Australians depicting them in fiction. We/they are telling our/their own stories. Why do these viewpoints not matter? Do white people believe a story is valid only if it has been told by them, filtered through the lens of privilege?
There are many untold stories. Some of those are not ours to tell. The wisdom in deciding which ones to keep hold of and which ones to let go is more crucial now than ever before. This discussion goes beyond the ‘paralysis’ described by white writers when they complain they ‘can’t write about anything’ these days. It goes beyond the looming spectre of cultural appropriation supposedly crippling white writers. In some ways, the debate is really simple.
It’s about representation. Own voices matter. Inequality matters. Marginalised voices and colonial superimpositions matter. Writers of colour are tired of misrepresentation and stereotype. And that ought to matter too.
Rashida Murphy lives and works on the lands of the Whadjuk people of the Noongar nation. She is the author of The Historian’s Daughter and is currently working on a new novel.
Picture by Matthew Smith | Unsplash.com