The Shallow Roots

"The starting point of all critical elaboration is the consciousness of what one really is, and in 'knowing thyself' as a product of the historical process to date, which has deposited in you an infinity of traces, without leaving an inventory. Therefore, it is imperative at the outset to compile such an inventory."   - Gramsci, The Prison Notebooks

Several years ago I began to travel. The will to uncover the parts of myself that I could not yet see, and the parts of myself that I did not know, has always been my most basic driving force. A force that manifests as the will to compile (within my consciousness) something similar to Gramsci's 'inventory.' This intent for knowledge and clarity has taken me back to numerous cross-overs in both the Occident and the Orient.

I have wandered from continent to continent, leaving my mind open to the consequences of irreversible change. As much joy as there has been, there has been disappointment. In China, I have been struck by an immense sadness, because there is a nothingness about wandering the streets of a civilization that has severed its ancient roots, and negated thousands of years of thought. The tree that grows here now has shallow roots that cling to the empty dream of modelling and then transcending its "western" other (the Olympics were this kind of display).

So I ask the question, how are those of us with historical roots in both Orient and Occident supposed to see clearly and know ourselves, when half of our civilizations are in demise, and our histories have been overwritten? Is it natural to accept that as our civilizations have been conquered, parts of ourselves have also been conquered? And how do we reconcile this defeat and submission, when the Occident has always rejected us, because of our embodiment or traces of the conquered?

Too easily the noveau-Occidentals jump up to speak for all, in their declarations of: race doesn't exist, colour doesn't exist, we are all the same, we constructed it all ... But who is this "we?" For centuries this "we" has been the greatest conquerer of all; the great construct to obliterate diversity. It has been this "we," with its colonial conquests, wars and genocides, that has left deep scars in the psyches of many peoples around the world, not just those in the Orient.

For every "Oriental other" that constructs him/herself in the image of the Occident, one more tiny thread is cut. The underwriting is clear: "It is true what you say, we are all the same (now). We are the same, because I have ceased to exist, my culture does not exist, and together we have obliterated my history, and filed it into a department of your history. My skin may be a different colour, but I am no longer recognizable as your "other" (bar a few shadows in my eyes), because I am no longer what I was. I am as close to being you, and your own brother. Yes, we are the same, because I do not remember, and there is no way for me to know."
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