2013.3 Journal of Literature and Art Studies

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Journal of Literature

and Art Studies

Volume 3, Number 3, March 2013 (Serial Number 16)

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Journal of Literature

and Art StudiesVolume 3, Number 3, March 2013 (Serial Number 16)

Contents

Literature Studies

Sherwood Anderson’s “Mother” and the Evaluation of the Genre 137

Tamar Khetsuriani

Confronting Inequity in Nigerian Social Milieu: Apprehending Class Stratification in

Festus Iyayi’s Violence 144

Niyi Akingbe, Christopher Babatunde Ogunyemi

Ar t Studies

Contemporary Chinese Calligraphy Between Tradition and Innovation 158

Adriana Iezzi

Special Research

Community Mediation in Malaysia: A Comparison Between Rukun Tetangga and

Community Mediation in Singapore 180

Hanna Binti Ambaras Khan





Journal of Literature and Art Studies, ISSN 2159-5836March 2013, Vol. 3, No. 3, 137-143

Sherwood Anderson’s “Mother” and the Evaluation of the Genre

Tamar Khetsuriani

Ilia State University, Tbilisi, Georgia

Sherwood Anderson’s Winesburg, Ohio (1919) has been the focus of numerous studies from a number of standpoints.

This paper explores a short story “Mother” (1919) from Winesburg, Ohio and studies it from an evaluation-based

perspective embracing the analysis of the artistic language and the style of the author’s narration. The main focus of

the study is concentrated on the genre-related issues as well as on the determining the reason why Anderson avoids the

development of the given text and transforming it into the regime of a more large-scale prose. As it turns out from the

analysis, Anderson elaborates a specific style of narration and creates the form that can be characterized as the mode of

“epic sketch”. Anderson favors to use much smaller meter and scope, and that choice serves the writer’s purpose to

describe the psychological portrait of one of the characters of the above-mentioned short story.

Keywords: artistic language, narration, epic sketch, psychological portrait, psychological potential

Introduction

“Anderson’s writing of Winesburg, Ohio became a legend in his own time—and in his own mind” (Crowley,

1990, p. 10). Sherwood Anderson’s (1876-1941) short stories have always been subjects of keen interest for

critics and scholars, particularly the evaluation of the genre-related issues. Quite often scholars and literary critics

cannot reach the final decision as regards the genre reviewed material falls into. Anderson’s Winesburg, Ohio

(1919) attracted readers’ attention by its unusual form: A collection of closely integrated autonomous stories

“taken together made something like a novel… [But] Winesburg, Ohio is neither a novel nor a random set of

stories. Rather it is one of the earliest examples of an important American genre, as yet unnamed by literary

historians, …” (Crowley, 1990, p. 14). Such evaluation can be explained by the author’s specific manner of

writing, which can be interpreted as a style that reflects the polar nature of the short story genre.

Our discussion about the genre-related issues is based on the analysis of Anderson’s short story “Mother”

(1919). The brief scheme of the plot contains so many parallel themes and allusions that, according to the norms

of literature, the potential of the scheme, enriched with words, needs to be rendered—if not in the novel, but in a

full-scope story, at least. Instead of it, the author suggests only some specifications of the motive. The purpose of

our comparative analysis is to reveal these specifications: The details and moments of the short story that spoiled

rather than improved the artistic side of the work, assisting in the entire exposition of its contextual, ideological,

and artistic potentials. We are also planning to analyze those moments where the author’s writing hardly adds

anything that develops either the psychological potential or parameters of the dialogue—which can automatically

transform the text into the regime of a large-scale prose.

Tamar Khetsuriani, Ph.D. student, Department of Arts and Sciences, Ilia State University.

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SHERWOOD ANDERSON’S “MOTHER” AND THE EVALUATION OF THE GENRE138

The Outline

The plot of Anderson’s short story “Mother”—alongside the typical and banal social conflict depicted in

it—creates a sharp contrast with a few characters of other tales from Winesburg, Ohio whose neurotic natureresembles their “Kunstkammer”—or art chamber. The short story also offers us a full and extensive picture of the

potential that involves the components of characters and plot.

The outline of “Mother” is built on the history of the poor family and on the parents’ hopeless effort to make

their son’s dream come true. As for their own dreams, they are destined never to be realized.

Before considering the examples we should determine the followings: (1) For what reason does Anderson

avoid the development of the text?; and (2) What does the author gain by that?.

As we have already mentioned, the outline of the text gives the picture of the life of the poor family with a

strong distrust among its members. Before Anderson, half a century earlier, Hawthorne and later, Faulkner and

Salinger would have transformed the similar situation into a novel.In order to get a better idea about the strategy of our analysis, it is necessary to conceive the whole contour

and outline of the short story. This short story involves a triangular relationship of selfhoods, where the

son—George Willard—represents the central determinant figure of the “gravitation”. His parents, with all their

mights, are trying to please him. This fight is, in some way, analogous to Berthold Brecht’s “The Caucasian

Chalk Circle” (1944). The son’s welfare is the most important thing for the mother, and not only for her, but for

the father as well: The irony of the conflict is that each of them has his/her own interpretation of welfare for their

son: “George Willard’s mother and father, … each has a different story in mind for their son” (Lindsay, 2009, p.

179), and neither father nor mother’s notion of their son’s well-being coincides with their son’s desires.

It follows that, the parents are trying to adjust the pattern of their ideal to their son. This wish has one covert

reason: The mother, Elizabeth Willard, disappointed by her fate, tries to revenge her husband, Tom Willard, for

his destructive interference into her life. The father—who does not perceive his wife as a personality and, blames

her for his misfortune, for she did not support him sufficiently—tries to adjust his pattern to his son. For him, it is

a chance to take revenge on his wife.

Less attention is paid to the third character, to the son, who plays the role of an object in the scenario

performed by the others rather than the role of a subject who possesses his own will. Such atmosphere continues

till the end of the short story, when the son rebels and announces his wish to make his way in life and direct his

future life according to his own will:

In the hallway there was the sound of footsteps and George Willard came in at the door. Sitting in a chair beside hismother he began to talk: “I’m going to get out of here,” he said. “I don’t know where I shall go or what I shall do but I am

going away”. (Anderson, 1981, p. 42)

Such explosion weakens the potential of the plot and the idea, because the phrases and the dialogue, inserted

into the limited form of the short story, depreciate the artistic potential of the material, not to mention the

irrelevance that exists between the material and the chosen genre.

As for the rebellion, we would like to point out and add some lines by Lindsay (2009) where he wrote:

Actually, socially approved, culturally sanctioned rebellion is fairly common for men in the small midwestern town

of Winesburg, Ohio, especially the rebellion of exile. It’s no surprise, of course, that American culture romanticizes



SHERWOOD ANDERSON’S “MOTHER” AND THE EVALUATION OF THE GENRE 139

rebellion, providing lots and lots of stories tacitly affirming the shucking of the old. (p. 179)

And, one more detail about the rebellion: “When men rebel, they follow congenial, culturally approved,

literarily established story lines that encourage a way of being. … For men, flight from home, … is part of thestandard narrative of manhood” (Lindsay, 2009, p. 178). When George Willard leaves the town in the final story

of Winesburg, Ohio, it can be rendered as “the coming-of-age ritual” (Lindsay, 2009, p. 179) signaling the

beginning of his manhood.

In our comparative analysis we have applied to the theme of influence in the art of drama. We were inspired

not by the theme of influence itself but by the role or function which “Mother” had on the play “A Touch of the

Poet” (1942) by Eugene O’Neill. The resemblance is seen in the comprehension of the plot and in the scheme of

the psychological conflict. Tom Willard, the father of the rebellious hero, resembles O’Neill’s hero, Major

Melody: Both are victims of hard times, both are ill-fated, both consider that their wives prevent their

advancement, that their wives are vivid symbols and targets of criticism, and finally, both men are trying to pursue their career in politics.

Anderson, Freudian Thought, and Local Influences

As we have mentioned, the relationship between the son and his mother is the leading theme of the short

story. It should be pointed out that the 1920s became the apotheosis of Freud and Freudianism, and Anderson was

among the earliest American writers who responded to Freud’s theories. It is rather difficult for critics to define

and separate the writer’s outlook—from the material that can be explained by the influence of Freudian thought:

“There is some justification in noting the parallel courses of psychoanalysis and Anderson’s fiction, but there

seems little evidence to prove that those two courses intersected at any vital points” (Hoffman, 1966, p. 192).

Hoffman discusses Sherwood Anderson’s indirect acquaintance with Freudian theory through his earlyassociates in the Chicago Renaissance and the lasting effects of that knowledge on his writing. As for the

influence, Hoffman (1966) pointed out that “… it is necessary to determine the antecedent, local influences

which affected Anderson’s style and attitude” (p. 174). “These are obviously native influences, and he needed no

textbook psychology to appreciate their weight or value” (p. 176).

These local influences, as Curry (1980) wrote, were:

Anderson’s own memories of his boyhood and youth in Ohio towns, especially Clyde, [which] came a live to him

when he moved into the boarding house at 735 Cass Street in Chicago. Many of the boarders were men and women like

himself, emigrants to the big city from small rural communities throughout the Midwest. They were confused, silent

people whose drab lives stirred Anderson’s creative imagination… In his Memoirs Anderson explains the process by

which his fellow boarders stirred his memories of Clyde: “It was as though I had little or nothing to do with the writing. Itwas as though the people of that house… used me as an instrument. They had got, I felt, through me, their stories told,

and not in their own persons but, in a much more real and satisfactory way, through the lives of these queer small town

people of the book”. (p. 246)

Epic Sketch

Elizabeth Willard’s dramatic emotions are described skillfully, in an artistically impressive mode and with

psychological convincingness—in the manner so characteristic of Anderson, in the manner of “the native

inarticulateness of the Middle Westerner” (Hoffman, 1966, p. 186). In mother’s portrait the line of descriptive,

objective narration is interchanged with the author’s interference style, when the author specially explains and




analyzes the character’s conduct and speech.

Such two-layered style helps the author to provide the short story with an economical and, at the same time,

accelerated mode of narration. By the help of such acceleration Anderson creates the form that can be called the

mode of “epic sketch”.

Epic sketch implies not only: (1) the wide-ranging narration—involving time and space—that justifies the

pretension of the objective and large-scale picture of reality; but it also (2) presents the naturalistic detail of a

psychological significance that helps and responds to the needs of interpreting, presenting and understanding of

both: the character and the main idea of the general theme.

“Main Street” and Its Symbolic Meaning

Such is the detail concerning the mother. How hopelessly she spent hours gazing at the “Main Street” of the

town which gained the symbolic significance not only of the future, of the idea, and of a better life but, in general,

it carried the idea of hope, the desire to escape and, finally, it arose the feeling of dissatisfaction caused by the

existing reality: “European readers who come to Anderson’s Winesburg, Ohio for the first time feel the proximity

of a new speech, a ‘new country’, a fresh view of the Main Street…” (Gregory, 1977, p. 4).

The path, associated with the distance and reflecting the desire of poor people to evade their sufferings,

makes the heroes—of a short story and of a play too—dream of far-off places and think one and the same: Hope

and help are hidden “beyond the horizon”, the phrase which Eugene O’Neill used as a title for his play “Beyond

the Horizon” (1920) where the theme of irrelevance between a dream and a reality is interplayed: The trio of

heroes become victims of their wrong choice that was done by each of them only because of overrating of their

cherished dreams and building the conflict on illusions. Characters never know what to expect in their further

emotional wallop, for the future can be a source of endless pessimism and conflicting impulses.

In the following passage the author achieves the great dramatic tension, that is effectively crowned with the

prayer uttered by the mother: “… she went into his room and closing the door knelt by a little desk, made of a

kitchen table… she went through a ceremony that was half a prayer, half a demand, addressed to the skies”

(Anderson, 1981, p. 37).

Besides the sad, psychological mood of this scene, two impressive details are observed: “a desk from a

kitchen table” and “half a prayer, half a demand, addressed to the skies”. The first phrase strikes by its

social-financial motive, by the notion indicating the poverty of the heroes. As for the second detail, here in the

phrase—“addressed to the skies”—the strong pathetic feeling of predestination is felt.

There is another detail which is similar and typologically relative to the above-mentioned theme.

“Smart and successful” (Anderson, 1981, p. 37)—The way Tom Willard’s wife describes the standard of

her husband’s dream career. But so immense is her anger toward her husband that she detests the idea of applying

the same “descriptive terms” to her son. She sacrificed her love to her revenge and hatred which she had been

keeping and kindling in the depth of her heart toward her husband for years.

The Continuation of Old Themes

The theme of hatred, revenge, and punishment has become classics of American literature since the period

of Nathaniel Hawthorne and totally corresponds to the most dramatic periods and themes of the Puritan tradition.

From this point of view, we can say that Anderson’s short story “Mother” continues old themes and motives of




the American National Literature.

Devotion to these old themes is felt in Elizabeth Willard’s prayer, when she—with glowed eyes and

clenched fists, shaking—declares:

Even though I die, I will in some way keep defeat from you… If I am dead and see him becoming a meaningless

drab figure like myself, I will come back… I ask God now to give me that privilege. I demand it. I will pay for it… I will

take any blow that may befall if but this my boy be allowed to express something for us both… And do not let him

become smart and successful either. (Anderson, 1981, p. 37)

Elizabeth’s text is very impressive by its idea and artistic mode which is intensified by laconism. But, in

spite of such laconic style of expression, some interesting moments can be observed in the aforementioned

passage: (1) Mother’s selfless love, the pathetic side of which reminds us the pictures of unequal battles in

wildlife, when mother-bird in order to save her little nestling shows resistance against beasts of prey. We have not

mentioned the “animal world” just for a nice metaphor; if we remember Elizabeth’s nonentity and silent role, how

silently she strolls up and down in her room, it would be clear that we have a background to look for the similarity

beyond the human society; (2) Pride and self-criticism that is felt in her bitter comparison that is full of dignity:

“… a meaningless drab figure like myself” (Anderson, 1981, p. 37); and (3) A great desire of self-realization,

which she fancies, lies in the unification with her son: “… my boy be allowed to express something for us

both…” (Anderson, 1981, p. 37); at the same time, the meaning of this citation has another layer: As, prior to it,

mother mentions her death and passing away, her words—“us both”—carry more value, for the mother wishes

happiness together with her son not in this world but out of this world. Why so? The reason is simple: The

existence in this world is temporary; but those who are gone to a better world are eternally unified, and the

mother’s wish is connected with that idea: to be inseparable from her son.

The artistic language of the short story implies eclecticism. It is seen only in the opening paragraph of the

story, when the author’s narration is suddenly changed with the character’s unexpected psychological reaction on

a definite little episode, but when the mode and the pace of narration are changed again, we can conclude that we

deal with the case when the author practices an elaborated method, and instead of eclecticism, it would be right to

speak about a specific method and methodology. It should be pointed out that “Throughout his career Anderson

saw himself as an experimental writer” (Stouck, 1990, p. 48). In reference to Anderson’s style Stouck (1990)

wrote: “Anderson has long been recognized as an innovator in style, influenced by the vernacular of Mark Twain

and responsive to the prose experiments of Gertrude Stein” (p. 45).

In contrast with the scene of Elizabeth’s prayer, the author portrays her son’s periodical visits to her room

when she does not feel well. George Willard appears as an emotionally emptied hero. In relation to George

Willard’s characterization, it is worth mentioning T. S. Eliot who influences the world culture by introducing the

term “hollow men” and by creating their specific psycho-social type.

Narrative Technique

The description of the son’s and his mother’s boring visits to each other—the piece which might have been

organically inserted not only in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s novel, but in the diaries and records of the 17th century

American chroniclers—was followed by a mystical scene in characterization of which it would be appropriate to

use the term “epiphany”.




The actualization of this term is usually connected with James Joyce—but Franz Kafka, not to mention the

writers of a later period, such as Faulkner and other literary luminaries—Kafka also used it as an artistic method,

and as the adroit and effective element of the artistic language. The generalization and absolutization of a routine

moment to the category of allegory and symbol is the essence and the characteristic feature of epiphany. According

to Joyce’s theory “… an ordinary person, event or object—a triviality—occasion the epiphany” (Curry, 1980, p.

244). Anderson used the similar narrative technique and if “… Joyce called the revelation of inner significance

‘epiphany’, Anderson spoke of significant ‘moments’” (Curry, 1980, p. 244). In the short story, such revelation lies

in the absurd struggle of a baker—who is sick and tired of life—with a little, hungry cat which tries to take a few

bites in the bakery. The scene of fight is absurd, because the baker’s misfortune is not the cat’s fault. But the cat is

the only visible, concrete, and accessible creature that the baker can put the blame on for all his troubles. And one

day, while watching the daily scene of chasing the poor, little creature and its fleeing from the baker’s hands,

Elizabeth realizes that her own fate bears the striking similarity to this scene and she bursts into tears.

The benefit of this scene is that Anderson transforms it into a method. The indication of such silent drama is

given in the very first paragraph of the short story where the author describes the businesslike “promenade” of

Elizabeth Willard’s ambitious and materialist husband who, being oppressed by the reality, visions his

back-dragging symbol:

As he went spruce and business-like through the streets of Winesburg, he sometimes stopped and turned quickly

about as though fearing that the spirit of the hotel and of the woman would follow him even into the streets. “Damn such

a life, damn it!”—he sputtered aimlessly. (Anderson, 1981, p. 36)

This damnation fully responds to his whining wife’s mood when she catches a glimpse of the stupid baker.

In spite of the mother’s sincere feeling and wish to establish a dialogue with her son, in reality its

accomplishment is impossible; instead, she has to content herself by an imaginary dialogue and, thus, remains

locked in her solitary “cell”.

Because of this imaginary feeling, the mother believes that her son is of the same breed as she is and there is

nothing paternal in him: “He is grouping about, trying to find himself. He is not a dull clod, all words and

smartness.1 Within him there is a secret something that is striving to grow. It is the thing I let be killed in myself”

(Anderson, 1981, p. 39).

These last words indicate how great is the mother’s belief in her son’s future life—which is woven on her

own pattern—and which will crown her tortured existence.

Crowning PieceFrom that point on, the crowning piece of the short story begins. This piece is written in a different style,

different in the mode of genre and it gives us basis to put forward critical remarks.

First of all, it is the pace that corresponds with our idea about the epic sketch and with the notion about the

epic sketch, in general. At the same time, it is a deliberate transition into the stylistics of the genre of drama that is

followed by the line of blunders: First of all, it is an inconsistent and inaccurate interpretation of a character. The

oppressed woman’s face, marked with smallpox scars—presented on the first lines of the short story—does not fit

in with the behavior of the “moderately arbitrary” woman, and with the indication of “a tigress”, the description

1 These are the father’s characteristic features—Tamar Khetsuriani.




that appears on the last lines: “As a tigress whose cub had been threatened would she appear, coming out of the

shadows, stealing noiselessly along and holding the long wicked scissors in her hand” (Anderson, 1981, p. 42). On

such background, the dialogue between the practical father and his son seems to provoke more convincingness

among the readers, and because of it, all the remarks, which we have listed above, are called forth.

Conclusions

Anderson avoids and rejects the possibility of the traditional and “approved” development of the narration.

Instead, he uses a laconic style of narration.

It turned out that the purpose of that choice was connected with the description of the psychological portrait

of one of the characters—Elizabeth Willard. It goes without saying that this purpose has a “full right” of existence

as a material for prose; besides, in this process other characters are disclosed as well. But such “complex”

approach to the task in terms of a short prose form puts forward one twist of the thematic line, which is

constructed on the fate of a single character.

At the beginning of the present article we have mentioned the specific manner of writing so characteristic of

Sherwood Anderson, and it should be pointed out that it is that very manner, so vividly felt in all his writings, that

seems “… to assure him of a life beyond the horizon…” (Gregory, 1977, p. 31).

References

Anderson, Sh. (1981). Mother. In V. Bonar (Ed.), Selected short stories (pp. 36-43). Moscow: Progress Publishers.

Brecht, B. (1973). The Caucasian chalk circle. (James & T. Stern, Trans.). London: Methuen.

Crowley, J. W. (Ed.). (1990). Introduction to New Essays on Winesburg, Ohio (pp. 1-26). New York: Cambridge University Press.

Curry, M. (1980). Sherwood Anderson and James Joyce. American Literature, 52(2), 236-249.

Gregory, H. (Ed.). (1977). Introduction. The portable Sherwood Anderson (pp. 3-31). Middlesex: Penguin Books.Hoffman, F. J. (1966). Freudianism and the literary mind. In R. L. White (Ed.), The achievement of Sherwood Anderson: Essays in

criticism (pp. 173-192). North Carolina: The University of North Carolina Press.

Lindsay, C. (2009). Men are stupid critics; women are discerning artists. Such a rare thing: The art of Sherwood Anderson’s

Winesburg, Ohio (pp. 174-196). Kent and Ohio: The Kent State University Press.

O’Neill, E. (1978). A touch of the poet . New Haven and London: Yale University Press.

O’Neill, E. (Trans.). (1971). Beyond the horizon (Za gorizontom). In N. R. Voitkevich (Ed.), Plays (Pyesi) (Vol. 1, pp. 41-153).

Moscow: Iskusstvo Publishers.

Stouck, D. (1990). Anderson’s expressionist art. In J. W. Crowley (Ed.), New essays on Winesburg, Ohio (pp. 27-51). New York:

Cambridge University Press.




Confronting Inequity in Nigerian Social Milieu: Apprehending

Class Stratification in Festus Iyayi’s Violence

Niyi Akingbe

Ondo State University of Science and Technology,

Okitipupa, Nigeria

Christopher Babatunde Ogunyemi

Ajayi Crowther University, Oyo, Nigeria

This paper is preoccupied with the delineation of the dialectic of poverty and wealth in Festus Iyayi’s Violence. The

unbridled struggle between the bourgeois and the proletariat in the novel constitutes the onus of the dialectical

materialism which underlies an axiomatic focus of societal superstructure. An application of Kenneth Boulding’s

theory of protest to the Nigerian social milieu, poignantly reveals that there is a potent foregrounding of the class

stratification between the rich and the poor. The paper will further examine how this dichotomy between the highly

placed and the down trodden in the novel has graphically accentuated the poverty index in contemporary Nigeria.

Keywords: confronting inequity, class stratification, violence, bourgeois, proletariat, social milieu, Nigeria, Festus

Iyayi

Introduction

Iyayi’s Violence (1979), focuses on the social context of contemporary Nigerian society, is the reminiscent

of Fraser’s analysis of Chinua Achebe’s “The Novelist as Teacher” (1975), in which an African writer cannot but

get deeply rooted in the social circumstances of his immediate environment: The African writer works against a

background of often awesome social and material deprivation: hunger, displacement, and human stress. All these

demand instant and sustained attention of the writer in his/her writing. As such, the committed writer, must

constantly react to these social upheavals as his duty in different terms. Our concern in this paper is to examine

the degree of class stratification in Iyayi’s Violence. We shall further attempt an explication of the inherent

complication in the relationship between the bourgeois and the proletariat in Nigeria, as to bring out the tension

between the duo which often lead to mutual distrust.

The Protest Theory: A Societal Superstructure

Kenneth Boulding in his essay Towards a Theory of Protest (1967), identifies four movements towards the

understanding of the protest theory and how the framework is applicable to societal superstructure. First, he

observes that, protest arises when there is a strongly felt dissatisfaction with existing programmes and policies of

government or other organizations, on the part of those who feel that they have been affected by these policies,

Niyi Akingbe, senior lecturer, English Studies Unit, Ondo State University of Science and Technology.

Christopher Babatunde Ogunyemi, senior lecturer, Department of English College of Humanities, Ajayi Crowther University.

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APPREHENDING CLASS STRATIFICATION IN FESTUS IYAYI’S VIOLENCE

145

but who are unable to express their discontent through regular and legitimate channels, and who feel unable to

exercise the weight to which they think they are entitled in the decision-making process of their social

environment. Second, Boulding (1967) opined that:

Protest is most likely to be successful where it represents a view which is in fact widespread in the society, but which

has somehow not been called to people’s attention. Societies, like solutions, supersaturated or super cooled; that is, they

reach a situation in which their present state is intrinsically unstable, but does not change because of the absence of some

kind of nucleus around which change can grow. Under these circumstances, protest is like the seed crystal or the silver

iodide in the cloud. It precipitates the whole system toward a position which it really ought to be in anyway. We see this

exemplified in the relative success of the protest movements in civil rights. Here we have a situation, as Myrdal saw very

clearly in The American Dilemma, in which certain fundamental images of the American society were inconsistent with

its practices, and where, therefore, the protesters could appeal to an ideal which was very widely held. Wherever there is

hypocrisy, there is strong hope of change, for the hypocrite is terribly vulnerable to protest. On the other hand, in the

absence of protest, the supersaturated society may go on for a long time without change, simply because of what

physicists call the nucleation problem. (p. 50)

Third, where the society is not supersaturated, a protest movement has a much rougher time. It then has to

move the society toward the new position, from which change can then crystallize out, and this is a much more

difficult task than crystallizing change in a society that is ready for it. Furthermore, protest as a social form, which

may be very effective and indeed necessary in crystallizing a supersaturated society, may be quite ineffective in

moving a society which is not saturated for change toward a point where it is. That is, the technique for creating

the pre-conditions of change may be very different from the techniques required for crystallizing it. Where a

society is divided and ambivalent, a protest movement designed to push it in one direction may easily arouse

movements of counter-protest designed to resist the movement or to push it in the other direction. This is

something to which protesters rarely give sufficient attention. Because they are themselves emotionally aroused,they tend to think that almost everybody must be in a similar frame of mind, which may not be true at all. It is

quite possible, for instance, for protest movements to arouse counter-protests much larger than the original

protests, and, hence, the net result of the protest is to move the system away from the direction in which the

protesters want it to move. The Goldwater campaign was a good example of this. Goldwater was nominated as a

Republican candidate as a result of a protest movement among discontented conservatives. The result, however,

was the arousal of a much larger movement of counter-protest among those who were frightened and dismayed

by Goldwater, which resulted in a quite unprecedented defeat (Boulding, 1967, p. 55).

The fourth point is that, the dynamic process of social systems is not entirely random, and this means that

any particular social system is more likely to go in some directions than it is in others. Obviously, a protest

movement which is trying to push the social system in a direction in which it has a high probability of going

anyway is more likely to be successful than one that is trying to push the social system in a direction that has a low

probability. Unfortunately, it is by no means easy to assess the various probabilities of change; nevertheless, we

can surely know something about it. At least we can be pretty sure, for instance, that movements toward absolute

hereditary monarchies today have a pretty slim chance of success. We can identify certain cumulative processes

in the history of social systems, such as the growth of knowledge, the widening of integrative systems, and so on,

which have a certain long-run irreversibility about them, even if they may have short-run setbacks, systems move,

however, painfully, toward payoffs (Boulding, 1967, p. 60).




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Class Stratification and Violence in Iyayi’s Violence

Iyayi’s identification with the condition of the working classes buttresses protest that also partly reflects his

own class position as a petit-bourgeois intellectual who is able to empathize effectively with the working classesthrough his writing. His portrayal of Obofun, Queen, Dala, and Iriso as exploiters of the working classes offers a

helpful context in which we can assess Iyayi’s commitment to the cause of the downtrodden. He courageously

exposes the moral depravity of the Nigerian bourgeoisie, paradoxically a class to which he also belongs as a

privileged individual. Iyayi decries the gluttonous attitude of the elite who assumed the leadership of their nation

at the expiration of colonial rule in Africa and have since independence perpetrated the exploitation of their own

people with a ruthlessness that was never seen during colonial rule. Such exploitation is seen in the rapacity of the

elite: (1) sexual promiscuity as typified by the relationship between Iriso and Queen; (2) bribery and racketeering

in the ministries and government establishments which Obofun was involved in before his premature dismissal;

and (3) diversions of essential commodities like milk and eggs from the ministry of agriculture to Queen’ssupermarket. The employment of Idemudia by Queen to offload bags of cement with its attendant poor

remuneration provides the needed political discourse for the analysis of the economic structures of the society,

prevailing norms, injustice, exploitation, conflict, and revolt, as the variables of social exchange between the elite

and the working classes in the novel.

The commodification of members of the working class by the elites in the novel recalls the observation of

Solomon (1974):

A commodity is therefore a mysterious thing, simply because in it the social character of men’s labour appears to

them as an objective character stamped upon the product of that labour, because the relation of the producers to the sum

total of their own labour is presented to them as a social relation, existing not between themselves, but between the

products of their labour. This is the reason why the products of labour become commodities, social things whose qualities

are of the same time perceptible and imperceptible by the senses. (p. 40)

Solomon (1974) further emphasised that within the capitalist system as obtainable in Nigeria, all methods

for raising the social productiveness of labor are brought about at the cost of the individual laborer:

All means for the development of production transform themselves into means of domination over, and exploitation of,

the producers: they mutilate the labourer into a fragment of man, degrade him to the level of an appendage of machine,

destroy every remnant of charm in his work, and turn it into a hated toil; they estrange from him the intellectual

potentialities of the labour-process in the same proportion as science is incorporated in it as an independent power… (p. 41)

The dialectics of the relationship between the rich and the poor in Violence is aptly illustrated by Fatunde

(1985):

In Festus Iyayi’s novel a balanced picture is given, both of the working people and of the exploiters. Neither social

class is infallible. They both show a degree of human failing and human strength, although it is abundantly clear that

Iyayi is on the side of the working people. As a radical writer he is not complacent towards the plight of those who have

only their labour to sell. But he does not legitimize Idemudia’s attempt at beating his wife; neither does he approve of the

(understandable) “sexual methods” of Adisa, who searches for money to pay off Idemudia’s hospital bill. (p. 114)

No doubt, the significance of labor ethos is given prominence in the novel. However, Iyayi (1979) did not

hesitate to acknowledge the importance of the workers’ contribution to national development, even if their efforts

were not adequately rewarded:




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Not far off were the houses which sweat and labour had already erected. Life there was ablaze where labour had left

its positive mark, the labour of hundreds of thousands of workers, working in the blinding rain, piling the blocks higher

and higher and wiping the salt and sweat from their eyes and their foreheads with the backs of their hands and all

underpaid, treated no better than slaves. (pp. 255-256)

Protest in the novel derives its power largely from the author’s outrage at the injustice of a system that

reduces human beings to chattel and love to a commodity measured in terms of Naira and Kobo. The

commodification of Idemudia, Osaro, Patrick, and Omoifo in the offloading of the bags of cement at Freedom

Motel by Queen is a signifier of this outrage.

This outrage further reverberates in a scenario at the building site, when Queen had to treat some workers

with indignation:

The other workers were already there and they gathered as soon as they saw Queen. Queen faced them, “I understand

that some of you want more money,” she said quietly. Idemudia was surprised at the hardness in her voice. “You there,”

and Queen pointed to a tall, shirtless man. “You have always made trouble, ever since you came here.” She drew anenvelope. “Here is your money.” She spat at him. “You will find twenty-three Naira, seventy-seven kobo inside the

envelope. Not one kobo more, not one kobo less.” (Iyayi, 1979, p. 234)

The rhetoric of protest in Violence is mediated by Iyayi’s Marxist inclinations. It is an inclination which is

represented in a sustained disappointment and bitterness of the failure of Nigeria State to provide employment

and basic social needs for her citizens. Iyayi in the novel posits social relationship as a continuous process of

contestation inseparable from human development paradigms. Iyayi’s interrogation of the social inequity in the

novel is anchored on Karl Marx’s theories of class stratification. This is done to enable him interpret Nigeria’s

social milieu. Iyayi’s narrative of class stratification in Violence foregrounds the exploration rather than

amelioration of social relationship of the elite and working classes. Iyayi’s delineation of social classes in

Violence underscores wa Thiong’o’s examination of the typology of writers in post-colonial Africa as identified

by Williams (1999):

For Ngugi, social conditions mean that there are broadly two types of writers in any given historical period. The first

group consists of those who believe in the status quo… The second group comprises those who have deliberately or

instinctively acquired a more dialectical perspective on society, as well as belief in the possibility and necessity of

change… (p. 156)

Such narrative betrays a discourse of class identities as they intersect new social formations. Iyayi decries

the appropriation of societal wealth and opportunities by the elite class, typified by Obofun and Queen. This class

is used by Iyayi to examine certain matrices of Nigerian society, the elite class is portrayed as an economic threat

to the well-being of the nation. Iyayi nevertheless, evaluates the relationship between Queen and Idemudia to

shape the negotiations over identity, society, and social boundaries. Consequently, the dehumanisation Idemudia

suffers articulates the high-strung categories through which the novel’s characters’ imagine themselves as part of

a socially-fragmented Nigeria. The importance of money as a signification of “social exchange” between the elite

and working classes is given prominence in the novel. Money symbolises power for the elite, while it

paradoxically symbolises a means of survival to the working class. Money serves as a potent tool for the

construction of identities by the individuals from both social divides in the novel. As such, money is an effective

symbol through which class identities are constructed. Ultimately, what gives coherence to the social relationship




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between the elite and the working class is embedded in social exchange signified by money. This is appropriated

by Iyayi as a political discourse which he uses to create frames of understanding of contemporary Nigerian

society. Money serves as potent tool of social exchange in the novel.

The motif of money is used to construct Nigeria society, articulate a shared experience of oppression, and

evaluate social consciousness through which Iyayi identifies himself artistically by making an emphatic case for

the value of social justice in the idea of society. Through the depiction of money as a vehicle of social exchange,

and especially by juxtaposing stupendous wealth with abject poverty, Iyayi evaluates the danger inherent in the

misuse of money as derivations of corruption, injustice, greed, and oppression.

The depredation of the working class in Violence recalls the observation of Harris (1982):

We must remember that to deny someone control of their own lives is to offer them a most profound insult, not to

mention the injury which the frustration of their wishes and the setting at naught of their own plans for themselves will

add. (p. 35)

Iyayi protests the oppressive labor policies which hold an individual captive and makes him a gratuitous

object of commodification. He further reiterates that all methods for the production of surplus-value are at the

same time methods of accumulation, and every extension of accumulation becomes again a means for the

development of those methods. It follows therefore that in proportion as capital accumulates, the lot of the laborer

must grow worse. This subsequently becomes accumulation of misery, with its attendant accumulation of capital.

Therefore, for Idemudia and his friends, their engagement by Queen which nets them five Naira individually at

the end of the task, also comes with their acquisition of misery, toil, agony, and slavery. This degradation is

manifested in Idemudia’s illness. The existentialism of the members of the working classes is largely determined

by the elite. Because the elite has the means of material production at its disposal, it also has control at the same

time over the means of mental production. This privileged position of the elite allows it to ride roughshod over

the collective existence of the members of the working classes.

The elite in Violence through its uncontrolled desire and insatiable greed crave the acquisition of material

goods. By so doing, they have become slaves of their own creations and are consequently alienated from the

humanness of society. The despoliation of the societal resources by the elite renders members of the working

class dehumanised. Idemudia, Adisa, Osaro, Pa Jimoh, and a host of other poverty-stricken individuals in the

novel are graphically presented by Iyayi as individuals who have suffered certain degree of estrangement from

the economic well-being of society. They are forever consigned to that unfathomable abyss between what they

are and what they would like to be, which is the fallout of social disequilibrium orchestrated by the likes of

Obofun, Queen, Iriso, and Dala of the elite class.

Idemudia is a typification of a fragmented man whose social identity is ambivalent, as exemplified in the

hospital play titled Violence. He is a representation of millions of individuals marooned in a cesspool of poverty,

whose lives are crushed beneath the merciless and implacable wheels of economic manipulation of the elite.

Idemudia is a product of the Foucauldian analysis of power play in the society:

The individual is no doubt the fictitious atoms of an “ideologist” representation of society: but he is also a reality

fabricated by this specific technology of power that I have called “discipline.” We must cease once and for all to describe

the effects of power in negative terms: It “excludes,” it “represses,” it “censors,” it “abstracts,” it “masks,” it “conceals.”

In fact, power produces: it produces the reality: it produces domains of objects and rituals of truth. The individual and the




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knowledge that may be gained of him belong to this production. (Foucault, 1995, p. 194)

Although the pauperisation of Idemudia, Osaro, Adisa, Pa Jimoh, and Mama Jimoh has its more remote

sources in chequered post-colonial economic and political history, it was directly caused by the head-on collisionof two different, indeed totally opposed circumstances: The social inequality orchestrated by the post-colonial

apparatus, greed, avarice, and economic schism created and nurtured by the elite class. Subjected to this double

trauma, the members of the working class in Nigeria are helplessly condemned to be the spectators of their

degeneration into the state of dementia. The gap between them and the opportunistic members of the elite who

enjoy the opulence and bliss of society becomes deeper at the emergence of every successive civilian and military

administration in the country, and has become more and more difficult to bridge. The economic disempowerment

of Idemudia and other members of the working class is thus by no means a physical one. The deprivation they

experience is due to their exclusion from the economic largesse of society. They are not people crippled by

physical disabilities but specific and well-defined individuals stranded in a socio-economic quagmire: poverty,hunger, disease, and loss of identity.

Poverty as a Phenomenon of Alienation in Iyayi’s Violence

To the members of the working class in Violence, poverty presupposes non-existence, and non-existence

culminates in a deep sense of alienation. This notion is clearly demonstrated in the submission of Yetiv (1976):

Alienation presupposes identity, just as Death presupposes life. It is in the final analysis, the loss of identity, be it

individual of ethnic, and the effort to recapture this lost identity which constitutes the “identity crisis.” Like life itself,

identity is a dynamic phenomenon… (p. 87)

Virtually, all the working-class characters feel themselves estranged from their society. They are haunted by

a sense of alienation borne out of hunger, lack, and want. Protest is deployed in the novel to articulate the palpable

emptiness in the lives of working-class people. Idemudia’s inability to secure a permanent job, Osaro, Omoifo,

and Patrick’s consistent existence on the fringes of life; Adisa’s endless endurance of hunger, and Papa and

Mama Jimoh’s subsistence living in a rundown apartment are significations of the emptiness aptly mediated by

Iyayi’s dialectic of class stratification. Violence is a canvass crowded with alienated individuals and an alienated

society of the wealthy and the poor. Idemudia serves as a metaphor of the alienated individuals trapped in an

urban society. Idemudia, a school dropout who can not continue with his education, because his parents can not

pay his fees, finds it remarkably difficult to secure a decent job and ends up as a casual laborer at the building site.

The thought of his failure to complete his education, which would have provided him an adequate meal

ticket often fills him with resentment and bitterness. His preoccupation with charting a path of survival for

himself and his wife Adisa also led him into selling his blood intermittently: Idemudia saw himself nodding

and saying:

“Blood, sir!”

“Yes.”

“How much will you pay?” Osaro asked.

“How much do you want?” the man replied. “I want as many as four pints.”

“It is twenty-five naira a pint.” Osaro said.

The man laughed. “Twenty-five naira! That is too expensive.”




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“Then how much can you pay?”

“Ten naira a pint, nothing more, nothing less”… (Iyayi, 1979, p. 155)

The overwhelming sense of economic marginality drives Idemudia to declare rue his almost existential

sense of helplessness, “The things an empty stomach can drive a man to” he said to himself now, and shook his

head. “The things hunger can make a man to do!” (Iyayi, 1979, p. 157). Idemudia is vehemently against the

oppressive social system which arrests him in action or drives him to do the exact opposite of what he mostly

desires. What troubles him is not so much existential anguish but the absence of fairness in the distribution of

economic opportunities in Nigeria society. In spite of the social difficulties and economic marginality suffered by

the novel’s working-class characters, these individuals’ refuse to succumb completely to the criminal existence to

which they have been condemned. Idemudia’s courage, untarnished by the misery around, and his equally

uncorrupted love for Adisa are an assertion of human dignity in struggle. This is a central assertion which is

imbibed by members of the working class, and significantly buoys their determination to survive against all odds.

Most of these characters are not articulate about their marginality. Aside Idemudia, Osaro, and Omoifo, who are

assertive and often confrontational, Papa and Mama Jimoh, Patrick, Adisa, and the other reactionary elements at

the building site seem to have internalised their collective subjugation, they are crippled by the prevailing social

conditions. Their inability to take on their oppressors is rendered in terms of the physical details of their daily

activities which is mediated by outright passivity and subtle compromise. This tellingly recalls the feeble

personality of Adisa, who could not live out her courage, but succumbs to intense pressure from Obofun. Pa

Jimoh is also culpable of passivity, as can be seen in the incident where he is mistakenly detained by his employer

for allegedly taking out the official car after working hours. One would have expected him to protest his illegal

detention when it had been established that he was not guilty of the offence. But despite not being compensated,

he complacently accepts his dehumanisation.

Dialectic of Protest in Violence

The reactionary attitude of these individuals in the working class succinctly foregrounds the dialectic of

class stratification by wa Thiong’o (1981):

They would like to have a slave who not only accepts that he is a slave, but that he is a slave, because he is fated to

be nothing else but a slave. Hence he must love and be grateful to the master for his magnanimity in enslaving him to a

higher, nobler civilisation. (p. 12)

However, Idemudia, Osaro, and Omoifo frantically strive to restore self-worth and dignity to the image of

the working class. Through hard and debilitating tasks, they are determined to assert themselves and their

inalienable human identities. Their quest for social security and identity is encapsulated in the concrete and

specific terms of a definite social struggle; their protest against inhuman social conditions foistered upon them by

the elite in the form of poor remuneration at the building site. The workers’ strike provides the much-needed

opportunity to confront their social marginality headlong. Their triumph over social alienation comes when they

succeeded in forcing Queen to negotiate over the condition of work and remuneration. But such meeting is

marked by a pervasive cynicism, because it portends for the workers fear and humiliation symptomatic of a

tyranny of fear that elite oppression creates. Negotiation between the laborers at the building site, and Queen

should have normally promised something positive and realistic; an increase in the wages of the workers and




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better conditions of service. But its circumvention by Queen, through her sexual blackmail of Idemudia,

underscores a sign, not of disruption or change in the relationship between the elite and the working class, but of

continuity in the unchanging dialectic of oppressor and oppressed. Iyayi uses the dialectic of the elite/working

class to foreground empirical realities. Violence, for instance, uses the hospitalisation of Idemudia after

offloading bags of cement from a truck for Queen and his inability to pay his medical bills as a springboard to

criticise extortionist gambit of the elite. Idemudia’s quest for employment got him a job that demeaned him and

which subsequently made him sick, because he had to work in the rain amidst debilitating hunger. Consequently,

he fell ill because he was cold and hungry. The point of scathing criticism against the elite class in Violence is that

the elite economically emasculates the poor in order to perpetually gratify their gluttonous appetites.

Wealth as a Symbol and Disruption

Iyayi decries the unconscionable acquisition of wealth and moral decadence of the elite in the novel. Obofun

is presented as a man suborned by his acquisitive wife, Queen, and his contemporaries in the ministries like Dala

and Iriso. He pursues stupendous wealth through barefaced graft, and he is preoccupied with the use of his

position in a government ministry to aid his crooked get-rich-quick schemes. Obofun typifies a metaphor of

Nigerian urban elite which is steeped in social corruption and who craves insatiably after material possessions.

His wife, Queen, is a satirical portrait of a pseudo-enterprising woman, whose business trajectory is motivated by

sexual negotiations with powerful men in society as she voraciously pursues men who could facilitate her

building contract bids and guarantee the supply of supplies to her hotel and supermarket. Queen’s pervasive

sexual indulgence is robustly criticized by Iyayi. Her life comprises a world in which men intervene only as

passing characters: official or transitory lovers, suppliers, and weak husband. But beyond her momentary

relationship with any of these men is her repulsion to any emotional attachment to males generally. Her

relationship with the men in her life is played out in terms of power and domination. She is portrayed as heartless,

cold, calculating, and exploitative. This is demonstrated in her encounter with Iriso at the rendezvous on

Sakponba Road:

“Why do you think this will happen again?” she asked.

Iriso looked at the ceiling. “Won’t there be a next time?”

“The bitch,” he thought. “As if she is not going to need any more milk, eggs and meat. If she won’t need any of these,

she will need other things, and if a man supplies them, she is going to use her body to pay for them. Harlot” he spat out

towards the other side of the bed on the wall. (Iyayi, 1979, pp. 100-101)

The matrimony of Obofun and Queen epitomizes instability and collapse of a family structure among theelite, in which a wife pursues economic freedom so as to create an individuality and a separate personhood.

Queen is presented as a typical urban woman of the elite class in a post-colonial African society where most

socially pre-eminent women are pre-occupied with the zeal to be economically independent of their husbands,

and many often worship money above principles and values. The elite in Violence are engaged in infidelity and

drunkenness. The sanctions and taboos which shaped the traditional society and gave it its seeming stability,

dignity, and respectability are completely subverted, as everything takes second place to the relentless drive for

wealth. Obofun, Iriso, and Dala, who are supposed to be respectable husbands and fathers, plunge into decadence

and immorality. The uncontrollable subscription to corrupt practices also signifies the fragmentation of the




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hitherto secured family units as husbands and wives are neck deep in the feverish wealth-acquision syndrome,

thereby becoming vulnerable to sexual exploitation. Obofun does not care if Queen takes lovers and Queen in

turn realises that Obofun has mistresses. Iyayi’s knack for presenting the inner character of the elite class in the

novel and for describing their extra-marital activities affords him the narrative space to build up polemics for the

condemnation of the egoism, irrationality, and recklessness associated with them. Obofun and Queen are

marooned in a lifeless matrimony devoid of a conjugal relationship. Whatever co-habitation there is merely a

product of artificiality, as most outsiders do not have a glimpse of the sterility of their marriage.

Iyayi, however, in Violence, does not significantly stress the oppression of one gender by the other. He

creates a balance of judgment in the relationship between men and women, especially among the elites. The

portrait of men as harsh, dictatorial, and inconsiderate has its match in the portrait of women as callous, selfish,

and vindictive. While Obofun’s sexual predation ensnares Adisa in its web, Queen successfully seduces Iriso,

with Idemudia only narrowly escaping her snare. Queen is financially independent of Obofun. She is privileged

to enter into sexual relations with any man without other motives than that of emotional and sexual gratification.

Adultery, for Queen, is the ultimate possibility of exploring a relation devoid of utilitarian ethos. For Obofun and

other male members of the elite, adultery provides the sexual benefits of flaunting their wealth and success in

society. Since wealth is relatively concentrated in the hands of men, a woman needs a financial lift in order to

have a chance at a decent standard of living. But unfortunately, the elite males prey on the hapless wives of the

working class, as demonstrated in the amorous affair between Obofun and Adisa, Idemudia’s wife. Unlike Queen,

Adisa is not acting out of a sense of disillusionment with the institution of marriage, but Adisa’s vulnerable

position essentially derives from the fact that Idemudia does not adequately provide for her. She has an affair with

Obofun to raise the much-needed money for Idemudia’s hospital bills. Here, Iyayi sees the city as a site of

corruption where sex is commodified. Material wealth is seen as a weapon effectively deployed for the benefit of

prosperous men, and all women are placed in a position of powerlessness. But Iyayi does not seem to agree with

the notion that women have to adapt to their subordination in order to survive. Such subordination smacks of

oppressive, exploitative, and alienating arrangements that serve to further social control of the working class by

the elite in its entirety. Adisa is presented as the epitome of semi-literate, vulnerable, and poverty-ravaged

working class woman trapped in the throes of the cities of Nigeria, and whose social and economic survival is

determined by the urban elite.

The social and economic subjugation of the working class by the elite reflects a complex situation of

gender oppression intertwined with the rhetoric of class oppression. This remarkably posits how different forms

of exploitation are made possible within these structures of power relations in Violence. This reading further

places the novel within the limitations of a system where the working class’ prescribed roles as laborers and

mistresses constitute their entire sphere of action. Their actions, needs, and aspirations can thus be understood

only in relation to complacent subordination and so paradoxically turns those who benefit most from their

oppression, the elite, into their only benefactors. Iyayi appropriates the social gulf between the elite and working

classes to articulate the suffocating misery which broadly pervades the milieu of the novel. The theme of misery

and its effects are sharpened against the backdrop of wanton desolation as given attestation on the opening page

of the novel:




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Outside, the flood built up steadily and gradually. Owode Street, like its father, Ekenwan Road, was always

over-flooded any time the rain fell. Two days before, two houses had collapsed on the street. A small child had been

trapped in one of the buildings under the fallen mud walls. Fortunately, rescuers, including Idemudia, had dug the child

out in time. For the people who lived in the mud houses on Owode Street, there was now another major preoccupation:

which house would be the next to fall? (Iyayi, 1979, pp. 1-2)

This precarious habitation of the downtrodden in the novel is conceived as a metaphorical abyss where

human lives are cheap and fragmented. In a fundamental social sense, the run-down habitation of the working

class dramatises an aberration highlighted in elite opulence against working class despair and hopelessness.

Marxist Ideology and Social Consciousness in Iyayi’s Violence

Iyayi’s ideological disposition, as mediated in Marxist dialectics, is discernible in his interrogation of power

structures in the post-colonial Nigerian society, with its attendant variables of dominance, control, exploitation,

subjugation, and victimisation. In the view of Ngara, the ideological preoccupation of a writer “will in part

depend on his or her level of political consciousness”. Consequently, “whatever stance the writer takes

constitutes his or her authorial ideology”. Ngara (1990) defined further the concept of ideology:

Ideology refers to that aspect of the human condition under which people operate as conscious actors. Ideology is the

medium through which human consciousness works. Our conception of religion, politics, morality, art and science is

deeply influenced by our ideology. In other words, what we see and believe largely depends on our ideology, ideology

being the medium through which we comprehend and interpret reality… (p. 11)

The exploration of social relationship between the indigenous entrepreneurs and casual laborers in Violence

foregrounds Iyayi’s determination to expose the ideological bias of the Nigerian elite against the perspective of

the exploited majority to interrogate the class interests as significantly inscribed in the novel. The collective

plight of the underprivileged in ruthlessly competitive Nigerian urban cities sharpens the social consciousness of

Iyayi, and develops into truculent protest against the inhumanity of the elite. By so doing, his voice typifies the

voice of the oppressed. This is inscribed in the thematic preoccupation of Violence, the social background of

Idemudia, and the evocative style which is replete with ironic overtones. The novel’s title, Violence, articulates

the callous exploitation of the surplus labor of the working class in the novel without a commensurate

remuneration. This exploitation is vividly captured in the novel:

The Greek leaned back in his chair, relaxed. “He says what they send him to say. That they work very hard for too

little pay. Too many hours of work and too many sackings. Every day. Every hour. He says,” and the Greek paused, “he

puts it grandly,” the Greek continued: “He says it is violence!”

“Violence?”“Yes, violence.” (Iyayi, 1979, pp. 250-251)

Iyayi protests the exploitation and inhumanity to which the workers are subjected with characteristic power

and intensity of feeling. The poor pay and constant dismissal of the workers is nothing but calculated violence on

their social wellbeing. The narrative of Violence is that when a worker loses his job, he suffers certain degree of

social disruption and discontinuity. Such disruption is analogous to marginality. When this happens, such an

individual may take to armed robbery or other social vices. This has an undercurrent in the satiric play titled

Violence which is staged at the hospital. In the play, violence is used by both the elite class and the working class

as narratives for the evaluation of their respective class positions. The elite class appropriates violence as




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hegemonic narrative to examine the disruption of their social status by the activities of the working class, which if

not controlled could irreparably destroy their power base. Thus, social disruptions like armed robbery, mob

action, rioting, kidnapping, and assassination of members of the elite class are frowned upon. Codes in the name

of laws and legislations are therefore established to curtail such working-class interrogations. The working class

on its own part approves violence as a counter-narrative to decry their frustration, exploitation, and

dehumanisation by the elite. It also creates its own codes of reaction through the use of tactics like armed robbery,

kidnapping, drug-pedalling, and prostitution to subvert the elite’s hegemonic narrative. The narrative and

counternarrative of violence of both classes is clearly captured by Freire (1972):

Violence is initiated by those who oppress, who exploit, who fail to recognise others as people—not by those who

are oppressed, exploited and unrecognised. It is not the unloved who cause disaffection, but those who cannot love

because they love only themselves. It is not the helpless, subject to terror, who initiate terror, but the violent, who with

their power create the concrete situation which begets the “rejects of life”. (p. 32)

Iyayi’s identification with the oppressed is given prominence in the mobilisation of the laborers, led by

Idemudia, for a showdown with Queen. Such mobilisation is designed to champion the cause of the oppressed

members of the working class and also to project Marxist ideology as the only viable ideology which can question

and challenge class inequity in contemporary Nigeria. Thus, the laborers’ confrontation of Queen and Mr.

Clerides, the site engineer, is presented in Fanonian mode, in the form of a fearless and aggressive attitude, which

represents the new determination of the laborers to liberate themselves as prescribed by Fanon (1967), “At the

level of individuals, violence is a cleansing force. It frees the native from his inferiority complex and from his

despair and inaction; it makes him fearless and restores his self-respect” (p. 74). The confrontation of Queen by

the laborers strikes a chord of optimism in the trajectory of social struggle in the novel. The confrontation imbues

the laborers with the zeal of social consciousness, which doggedly pursued, could signal the eventual victory of

the oppressed over the oppressor. Iyayi’s advocacy of social change in Nigeria echoes Ebong’s (1986) call for

economic, political, and attitudinal change in Africa:

Africa is ripe for a revolution. It is not the promiscuous violent, bloody revolution of permissive wantonness to life

and property, not is it the cultural revivalism of black humanity asserting itself in protest against the indifference of the

West. The revolution for contemporary Africa presupposes the reorganisation and the restructuring of the African mind

and psyche. (p. 71)

Protest as invested in the laborers’ confrontation of Queen, the epitome of oppression orchestrated by the

elite, betrays Iyayi’s attempt to move beyond the ostensibly passive critical attitudes characteristic of

first-generation Nigerian writers like Chinua Achebe, Wole Soyinka, Gabriel Okara, J. P. Clark, and Chris

Okigbo, whose reactions to social issues in Nigeria are often perceived as reactionary by many second-generation

Nigerian writers. Iyayi as a representation of second-generation Nigerian writers clearly and confidently

articulates the dialectical relationship between the oppressor and the oppressed in Violence. Such articulation has

its undercurrent in Nigeria’s social, political, and economic problems which have become more pronounced in

recent years. Instead of merely portraying these inadequacies and shortcomings, Iyayi has stridently advocated

radical social change as a viable alternative to the situations depicted in the novel.

Iyayi is one of the few Nigerian writers who specifically extol the virtues of the working class in their works.

His concern with socio-political circumstances delineates the social structure and is mediated by a class analysis




155

of post-colonial Nigeria. The trajectory of Marxist consciousness has been successfully traversed by African

literary icons like Sembene Ousmane and Ngugi wa Thiong’o to evaluate the social, economic, and political

problems in their respective countries. While wa Thiong’o’s depiction of the working class as a leading force in

revolution is exemplified in Petals of Blood (1977), Ousmane presents the working class as a force that has the

capability to enforce socialist change in God’s Bits of Wood (1960). Iyayi not only adopts a class analysis

approach to Nigerian society but also indirectly advocates a complete alteration of existing social, economic, and

political systems. Prima facie, Ousmane, and wa Thiong’o unequivocally call for the inauguration of Marxist

society in their novels, but Iyayi does not explicitly advocate the emergence of a Marxist society in Violence.

Poverty and Protest

Iyayi employs the motif of poverty to protest the desperate living conditions in which the working class is

mired. Lack, want, and dire need provide the undertone for the lampoon of inequity in social distribution in the

novel. The critical evaluation of the manifestation of poverty from the Marxist point of view locates the narrative

of economic subjugation within the locale of dialectical materialism. It is a subjugation which could have

attracted criticism from other literary tropes, be their humanist or feminist. Nevertheless, it is imperative to state

that it is not the type of trope employed in the depiction of the appalling situation of poverty in the novel that

matters so much as its vivid depiction, which is reminiscent of the material poverty of the downtrodden in the

contemporary Nigeria. Such depiction is a reaction to the quintessential question by Spivak (1991):

What is very much a question for me at the moment is that if you are construed in one particular kind of language,

what kinds of violence does it do to your subjectivity if one then has to move into another language, and suppress

whatever selves or subjectivities were constructed by the first. (p. 66)

In Violence, the exploration of the living condition of the urban poor in contemporary Nigeria provides the

locus of the narrative of social condition, woven around Idemudia and Adisa’s attempt at coming to terms with

their society. The novel opens with the portrayal of the squalor and deprivation of Idemudia and Adisa which

underlie the vivid detail of the deprivation and destitution of the lives of the urban poor in Benin city, an urban

settlement in Nigeria. Motifs of lack and want are used as a signification to protest malignant poverty and its

devastating effects on Idemudia and Adisa who cannot afford the luxury of a wall clock but have to monitor the

time broadcast from the radiogram of their neighbors:

Open the window wider so that we can hear what the time it is. He and his wife, Adisa, were tenants in one of the

low mud but zinced houses along Owode Street, Adisa who had been sweeping the badly cemented floor of the room,

dropped the broom an stretched her hand across the table which stood against the window. The window screeched on its

hinges as it went wider. Adisa bent down to pick up the broom. Then she resumed her sweeping. The broom was so short

that she had to stoop substantially to sweep clean. (Iyayi, 1979, p. 1)

The desolation presented in this opening page foregrounds the semiotic of lack which permeates the lives of

the working class throughout the novel. Idemudia and Adisa are too poor to afford wristwatches or a wall clock.

They are quarantined in a rundown mud house that is vulnerable to flooding. The cemented floor of the dingy

solitary room is cracked, the broom is decrepit and the rusty window hinges underscore their level of

impoverishment. This graphic presentation of the decrepitude provides a counterpoint to the splendour of the vast

opulence of the chalet in Obofun’s guest house in the novel, “Again Adisa looked round the room. She noticed




156

the polished floor again, then the walls and the high ceiling painted white where the air-conditioner softly blew

cold air into the room” (Iyayi, 1979, p. 123).

This description is further complemented by the aesthetics of landscaping, which further accentuate the

glamour of the elite’s neighborhood:

Then there was the low window with its white curtains, drawn aside to let in some of the fading light of the day.

Each window had a mosquito net proofing directly attached to the wooden window frame. Outside the window the grass

grew and the hibiscus flowers stood in red and green splendour. And interwoven with the flowers were the pine trees

against which the wind blew, producing a whistling in their higher branches. (Iyayi, 1979, p. 122)

The comparison of the squalid habitation of Idemudia and the sumptuousness abode of Obofun encapsulate

the dialectical tragedy of the social, economic and political disequilibrium of post-colonial Nigeria. Iyayi engages

the motif of extreme poverty to protest the economic strangulation of the poor in the novel. The comparison of the

habitations further concretizes Iyayi’s protest against the corrupt practices of the elite in Nigeria, who divest

public funds meant to provide infrastructure for society to their own use. The juxtaposition of the two habitations

constitutes a repudiation of the economic emasculation of the poor by the elite in the novel. The poor in turn are

helpless and are engaged in their own struggle with an oppressive social system and a frustrating economic

system. The dynamics of social relationship in the novel are dictated by elite that is unsympathetic to the

condition of the poor.

Conclusions

The paper has examined class stratification in Iyayi’s Violence. It has been observed in the paper that the

squalid living of the poor reiterates the basic problem of economic insecurity which is transformed into class

struggle in the novel. For the poor whose lives are consigned to transcendental hopelessness, they are marooned

in their economic deprivation. Their awareness of this deprivation leads Idemudia, Omoifo, and Osaro to protest

against inhuman working conditions at the building site. The workers’ confrontation of Queen and the subsequent

threat to embark on strike if their demands are not met urgently is strongly endorsed by Iyayi. Violence is thus a

protest novel of class reconstruction, portraying and justifying the proletariat’s struggle for social and economic

liberation. The exemplary virtues of Idemudia, who led the protest against the elite class, are also given

resounding acknowledgment. His social and political consciousness make the workers aware of their exploitation

and inspires them to plunge into the protest against inhuman working conditions at the building site.

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Journal of Literature and Art Studies, ISSN 2159-5836

March 2013, Vol. 3, No. 3, 158-179

Contemporary Chinese Calligraphy Between

Tradition and Innovation

Adriana Iezzi

Sapienza University of Rome, Rome, Italy

Since the mid-1980s Chinese calligraphy art has undergone a radical change and has opened itself to experimentation.

A vivid debate on CCC (Contemporary Chinese Calligraphy) ( Zhongguo xiandai shufa) is involving art critics in

China nowadays. WANG Dongling and the modernists think that, despite many changes and influences, we can still

refer to the traditional calligraphic lexicon to describe the calligraphic production of contemporary Chinese art. They

still remain deeply rooted in the signified system of Chinese writing, even if they break with the strict rules of

Chinese classical aesthetic (contamination of Western elements and focus on t e stylistic exploration). WANG

Nanming and the Avant-garde think that “contemporary calligraphy is not calligraphy yet”: It is “anti-calligraphy”,

annihilates Chinese tradition, rejects the use of legible characters, experiments with new languages and new media

within the idiom of international contemporary art. The result is the creation of works of art that could be assimilated

to Abstract art, Abstract expressionism, Conceptual art, Performance art, Contemporary dance, Multimedia art, and

even Street art. This paper aims at showing how still valid and extremely productive are both these two theoretical

and creative/practical approaches to Chinese calligraphy in China nowadays. They turned the art of calligraphy into amedium for global comprehension and communication.

Keywords: CCC (Contemporary Chinese Calligraphy), modernism, Avant-garde, WANG Dongling, WANG

Nanming

Introduction

The art of Chinese calligraphy is much more than the art of producing beautiful writing decoratively

arranged to embellish surface. It represents one of the most important art form that has been practice in China

until now, and it is unique in a perspective of world art, because its particular features cannot be found in

European or Islamic writing. Chinese calligraphy is the only major art form in the world that allows the viewer to

retrace the creation on a finished work in all its consecutive phases, following with his eye the exact movements

of the brush and feeling the rhythm in the writer’s hand. It allows the viewer to experiment the factor of time on

the sensation of movement and to feel intimacy with the writer itself. It also represents a medium in which the

personality of the writer is revealed, and it is valued as an immediate expression of the individuality of the

calligrapher. Through the sheer calligraphic vitality of the brush, the artist expresses not only his inner world, but

also his awareness of the life of things in the world.

Adriana Iezzi, Ph.D. candidate, Department of Oriental Studies, Sapienza University of Rome.

DAVID PUBLISHING

D



CONTEMPORARY CHINESE CALLIGRAPHY BETWEEN TRADITION AND INNOVATION 159

The shapes of world images and of its powerful forces are embodied in the brushstrokes of calligraphic

artworks. In this perspective, “calligraphy” (shufa) not only represents “the art and the discipline of writing”, but

also reveals the “written paradigm” (“written” shu + “paradigm” fa) of the cosmic patterns. It becomes a means of

representation of the universal dynamism, that is of the world energy (qi) ordered by the universal principle (li),

as well as, an energetic extension of the human body in its psychophysical unity ( xin) and of the cosmic

substance1. The original meaning of the word “calligraphy” clearly discloses this assumption: The word

“calligraphy” (shufa) is indeed composed of the character shu that means “writing”, “written text”, and of the

term fa that means “law”, “method”, and “way”, but whose translation also connotes aspects of the terms

“paradigm”, “model”, “pattern”, “figure”, and “image”2. In addition to be considered as an aesthetic presentation

of the Chinese script styles, as a representation of things and ideas by graphic means, and as an artistic vehicle of

self-expression, a reflection of calligrapher’s inner being or the extension of the movement of their body3,

Chinese calligraphy is also be treated as the “embodied image” of the universal macrocosm.

Furthermore, throughout the centuries, calligraphy was not only a means of written communication, as it is

in any language, but also a political instrument of social control as well as it was an instrument of social cohesion

among the political and cultural elite of Chinese literati4. The art of calligraphy was intimately connected with the

art of poetry and with the art of painting, and it was one of the so-called “Three perfections” (san jue), that are

indeed poetry (shi), calligraphy (shu) and painting (hua)5. These were the three forms of art that every educated

official was expected to master in the China’s Empire and they usually were simultaneously used to shape a

single work of art. Because of its strict connection with the literary tradition and the classical writings,

calligraphy helped to contribute to the extraordinary cohesiveness of the Chinese artistic and cultural tradition.

From the fourth century onwards, classical models were canonized, the calligraphic techniques did not changed

any more, and the stability of aesthetic and stylistic standards ensured that the continuity principle of cultural

identity remains intact.

The Birth of Chinese Contemporary Calligraphy

From the end of the 19th century, especially after the collapse of the Chinese Empire (1911) and with the

advent of Communism (1949), the impressive stability and cohesiveness of the art of calligraphy began to fade.

After MAO Zedong’s death in 1976 and the so-called “Four Modernizations” brought about by DENG Xiaoping

in 1978, a process of “modernization” started in different fields of society, a process that has opened China to the

1 For futher information about the relationship among the Chinese concepts of qi, li, and xin in the context of Chinese calligraphy

aesthetics, see Pasqualotto, G. (2007), Figures of Thought: Works and Symbols in the Oriental Cultures (Figure di pensiero.Opere e simboli nelle culture d’Oriente) (pp. 105-127).2 For more details on this ethimological interpretation, see LIU, C. Y. (2000), “Embodying Cosmic Patterns: Foundation of an

Art of Calligraphy in China” (pp. 2-9). In this article, LIU explained that “The close relationship between brushstroke, character,and text, forms an integral continuum in the creation of writing (shu), and the operative link between them is fa —brush method

(bifa), written paradigm (shufa), and literary rules (wenfa)” (p. 2).3 For these different approaches on calligraphy, see the articles included in the exhibition catalogue SHEN, C. Y. F. (1977),Traces of the Brush. Studies in Chinese Calligraphy.4 See Ledderose, L. (1986), “Chinese Calligraphy: Its Aesthetic Dimension and Social Function” (pp. 35-50). The political andsocial function of calligraphy highlighted by Lothar Ledderose is not only a characteristic feature of Chinese ancient tradition, butit is also evident in modern times. See Kraus, R. C. (1991), Brushes with Power: Modern Politics and the Chinese Art of

Calligraphy.5 For more details about the relationship among poetry, painting, and calligraphy in Chinese art, see Sullivan, M. (1980), The

Three Perfections: Chinese Painting, Poetry and Calligraphy.




rest of the world. As to art, in 1979 the first Chinese Avant-garde artistic movement, called the “Stars group”6,

came into being. Calligraphy became so popular that in 1981 a CCA (Chinese Calligraphers’ Association)

( Zhongguo shufajia xiehui), founded by the government itself, gathered thousand of calligraphers. The artistic

atmosphere was very fervent and brought to the First Exhibition of Chinese Modern Calligraphy ( Zhongguo

xiandai shufa shouzhan), which represented the birth of CCC (Contemporary Chinese Calligraphy) ( Zhongguo

xiandai shufa) and of the modernist movement. The exhibition was held in October 1985 at the National Art

Museum of China in Beijing. The artworks displayed in the exhibition were 72 and all of the artists involved in

the exhibition were members of the “Chinese Modern Painting and Calligraphy Association” ( Zhongguo xiandai

shuhua xuehui). This association was founded in July 1985 and its major task was to successfully organize this

pivotal event. The most important calligraphers who took part in the exhibition were HUANG Miaozi

(1913-2012), ZHANG Ding (1917-2010), and LI Luogong (1917-1982), who belong to the old generation of

Chinese calligraphy masters, together with GU Gan (b. 1942), WANG Xuezhong (b. 1925), MA Chengxiang (b.

1937), and DAI Shanqing (1944-2004), who were the promoters of the exhibition7. Their works were neither

calligraphies nor paintings but they were something that participated both in calligraphy practice and painting

conceptions8. The ideas of “Expressionist calligraphy” and “Abstract art” were linked in the increasingly

pictographic shape of the characters, and in the abstract combination of dots and lines. The reinterpretation of the

traditional ideas of painting and calligraphy, the influence of contemporary Japanese calligraphy, the use of new

materials, and the emergence of new visions, leaded to new results in the artistic field as a reaction to the feelings

of the time and to changes in Chinese society. The most representative picture of the exhibition is entitled The

Mountains are Breaking up (Shan cui, see Figure 1) and its author is GU Gan, the coordinator of the exhibition

and of the modernist movement. The title of the picture reflects the spirit of the time: The word “breaking” (cui)

clearly suggests how calligraphy was symbolically rejecting old ideas and representing the birth of new ones.

Figure 1. GU Gan, The Mountains Are Breaking Up (Shan cui ) (1985), ink on paper,

93.5 cm x 87.5 cm, London, British Museum. Reproduced in Barrass (2002, p. 55).

6 For more details about the birth and the evolution of the “Stars group” (Xingxing ), see HUANG, R. (Ed.), (2007), Huang

Rui: The Stars’ Times, 1979-1984.7 For a detailed reconstruction of the exhibition planning process and of the different phases of the exhibition, see PU, L. P. &

GUO, Y. P. (2005), A Survey History from Chinese Contemporary Calligraphy to the Art of Chinese Characters ( Zhongguo

xiandai shufa dao hanzi yishu jianshi ) (pp. 19-24).8 The artworks displayed in the exhibition are gathered in the exhibition catalogue: WANG, X. Z. (Ed.), (1986), A selection of

works from the First Session of Chinese Modern Painting and Calligraphy Association ( Xiandai shuhua xuehui shufa shoujie

zuopin xuan ).




Even before the Modernist movement had fully gathered momentum, the first shoots of the Avant-garde

movement were beginning to sprout. The forerunner of the movement was the calligrapher BAI Qianshen (b.

1955): In 1981, he was the first to write eight formal Chinese “characters” which were in fact wholly unreadable,

because they were arbitrarily composed of section of different characters. In 1983, GU Wenda (b. 1955) craved

his first “Fake Characters Seal” with two seemingly authentic Chinese characters wholly unreadable yet. This

was the starting point for the artist’s experimentation and the beginning of his reflection upon Chinese

calligraphy and language that aimed to a complete deconstruction of both of them. The results of his attempt were

embodied in three important works: (1) The Mythos of Lost Dynasties (Yishi de wangchao, 1983-1987), a series

of big panels where he wrote meaningless and unreadable characters, based on the seal scripts; (2)

Pseudo-Characters Series ( Xugou wenzi xilie, 1984-1986, see Figure 2), a series of ink paintings in which he

used traditional calligraphic styles and techniques but subverted them with reversed, upside down or incorrect

letters; (3) Speechless #1-2 (Wu yan #1-2, 1985), one of the first pieces of Performance art in China, which was

held at the Hangzhou Academy of Art, pronouncing meaningless words in front of gigantic characters painted by

the author, and completely invented9.

Figure 2. GU Wenda, Pseudo-Characters Series: Contemplation of the World (1984) (detail),

ink on paper, 247.3 cm x 182.9 cm, collection of ZHEN Guo. Source: Bessire (2003, p. 198).

But was only in 1988 that the Avant-garde movement had its top with the works of three other important

artists:

(1) Red Humor ( Hongse youmo, 1986-1987, see Figure 3) by WU Shanzhuan (b. 1960): It consists of a

chamber whose walls are covered with Cultural Revolution slogans freely mixed with advertising pitches, and

ancient poems; on the floor four large characters say, “Nobody knows what it means”. Combining and

juxtaposing meaningless sentences of the mass cultural language, he “creates a kind of non-sensical or

9 For more details on these three works and others GU Wenda’s works related to calligraphy, see Chiu M. (2002), “The Crisis of

Calligraphy and the New Way of Tea: An Interview with Wenda Gu” (pp. 100-104).




multi-sensed text, by which he eliminated the illusion of any authorship” (M. L. GAO, 2000, p. 169).

(2) Book from the Sky (Tian Shu, 1987-1991, see Figure 4) by XU Bing (b. 1955): It consists of a huge

installation composed by the papers of a book printed with more than 4,000 thousand characters completely

meaningless, even if they look like Chinese characters. It represents a dramatic celebration of the universal

nonsense, and a powerful negation of Chinese history, culture, literature, and language10

.

(3) The third work is entitled The First Four Series ( Zuichu de si ge xilie, 1988-1989)11

by QIU Zhenzhong

(b. 1947). It was composed of four different series: “New Poems”, “Word Series”, “Signatures”, and “Characters

to Be Deciphered” (see Figure 5). For this last series, he took inspiration from characters carved on the pre-Qin

Dynasty (pre-221 B.C.) coins to write beautiful lines on paper, even if those characters have not been interpreted

yet in their linguistic meaning.

Figure 3. WU Shanzhuan, Red Humor (1986) (installed in Hangzhou, 1986), installation with works on paper,

dimensions variable, collection of the artist. Source: M. L. GAO (1998, p. 85).

Figure 4. XU Bing, Book from the Sky (1987-1991) (installed at the North Dakota Museum of Art, 1992), installation

with hand-printed books, dimensions variable, collection of the artist. Source: M. L. GAO (1998, p. 87).

10 For a detailed analysis of this work and others XU Bing’s works related to calligraphy, see Erickson, B. (2001), Words without

Meaning, Meaning without Words: The Art of Xu Bing.11 For a detailed analysis of this series, see QIU, Z. Z. (1989), The First Four Series (Guanyu zuichu de si ge xilie ji qita

(pp. 26-29).




Figure 5. QIU Zhenzhong, Characters to Be Deciphered No. 9 (1988), ink on xuan paper,

68 cm x 68 cm, collection of the artist. Source: Z. Z. QIU (1989, p. 28).

The Four Currents of CCC

From this moment onwards, as Barrass (2002) pointed out, four distinct trends became evident in the

evolution of the art of calligraphy:

Initially, by far the most influential of these was the continuation of the “Grand Tradition” of Classical calligraphy.

Then, in the middle 1980s, a Modernist movement emerged that created an entirely new genre of the art. Later, the

decline in the number of truly Classical calligraphers was offset by the rise of many younger Neo-classicists, who keep

the Classical idea alive by setting them within a modern context. More recently still, an Avant-garde movement has come

to the fore, exploring new artistic possibilities by combining calligraphic imagery and techniques with modern forms of

conceptual and Performance art. (p. 11)

According to Barrass (2002), four are the currents of CCC. The currents are Classicism, Neoclassicism,

Modernism, and Avant-garde. The last two ones are particularly important for the evolution of calligraphic art,

because they are based on experimentation which has brought to a radical change in the field, under the influence

of Japanese contemporary calligraphy and Western art. While Classicism and Neoclassicism still reflect the

traditional idea of calligraphy, Modernism and Avant-garde have modified the traditional concept of calligraphy

completely, so the analysis of these last two currents becomes of the utmost importance.

The Modernist and the Avant-Garde Movements12

Because since the mid-1980s calligraphy has undergone a radical change and has gradually lost itsconnection with Chinese language and with the traditional concepts of calligraphic art, a vivid debate on CCC is

involving art critics in China nowadays (J. S. FU, 1998, 2011; Y. G. ZHANG, 1998; Q. S. ZHU, 2004; T. M.

GAO, 2004; Z. Z. QIU, 2004; D. Z. CHEN, 2005; Z. C. LIU, 2006; M. X. CHENG, 2006; A. G. ZHANG, 2008;

C. M. LIU, 2010). Professor WANG Dongling (b. 1945) is the main representative of the modernists’ point of

view, while Professor WANG Nanming (b. 1962) belongs to the Avant-garde. The two have contrastive opinions

on CCC, because WANG Dongling (2005, 2011, pp. 6-11) sustained that CCC was still calligraphy, while

WANG Nanming (1994, 2005, pp. 12-14) sustained that CCC was not calligraphy yet.

12 In this section, Chinese-English translations are by the author (see WANG Dongling, 2005; WANG Nanming, 2005).




The Modernist Movement

In the details, WANG Dongling (2005) wrote that “contemporary calligraphy is still calligraphy” (p. 10),

characterized by two main elements: firstly, the aesthetic flavour and the spiritual value or content of the

traditional calligraphy; and secondly, the concepts of contemporary art (D. L. WANG, p. 6). Using the words of

WANG Dongling (2005), this means that, “Contemporary creative action needs the support and the comparison

with the tradition” (p. 7), because “it is from traditional calligraphy that contemporary calligraphy was arisen” (p.

10). But modernism, as intended by WANG Dongling, also includes the characteristics, the quality, and the

substance of contemporary art, especially Abstract art. WANG Dongling argues that a new interpretation of the

concept of Abstract art is still existing in the concept of traditional calligraphy. As early as the first century A.D.,

Eastern people had already revealed the power of abstraction in calligraphy and ink painting. During the Eastern

Han dynasty (25-220 A.D.), when the famous Chinese scholar CAI Yong (132-192) talked about calligraphy with

other eminent literati, he first used the metaphor of “abstract lines” to describe calligraphic lines. This idea of

“abstract calligraphy” gradually settled in the Chinese people’s minds and became a distinctive feature of

Chinese aesthetic perception. Since then, sensitivity towards abstract forms of art became much deeper in

Chinese people than in Western people, and, as a consequence, as WANG Dongling (2005, p. 8) aptly observed:

Eastern people have recently come into contact with Western Abstract art and this contact has (re)awakened the

aesthetic power of Chinese abstract line.

As a whole, CCC also reflects a deep influence of the new artistic Chinese waves ( Zhongguo xiandai yishu

xinchao), especially of the ’85 New Wave Art Movement ( Bawu xinchao), as well as the influence of Japanese

calligraphy Avant-garde ( Riben de qianwei shufa/ Riben xiandai shufa) and European and American art (Ou-Mei

xiandai yishu/ Nalaizhuyi) (D. L. WANG, 2005, p. 10; L. F. QU, 2008, p. 108). This is why WANG Dongling

(2005, p. 11) wrote: Even if calligraphy is a very ancient and traditional art, in its modern use it is expression of

contemporary reality both in the form and in the content.

Thanks to his own experience as contemporary artist and calligrapher who travelled around the world and

lived abroad for many years (he lived in the USA from 1989 to 1992, and in Japan from 1993 to 1994), he became

conscious of the fact that in addition to being a free-spirited, independent thinker with a strong personality who

possesses creativity and artistic sensitivity, a contemporary Chinese calligrapher must also have great knowledge

of Chinese classical culture and have assiduously practiced the traditional arts. Moreover, besides these basic

requirements, a contemporary Chinese calligrapher should have a modern way of thinking, and he should pay

attention to real life and cultural trends. He should be interested in Western culture, and he should absorb the best

of Western tradition. Although well-versed in every field of learning, his first purpose should be to establish a

solid alliance between Chinese and Western art. At the end of his article, WANG Dongling (2005) explained that:

To be a “contemporary calligrapher” you firstly need to be a “contemporary artist”. […] To be a “contemporary

artist” you need to absorb the best of human culture. Only by doing so can you enrich yourself and develop your own.

(p. 11)

In conclusion, Professor WANG Dongling sustains that contemporariness of an art not always means the

subversion of the tradition: He thinks that this is a narrow-minded way of thinking that ignores the pluralism of

people’s contemporary life and the richness of people’s spiritual needs. He stresses the point that the




contemporariness of calligraphy finds expression in two aspects: The first, the fine taste and the spiritual value of

the tradition is the source of restructuring a spiritual homeland in the contemporary time, and the eternity of

calligraphy aesthetics can fill the spiritual hollowness cause by aesthetic fatigue. The second, the contemporary

art concepts can be used to deconstruct and reorganize the artistic and humanistic value of the traditional

calligraphy, thus providing cultural genes in the construction of the contemporary art and cultural philosophy. As

WANG Dongling demonstrates, supported by other art critics (Barrass, 2002; Y. ZHANG, 2005, pp. 20-21; C. H.

HU, 2005, pp. 22-25; Y. S. YANG, 2009, pp. 201-233), in the theoretical reflection of the Modernist movement,

tradition and contemporary features are well-balanced and completely intermingled.

This is true not only in the theoretical field but also in the practical approach and in the creative work of the

modernist calligraphers. In fact, they still remain deeply rooted in the signified system of Chinese writing, even if

they break with the strict rules of Chinese classical aesthetics, focusing on the stylistic exploration. In their works,

they reduce the number of characters drastically and reshape them creatively, especially because they are

influenced by the Japanese calligraphy current named “Few Characters” (shaozishu)13

. As GU Gan (2000)

explained, modernist calligraphers focus on the use of few essential characters imbued with high aesthetic values,

because their aim is to combine aesthetic pleasure and meaningful content. Chinese characters become something

similar to “symbols” which enlighten the viewers’ minds, in a way they can understand the meaning of what they

are contemplating even if they do not know the linguistic meaning. Of the four script forms, they prefer the

cursive and the seal scripts rather than the others. They use the cursive script (caoshu) because it is the most

abstract one, and the seal script ( zhuanshu) because it is the most pictographic one. For example, the Taiwanese

woman calligrapher TONG Yang-tze (b. 1942) uses the cursive script, and more specifically the “wild cursive

script” (kuangcao), inspired by the Tang calligrapher HUAI Su (737?-799?) (see Figure 6), while the

Sino-Australian calligrapher HUANG Miaozi uses the seal script, combined with brilliant colors and geometric

schemes inspired by native Australian art (see Figure 7).

Figure 6. TONG Yang-tze, A Perfect Square Has No Angles ( Da fang wu yu ) (2007), ink on gilded paper,

137 cm x 69 cm, Goedhuis Contemporary Gallery. Source: Goedhuis Contemporary Gallery website.

13 The influence of contemporary Japanese calligraphy on the Chinese counterpart is enormous, especially since 1972, when thediplomatic relations between the two countries were re-established. Many exhibitions on contemporary Japanese calligraphy took place in China from 1977 to 1985: (1) in 1977 and in 1982, two group exhibitions on contemporary Japanese calligraphy; (2) in

1982 an exhibition on contemporary Japanese seals; (3) in 1983, another group exhibition on the artistic and calligraphicinterchanges between the two countries; and (4) finally in 1985, a solo-exhibition of the famous Japanese calligrapher TeshimaYūkei (1901-1987), the leader of the “Few Characters” current. This current, characterized by the use of few characters or only

one character for each calligraphic work, was focused on the experimentation in the use of ink effects and in the spatialarrangement of the composition. For more details on this current, see: ZHENG, L. Y. & CAO, R. C. (1986). Japanese Modern

Calligraphy ( Riben xiandai shufa ), pp. 125-134. The influence of Japanese calligraphy is so relevant for the

Modernist movement because most of the modernist calligraphers stayed in Japan for months or years, for example, WANG

Xuezong from 1982 to 1984, and WANG Dongling from 1993 to 1994.




Figure 7. HUANG Miaozi, Dream of Flowers, Plants and the Three World Ages in Suzhou (2009),

ink and color on paper, 75 cm x 140 cm, private collection. Source: Photographed by the author.

The contamination of styles is another important feature of the Chinese modernist movement, which is

strongly influenced by Western art, especially by the Western Abstract art. This contamination is clearly visible

in all of the modernists’ artworks, for example, in LI Luogong’s pictures, deeply influenced by Fauves artists,

especially by the French painter Maurice de Vlamnick; or in WANG Dongling’s calligraphies, stronglyinfluenced both by European Abstract art, particularly by the Russian painter Vassily Kandinsky, and American

post-World War II art movements; and also in GU Gan’s paintings, admirably contaminated by the works of Paul

Klee (see Figures 8-9) and Antoni Tàpies.

Figure 8. Paul Klee, Embrace (1939), pastel, watercolor and oil on canvas,

232 cm x 234 cm. Hanover, Dr. B. Sprengel collection.

Figure 9. GU Gan, Opening up (Kai yi guguo zhi men ) (1995), mixed media,

99 cm x 101 cm. London: British Museum. Source: Barrass (2002, p. 189).

Finally, as Z. J. LIU (1999) noted, another important characteristic of the modernist movement is the

pictorial approach to calligraphy. In this case, the modernists try to exploit the full range effects that have long

been known to Chinese painters, including the use of colored ink, or flecked ink with water, in order to obtain

stratified ink effects. They have also never rejected the use of the “Four treasures of the study” (wenfangsibao),




such as paper, writing brush, ink stick, and ink stone, that are the traditional tools of all Chinese calligraphers and

painters, even if they sometimes make small changes in their use: Tong Yang-tze, for example, usually writes on

gilded paper instead of white/plain paper (see Figure 6), GU Gan experiments with the use of acrylic paint on

paper and wood (see Figure 9), and WANG Dongling is famous for his calligraphy made on newspaper collage

(see Figure 10) or on magazine sheets (see Figure 11).

Figure 10. WANG Dongling , Feeling and Passion (1999), ink on newspapers,

56 cm x 81.2 cm, London: British Museum. Source: Barrass (2002, p. 168).

Figure 11. WANG Dongling, Untitled (2012), white ink on a magazine sheet of paper,21 cm x 30 cm, artist collection. Source: Photographed by the author.

In conclusion, in the works of all Chinese modernist calligraphers, tradition and contemporary features are

completely combined and intermingled, and this is true not only for their theoretical conception but also in their

formal execution and artistic practice.

The Avant-Garde Movement

The Avant-garde movement, instead, points out that “Contemporary calligraphy is not calligraphy yet”

( Xiandai shufa bu shi shufa), as Professor WANG Nanming wrote in his book entitled Understanding Modern

Calligraphy ( Lijie xiandai shufa) (1994). To this movement, contemporary calligraphy is a sort of

“anti-calligraphy” (N. ZHANG, 1999; Q. G. QIAN, 2002; X. JIANG & D. L. WANG, 2005; L. F. QU, 2008),

because it produces a kind of de-construction of traditional calligraphy, in a sense, a sort of negation of it.

According to Professor N. M. WANG (2005), “What links contemporary calligraphy to the traditional one is its

radical opposition to it” (p. 12). In contrast with WANG Dongling’s point of view, he sustains that

contemporariness of an art always means the subversion of the tradition. In WANG Nanming’s opinion, CCC is

an independent Avant-garde form of art, which is particularly influenced by the Western Abstract expressionism.

This means that contemporary calligraphy is not discussed with reference to the self-sufficient system of

calligraphy, but is considered in terms of a modern Avant-garde form in isolation of calligraphy. N. M. WANG

(2005) also believed that the function of calligraphy in contemporary calligraphy is more to meet a “need of




‘hinting”’ (“anshi” de xuyao, p. 12) than to prove the value of calligraphy itself. In other words, contemporary

calligraphy not only has connection with their tradition but also appears as an opponent. Failure to realize this

point results in the so-called inappropriate “modern” or “Avant-garde” calligraphy. To him, “the concept of

‘contemporary calligraphy’ is only a temporary/transitional concept” (N. M. WANG, 2005, p. 12), because it

mirrors only the time when it is used. Therefore, he sustains that it is necessary to overshoot this inadequate

concept and explore new linguistic possibilities. To support his theory, he then analyzes the works of

contemporary Chinese artists, such as CHEN Guangwu (b. 1967) and WU Wei (b. 1963), that he considers

“post-abstract” and “Conceptual art” calligraphers.

According to WANG Nanming’s analysis (1994), the Avant-garde Art breaks with the tradition completely,

aims at a radical, total transformation of calligraphic art, rejects the use of legible characters, and experiments

with new languages and new media within the idiom of international contemporary art. All this, in order to

challenge conventional thinking and, above all, to make people reflect upon human condition. As GAO Minglu

explained (1998), in the Avant-garde Art: “The most influential artistic and philosophical sources were Dada14

and traditional Chan (Zen) Buddhism. […] The influence of Chan Buddhism, which like Dada, attempts to break

free from any doctrine, dogma, text, or authority” (p. 159).

In the details, two main currents characterize the Avant-garde movement: The first one, called with different

names, such as “Endgame art” (Chang Tsong-zung, as cited in Sullivan, 1996, p. 279), “art-and language

movement” (Bryson, 1998, pp. 51-58), and “Conceptual art” (M. L. GAO, 1998, pp. 158-166), particularly

focuses on the deconstruction of the writing system and language (the artists GU Wenda, XU Bing, WU

Shanzhuan, and QIU Zhijie belong to this sub-current); while the second one focuses especially on the

calligraphic line, intending it as the performance in itself and as its abstract beauty as well (the artists WEI Ligang,

PU Lieping, QIN Feng, ZHANG Dawo, ZHANG Qiang, etc., belong to this other sub-current).

It is interesting to note that while traditional calligraphy has always been simultaneously a “verbal art” and

an “Abstract art” (Y. G. ZHANG, 1998), the “art of writing characters” ( xiezi yishu) and the “art of writing lines”

( xiantiao yishu) (C. M. LIU, 2010), in the Avant-garde view, instead, calligraphy splits into these two parts and

becomes a “verbal art” or an “Abstract art”, the “art of writing (un-meaningful) characters” or the “art of writing

(painting-like) lines”. If it becomes a “verbal art”, its aim is the deconstruction and the annihilation of the Chinese

writing system that becomes unreadable and meaningless; the aesthetic flavour and the abstract beauty of the line

and of the calligraphy composition are no longer important and the artists focus on the concept behind the artwork.

On the other hand, if it becomes an “Abstract art”, and the artists try to forget the connection between calligraphy

and language. Although they give up the system of Chinese written characters, they do not shake off the structural

composition and the formal pattern arranged on the “calligraphic line”. In this way, the aesthetic perception is

similar to the structure of Chinese characters and to the structural composition of a piece of traditional calligraphy,

but no characters have been written, and no texts can be read. The result is something more similar to abstract

painting than to calligraphic work. In both cases, the artworks do not have “written characters with meaning” that

could interfere with the pure visual image. This means that signs no longer belong to the “code of readable written

14 The Rauschenberg’s solo-exhibition which took place in Beijing in 1985 was foundamental for the Avant-garde movement.

The exhibition, entitled “Rauschenberg’s International Traveling Exhibition” (Laosenboke zuopin guoji xunhuizhan

), was held at the National Art Museum of China from November 18 to December 8, 1985.




language” (only understandable by a Chinese audience), but in the first case to the “code of rational thoughts” and

in the second case to the “code of emotional feeling” (Q. G. QIAN, 2002, p. 56) that can appeal respectively to

“the ability to reflect and question” or to “the aesthetic sense” of contemporary people all over the world. In this

way, from being a local form of art, calligraphy opens itself to the global comprehension.

The differences between the modernist and the Avant-garde movements are also evident: For the modernists

Chinese tradition is fundamental; while for the Avant-garde artists, it is only an important part of their

educational training, it is the starting point of their art, but it is not involved in the creative process, except in

cases of opposition to it. In the Avant-garde practice, traditional tools are usually replaced with new methods and

new media, such as photography, computer technology, Performance art, video art, etc.; and the influence of

Western art, especially of Western modern and contemporary art, is wide-ranging and extremely productive, and

it is not only limited to Abstract art.

As a result of all this, the Chinese Avant-garde movement becomes international, because it creates new

works of art that cannot be assimilated to the self-sufficient system of traditional calligraphy, as WANG

Nanming has aptly observed (see above). The author thinks that they should be assimilated to universally

comprehensible forms of art, closely connected with Western art, such as Abstract art, Abstract expressionism,

Conceptual art, Performance art, Contemporary dance, Multimedia art, and even Street art/Graffiti art (see

Figure 12).

Figure 12. A schematic model of the main tendencies of the Avant-garde movement arranged by the author.




It is important to clarify that this categorization is not completely fixed and has not rigid frame, but it is

flexible and dynamic, because it reflects the contemporariness of international Avant-garde art. This means that

the above mentioned artists can simultaneously belong to more than one category, because their works can share

the characteristics belonging to different categories. Because they are all-around artists, they not only create work

of art that has connection with the art of calligraphy, but they have been selected by the author, because the

reflection upon the art of calligraphy is the major (or one of the major) topic of their artistic fatigue. So, in the

author’s intention, this is only an attempt to systematize an extremely complex and vividly debated subject.

As to Abstract art, it is of utmost importance to note that contemporary Chinese artists, belonging to both

modernism and Avant-garde movement, are clearly influenced by Western Abstract art, even if in different ways.

In modernists works, we can still recognize the shape of Chinese characters, for example in GU Gan’s picture,

inspired to the European artist Paul Klee (see Figures 8-9), while in Avant-garde artists we can only contemplate

the outstanding beauty of the line, for example in PU Lieping’s picture, inspired to Mirò’s works, or in WEI

Ligang’s picture, influenced by Paul Klee and Brice Marden’s works (see Figures 13-15).

Figure 13. Paul Klee, Viscosity Etching III (1930 ca.), 14 cm x 11 cm, private collection.

Figure 14. Brice Marden, Vine (1992-1993), oil on flax canvas, 240 cm x 255 cm,

New York: Museum of Modern Art. Source: MoMA website.




Figure 15. WEI Ligang, Odiferous Thornbush Near Headstream and Flying at Riverbank (detail) (2008), ink and

acrylic on paper, 198 cm x 250 cm, Goedhuis Contemporary Gallery. Source: Goedhuis Contemporary Gallery

website.

As to Abstract expressionism and its influence on Chinese Contemporary artists, it would be useful to read

what Sullivan (1973) wrote about Abstract expressionism and CCC:

Abstract expressionism and Action Painting put the Oriental painter in a totally new relationship with Western art.

Now suddenly calligraphic abstraction became respectable. […] It was the impact of the New York school after the war

that drove them to discover, or rather to rediscover, the Abstract Expressionist roots of their own tradition. Art since 1945

has in any case become, and today the stimulus is likely to go from East to West as in other direction. The complaint that

the work of some Oriental painters is no longer really Oriental has ceased to have any meaning. (pp. 179-180)

This is especially true for Chinese Abstract Expressionist calligraphers, like, for example, QIN Feng (b.

1961) (see Figure 17) and ZHANG Dawo (b. 1943) (see Figure 18), which styles have been visibly contaminated

by the Western Abstract Expressionist artist Franz Kline (see Figure 16).

Figure 16. Franz Kline, Chief (1950), oil on canvas, 148.3 cm x 186.7 cm,

New York: Museum of Modern Art. Source: MoMA website.




Figure 17 . QIN Feng, Civilization Landscape (2004), ink on silk and fiber paper,

140 cm x 400 cm, collection of the artist. Source: QIN Feng official website.

Figure 18. ZHANG Dawo, The Star of the City, a Rock and Roll Singer (2011), ink on paper,

162 cm x 94 cm, private collection. Source: ZHANG Dawo official website.

As to Conceptual art, the main representative artists are XU Bing and GU Wenda, that have been already

analyzed before as the authors of Book from the Sky and The Mythos of Lost Dynasties; QIU Zhenzhong and WU

Shanzhuan, that have been already named before as the authors of The First Four Series and The Red Humor ;

QIU Zhijie (b. 1969), who, for example, invented the so-called “light-calli-photography” (S. M. GAO, 2006, p.

11) (see Figure 19), which transforms the traditional calligraphy practice through the use of flash-light (the brush)

and colored photography (the ink and the paper); and eventually WANG Nanming, who shaped his Combinations

of Balls of Characters (see Figure 20), composed by the balls of rejected paper that he accumulated during his

calligraphy practice.

Figure 19. QIU Zhijie, Lightwriting: The Heart Sutra n. 22 (Guangxie shufa: Xin Jing n. 22 22)

(2005), photograph, 133 cm x 100 cm, collection of the artist. Source: QIU Zhijie official website.




Figure 20. WANG Nanming, Combination: Ball of Characters (1992), ink on paper, 120 cm x 100 cm, Pusan

Metropolitan Art Museum. Source: N. M. WANG (1994, cover of the Understanding modern calligraphy).

Reflection on calligraphy is also the starting point for many Chinese performers. For example, this is clearly

visible in the works of ZHANG Qiang (b. 1962), who is the founder of the so-called “traceology” ( Zongjixue, see

more in Q. ZHANG, 2006), the method he always uses in his calligraphic performances, centred on enlisting the

aid and the active collaboration of a female partner in creating his works (see Figure 21). In 2008, he also founded

the “Biface Group” with a Belgium woman artist, Lia WEI (b. 1986) (see Figure 22); since then they create

monumental site-specific installations of huge panels entirely covered by calligraphic lines (see Figure 23) (see

more in Q. ZHANG & WEI, 2012). Other important performers who connect their artistic practise with

calligraphy conceptions are the world-famous SONG Dong (b. 1966) and ZHANG Huan (b. 1965).

Figure 21. A calligraphic performance by ZHANG Qiang. Source: Barrass (2002, p. 256).

Figure 22. Biface Graphy at work. Source: Q. ZHANG and WEI (2012, p. 74).




Figure 23. Biface Graphy, Flying White (Feibai ) (2011), mixed media installation,

Chengdu. Source: Q. ZHANG and WEI (2012, p. 44).

Calligraphy is also a source of inspiration for many contemporary Chinese dance companies: First of all,

for the Cloud Gate Dance Theatre of Taiwan which staged three ballets, entitled “Cursive I” (2001), “Cursive II”

(2003), and “Wild Cursive” (2005), totally inspired by calligraphic movements, and in particular by cursive

script rhythm (see Figure 24). Other companies who take inspiration from calligraphy for their choreographiesare the Guangdong Modern Dance Company in mainland China, the Shen Wei Dance Arts and the Yin Mei

Dance in New York, and even the City Contemporary Dance Company in Hong Kong. It is interesting to note

that these companies have their headquarters not only in mainland China but also abroad (Taiwan, Hong Kong,

and United States).

Figure 24. Cloud Gate Dance Theatre of Taiwan, Cursive I (2001). Behind the dancer, the Tong Yang-tze’s workentitled Pan ( Hard Stone) is part of the backdrop. Source: Cloud Gate Dance Theatre of Taiwan website.

As to Multimedia art, the most experimental artist in the field is undoubtedly FENG Mengbo (b. 1966). In

his work he connects calligraphy with computer software, GPS (Global Position System) technology and even

video-game. For example, in his work entitled The Invisible Words: A GPS Calligraphy Project (2006) (see

Figure 25), he uses GPS technology to “write” Chinese characters across city maps and oceanographic charts.

The artist travels the route (in “kilometres’ long brush strokes”) determined for him by the shape of an

ideogram and records the result as he goes. Then, in one of his last works, entitled Not too Late (2010), he adds

the element of Chinese calligraphy to a video-game. Based on the concept of Quake III Arena, he creates his




own MOD (modification), in which the time frame is totally slowed, so that the trajectory of the slowly

movement is clearly visible on the screen. As a consequence, the scenes are not as violent and bloody as in the

original game, and the trajectory of bullets and fire is largely preserved, but the scene looks like a calligraphic

masterpiece (see Figure 26).

Figure 25. FENG Mengbo, The Invisible Words: A GPS Calligraphy Project (2006),

mixed media (Moreton Bay, November 2006).

Figure 26. FENG Mengbo, Not too Late ( Bu tai wan ) —Shot 0107 (2013), ink and archive grade inkjet on

Hahnemühle Museum Etching Paper, 24 cm x 88 cm. Source: Chamber of Fine Art website.

The influence of Chinese calligraphy practise in the Avant-garde art is evident even in Street art/Graffiti art.

The most remarkable examples in this field are the “calligraphy graffiti” (see Figure 27) by Tsang Tsou Choi, the

so-called “King of Kowloon” (1921-2007) in Hong Kong: Executed using brush and ink, his graffiti have been

spotted at many places on the streets of Hong Kong (lampposts, utility boxes, pillars, pavements, street furniture,

and building walls), and they recorded his complaints about the supposed misappropriation of his land by the

government itself. On the other hand, in mainland China, in the works of some of the most famous Chinese Street

art crews, such as the KwanYin Clan in Beijing, Popil and Dezio in Shanghai, and The Kong 2 Crew in Changsha,




the attempt to blend the art of Western bomb-lettering and the art of Chinese calligraphy is clearly visible and

extremely successful (see Figure 28).

Figure 27. King of Kowloon: One of his works on a utility box in Hong Kong.

Figure 28. KwanYin Clan-TIN, Shen gong yi jiang ( New Artistic Creation) (2010), graffiti on wall,

Beijing. Source: KwanYin Clan official blog.

Conclusions

As it has just been shown, the art of calligraphy is still extremely productive in China nowadays, especially

through the Modernist and Avant-garde movements. Even if with different theoretical and practical/creative

approaches, fully and aptly analyzed by Professor WANG Dongling (see above) and Professor WANG Nanming

(see above), both the movements reflect the main aim of Chinese contemporary society at dialectically facing

their past tradition and at opening to a new one as well.

Because the essence of both movements lies in their variability, they stress difference, emphasize

contemporariness, and try to fuse many diverse methods, types, and styles of art, thereby breaking with historical

practice and opening to foreigner influences. These influences, even if of different origins (from Japanese modern

calligraphy and Abstract art in the Modernist movement, and from Western conceptual and experimental art in

the Avant-garde movement), encourage greater expressive freedom, thereby affording more direct artistic

accessibility. The result is that all of the works presented can be appreciate quickly and world-wide: In the




modernists’ works, even if the content of words usually continues to be dependent on the artistic form, the

emphasis is on the spatial elements and of the pictorial and architectural use of lines, dots, and colors, that appeal

directly to everyone eyes; on the other hand, in the Avant-garde works, the outstanding beauty of the line, the

conceptual idea behind the work, and the use of new methods and new media, completely independent from the

linguistic content, freely open to the world-wide comprehension. In all of these works, the artists try to combine

different types of calligraphy and different types of art, thus rendering calligraphy even more complex and more

difficult to identify, as the art critics point out. Seeking greater variation of artistic form, the art of calligraphy

changes its characteristics and becomes only a segment of the creative process, even if the most important one.

In fact, for all the artists presented, Chinese calligraphy represents the starting point but not the finishing line

of a creative process. Reflecting new social realities in China itself and new perspectives in global art world, their

approach is closer to cotemporary aesthetics than to traditional practice, but both of the elements are essential to

understand the present and unprecedented developments of this most traditional art. Theirs are, above all, an

attempt to create a new artistic language that can turn the art of calligraphy into a medium for communication and

global comprehension.

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Community Mediation in Malaysia: A Comparison Between

Rukun Tetangga and Community Mediation in Singapore

Hanna Binti Ambaras Khan

International Islamic University Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Malaysia is a multicultural, multireligious, and multiethnic country that is located in Southeast Asia. The social

background of Malaysia as a multicultural state calls for the adoption of an alternative method to resolve

community dispute which would offer solution and simultaneously promote harmonization in the society.

Community mediation may be one of such alternative, if not the best method for interethnic relations. The

government of Malaysia has introduced community mediation in Malaysia by providing training for community

mediators through a pilot program, known as Rukun Tetangga (Peaceful Neighbor). The purpose of this program is

to promote unity among the multi-races and multiethnic citizens. This paper will refer to the current practice of

community mediation in Malaysia as provided by the National Unity Department in Peninsula Malaysia and the

practice of community mediation in Singapore. It is hoped that by comparing the practices in both countries,

suggestions and recommendations could be made to improve the practice of community mediation in Malaysia.

Keywords: ADR (Alternative Dispute Resolution), community mediation, Rukun Tetangga, law, Malaysia,

neighborhood, Singapore

Introduction

Community mediation has become a popular method of dispute resolution. It is well established in many

developed countries such as the United Kingdom, United States of America, Australia, etc.. In Asian countries,

this method of dispute resolution has been in practice traditionally for a long time. For example, mediation is

considered as an ancient concept and is deep rooted in Indian culture whereby any dispute that arises will be

resolved at the community level in a panchayat 1. This concept has always been enshrined in the Indian culture

2.

Currently, this old system has been adopted in the modern Indian social system administration and served as the

backbone of the present society3.

Singapore and Malaysia shared the same history of traditional or informal mediation. Singapore, however,

Hanna Binti Ambaras Khan, Ph.D. student, Department of Legal Practice, International Islamic University Malaysia.1 Delhi Mediation Center, History (Online). Retrieved from http://delhimediationcenter.gov.in/introduction.htm.2 Delhi Mediation Center, History (Online). Retrieved from http://delhimediationcenter.gov.in/introduction.htm. Panchayat meansa village council, a former group of five influential older men acknowledged by the community as its governing body and an

elective council of about five members organized in the republic of India as an organ of village self-government. The member of panchayat will be elected by the people yearly. The panchayat will make decision with regard to the social issue of the villagers.The council leader is called as sarpanch and the council member is the panch.3 Panchayat System in India (Online). Retrieved from http://www.indianetzone.com/40/panchayat_system_india.htm.

DAVID PUBLISHING

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A COMPARISON BETWEEN RUKUN TETANGGA AND COMMUNITY MEDIATION 181

has established formal or institutionalized CMC (Community Mediation Center) modeling the developed

countries CMC in 1998. The center manages to settle disputes and maintain harmony among the people in the

neighborhood. Community mediation is a type of mediation that is chosen as a method of dispute resolution to

the neighborhood problems because of the flexibility and informality of the proceses, and it brings the disputing

parties together in the presence of a community mediator, a neutral party, who assists them to work out their

problems with each other, clarify the issues, discuss their opinions, and eventually reach a consensual settlement

to their problems after having explored all options (Baig, 2010, p. 157).

The government of Malaysia through the DNU (Department of National Unity) has introduced Community

Mediation Program by providing training to grassroot leader in a pilot program, Peaceful Neighbor ( Rukun

Tetangga) to be a community mediator. However, the government is yet to establish a center to accommodate the

mediators and sets of rules or regulation or law to govern community mediation practice. This paper will refer to

the current practice of community mediation in Malaysia provided by the DNU in Peninsula Malaysia and the

practice of community mediation in Singapore, and to suggest and recommend improvement if necessary.

This paper involves library-based research and qualitative legal research method which involved fieldwork.

The library-based research involves both primary and secondary legal sources whereby journals, articles, law

reports, legislation, and historical record and the virtual library available online are referred to. Some other

research resources are the database online such as LexisNexis, Law Net, and Current Law Journal online. This

method helps to understand the mechanism of community mediation, mediation, and the legal framework in

Singapore. The fieldwork is done by interviewing officer from the Department of Unity, the qualified community

mediators and undergoing the training of the community mediator by the writer. From these, information was

gathered on what are the best method to be adopted by the community mediation in Malaysia and the structure of

the Malaysian CMC.

The Nature of Community Mediation

Community mediation is a mediation process adopted by the disputing parties within a community as a

solution to resolve their dispute, mediation itself is one of the ADR (Alternative Dispute Resolution) or

alternative modes of dispute settlement. ADR is an acronym popularly referred to such alternative methods of

dispute settlement such as negotiation, mediation/conciliation, arbitration, mini-trial and private judging etc.

(Rashid, 2000, p. 1). ADR is defined as a range of procedures that serve as alternatives to litigation through the

courts for the resolution of disputes, generally involving the intercession and assistance of a neutral and impartial

third party (Brown & Marriot, 1999, p. 12).

According to Sourdin (2008), dispute resolution processes that are alternative to traditional court

proceedings are often referred to as ADR. She further explained that ADR is also used as an acronym for

“assisted”, “additional”, “affirmative”, or “appropriate” dispute resolution processes. Thus, she concluded that, it

is impossible to construct a concise definition of ADR processes that is accurate in respect of the range of the

processes available and the contexts in which they operate (Sourdin, 2008, p. 3).

Mediation is one of the processes of the ADR (Rashid, 2000, p. 1) and is defined as a process that uses a

third party (a neutral party to the conflict) to facilitate communication between the parties on their positions

(Hardcastle, Powers, & Wenocur, 2011, p. 12). It is a private, facilitative, and informal form of the third party






In Malaysia, the city residents handle their conflicts as other residents of cities resident in the world do.

Either they tolerate the conflict, manage it, or call the police for intervention. The situations in villages, however,

are different since disputes are not usually taken to the police immediately but the matter will be brought by one

of the disputants or a third party to the village administrator (KetuaKampung) or to the religious leader (the

Imam). The Imam will normally preside over family disputes since it is considered as a religious issue and the

KetuaKampung will preside over to other types of disputes (Wall & Callister, 1999, p. 345). This traditional or

informal community mediation has later on been absorbed by the Rukun Tetangga in the cities in Malaysia.

The harmony enjoyed by Malaysia today is the result of the hard work of the Malaysian government. The

government of Malaysia has played a vital role in promoting and maintaining the unity and harmony in Malaysia.

Promoting unity in Malaysia is an untiring effort and ongoing process that was spearheaded by the Malaysian

government since the 1970s. The Malaysian government views the issue of ethnic relations as a real threat to the

social stability of the country since the occurrence of an interracial clashed on May 13, 1969 (A. Othman, 2002).

To avoid and prevent further problem in the future, the government has taken preventive steps for example, the

Ministry of Education introduced compulsory Ethnic Relation subject in universities to replace the earlier effort,

the Islamic and Asian Civilization subject that is hoped to be a foundation for a harmonious community in

Malaysia (Baharuddin, n.d., pp. 7-9). Institute of Ethnic Studies (Institut Kajian Etnik/KITA) was established in

Malaysia National University (Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia) on October 8, 20074. One Malaysia, Integration

School, and National Services Program were designed for the same purpose.

The most important step taken was the establishment of the DNU in 1969. The incident on May 13, 1969 led

to the declaration of Emergency by the King on May 15, 1969 in pursuant to Article 150 of the Federal

Constitution. Such declaration has empowered the establishment of a National Operation Council ( Majlis

Gerakan Negara)5. On July 1, 1969 under the command of the National Operation Council, the DNU was

established to address issues related to rebuilding the social cohesion in the country at that time. The DNU has

undergone many changes since 1969. The name of the department was changed few times and it has been placed

under various departments such as Ministry of Unity, Culture, Arts, and Heritage. In 2009, the department’s

name was changed to DNU and placed under the auspices of the Department of the Prime Minister 6. The

department focuses on national and societal integration. Their mission is to promote unity and integration by

increasing the opportunities for interaction between ethnic groups through activities such as organizing social

gathering on festive occasion, for example, the celebration on Chinese New Year (for the Buddhist), Hari Raya

(for the Muslims), Christmas (for the Christian), and Deepavali (for the Hindus).

One of the efforts by the government of Malaysia is the establishment of Rukun Tetangga in 1975 to initially

ensure the safety of the local residents. An act known as the Peaceful Neighbor Regulation 1975 (PU (A)279/75)

was approved to grant certain powers to the Peaceful Neighbor Association. In 1984, the focus of this

organization changed to strengthen the relations between the various races in Malaysia7. In 2001, the focus of

this program once again turned to the development of the community. The priority of this Peaceful Neighbor

4 Institute of Ethnic Studies (Online). Retrieved from http://www.ukm.my/kita/profilekita.html/2009.5 MajlisKeselamatan Negara (Online). Retrieved from http://www.mkn.gov.my/mkn/default/article_m.php?mod=1&article=9.6 Jabatan Perpaduan Negara dan Integrasi Nasional Negeri Selangor (Online). Retrieved fromhttp://www.jpninselangor.gov.my/v2/ms/latar_belakang.7 “Malaysia: Aspirasi Perpaduan Pencapaian JPNIN 2009-2011” (p. 10). Jabatan Perpaduan Negara dan Integrasi Nasional.



A COMPARISON BETWEEN RUKUN TETANGGA AND COMMUNITY MEDIATION184

program is to help the disputants to resolve their dispute in the neighborhood and to avoid any racial tension and

subsequently create a harmony in the society.

This program initially was introduced in few urban areas where crime rates and ethnic diversity are

prominent. In 2012, Rukun Tetangga Act (Peaceful Neighbor Act) was tabled in the Malaysian Parliament and

was gazetted on June 22, 2012. Section 8 of Rukun Tetangga Act 2012 provides function and duties of Rukun

Tetangga Committee inter alia, to provide community mediation for the purpose of conciliation or otherwise

settling any dispute or difference amongst the members of community (Section 8(d)). Currently, Peaceful

Neighbor is placed under the auspices of Community Development Unit under the DNU.

The DNU in promoting integration and harmony residential area has developed the Rukun Tetangga

programin certain area to a pilot project of “Community Mediation” program. The main purpose is to train the

Rukun Tetangga Committee to be community mediators in their residential who plays the roles as a third party in

helping the disputants/residents to resolve their dispute. The idea of having this pilot project emerged from the

finding of DNU that the social tensions at the community level arise from the inter-ethnic and intra-ethnic fight.

The project was developed in 2007 and implemented in 2008 (Hua, 2009, pp. 2-3). Presently, community

mediator is placed under the auspices of the Unity Management Unit under the DNU. As a result, the Rukun

Tetangga Committee is wearing two hats. They are the community mediators under Unity Management Unit and

at the same time the Rukun Tetangga Committee under the Community Development Unit. Please refer to

Figure 1 attached here in illustrating the position of community mediator and Rukun Tetangga in the DNU and

Integrity organization.

Figure 1. The position of community mediator and Rukun Tetangga in the DNU and Integrity organisation chart.




The mediators are trained by Dato Dr Wan Halim Othman, who has been appointed by the DNU. He is the

only trainer since the program launched until today. The training began with the introduction of community

mediation in general. This is because many of Malaysians do not have any information on ADR, mediation, or

community mediation. Thus, the leaders of Rukun Tetangga or the participants need to understand the general

idea of community mediation. The second part of the training focuses on the role of the participants as

community mediators. There are 20 steps that need to be understood by the participants. Thus, the program is

well-known or frequently referred to as “KursusKemahiran Proses MediasiKomuniti 20 Langkah” or “Skill of

Community Mediation Process 20 Steps” in Malaysia. This program consists of four phases and each phase is a

4-day course. Each session has a large number of participants, for example 80 to 100 persons. The training

methodologies adopted are workshop, attendee active participation, and role-playing sessions8.

The term “Community Mediator” in Malaysia under the Community Mediation Program by the DNU is

different from the term “Community Mediator” in Singapore. According to W. H. Othman (2009), Rukun

Tetangga committee leaders are trained as a second sense of the term “Community Mediator” rather than as

professional community mediator. He explained that the first sense of community mediator refers to a person

who has undergone a specific technique in conflict resolution, trained and recognized as official mediator or

professional mediators. The second sense of mediator is a third party who involved in dealing with any social

situation (W. H. Othman, 2009, pp. 216-217). He distinguished the two terms of community mediator. It is

understood that the terms are differentiated to show the training received by the mediators to enable them to be

community mediators. They may be professional community mediators if they have undergone a professional

training. Nevertheless, they act as a third party and called “Community Mediator” in assisting people in their

neighborhood in resolving disputes. Hence, Malaysian community mediators fall under the second sense of

community mediator.

The program has been proven successful in defusing social and racial tension with over 200 cases resolved

in 20109. The government of Malaysia was very much interested in promoting unity and integration. Therefore,

the government has given full support to the effort of the DNU and has increased the budget over this matter. This

has given the DNU more room in enhancing this program. The DNU has sent more Rukun Tetangga leaders to the

training. As a result, on March, 2012, a number of 519 individuals were trained as community mediators. The

efforts of DNU paid off. The cases involving racial issue have decreased from 1,315 cases in 2007 to 912 in 2011.

The DNU has planned to train more mediators in the future to ensure that each area of Rukun Tetangga will have

at least one mediator (Koon, 2012b). The effort of the DNU has been further appreciated.

Malaysia has been ranked the most peaceful country in South East Asia, the fourth safest in the Asia Pacific behind

New Zealand, Japan and Australia, and the 19th safest and peaceful out of 153 countries in the world. This ranking by the

Global Peace Index (GPI) 2011 is the first time that Malaysia has been placed that high since 2007, being one of the six

non-European nations making the top 20 list. (Bernama, 2011)

8 The author has attended three training sessions for community mediation, i.e., Phase 1, Phase 2, and Phase 3 under the DNU andIntegrity. The first training was conducted at Regency International Hotel, Kuala Lumpur from March 30, 2012 to April 2, 2012.

The second training session was conducted at Country Heights Resorts & Laisure Sports Living Club, Kajang from May 11, 2012to May 14, 2012. The third training session was conducted at Hotel Excelsior, Ipoh Perak from June 29, 2012 to July 2, 2012.9 “Jumlah Mediator Komuniti di Seluruh Negara Ditambah”, Utusan Online Archives (October 8, 2011) (Online). Retrieved from

http://www.utusan.com.my/utusan/info.asp?y=2011&dt=1008&pub=utusan_malaysia&sec=Terkini&pg=bt_23.htm&arc=hive.




Previously, the community mediators are not governed by any rules, direction, or regulation. However,

Mediation Act 2012 (Act 749) was gazetted and came into force on August 1, 2012. The procedures provided are

applicable to the community mediators and shall be their guideline in practising mediation. The mediation

session handled by the mediator is free of charge. There are no charges imposed on each mediation session and

the mediators are not paid. They work on voluntary basis (Koon, 2012a). It is hoped that this program will

continuously benefit Malaysian society in promoting unity and integrity between the different ethnic groups and

to avoid social and racial tension in future.

Community Mediation in Singapore

The Republic of Singapore comprises the main island of Singapore and some 54 small islets within its

territorial waters and jurisdiction. The country has a total land area of only 699.4 square kilometers, 500 of which

is taken up by the diamond-shaped main island, which is 41.8 kilometers in length and 22.5 kilometers in breath

(Hock, 2007, p. 1). Mediation has been institutionalized much earlier in Singapore than Malaysia. Formal

mediation in Singapore may be divided into three categories: first, court-annexed mediation; second, mediation

in tribunals, government departments and agencies; and third, private mediation that has began in the middle of

1990s and now is gaining more popularity (Onn, 2009, p. 133). Mediation in this paper refers to formal mediation

or institutionalized mediation, unless otherwise mentioned clearly that the word mediation refers to traditional,

uninstitutionalized, or informal mediation.

Community mediation is also not a new method of dispute resolution in Singapore. Malaysia and Singapore

shared the same history until the separation in 1965. Prior to the introduction of English legal system that leads to

the embracement of litigation in courts by the people, the concept of solving problem by a third party as has been

practiced by the Malays through the headman, the Indian through panchayat and Chinese who refer a dispute to

the community leaders such as leaders of Chinese clan association (How, 2002, p. 4). The current formal

mediation or the institutionalized mediation center has adopted the same method.

We often compare this process with the traditional “kampong style” approach of resolving problems through

informal channels with the aid of respected third parties. The kampong ketua, the elder in village communities of old,

performed a mediatorial role between squabbling Neighbors. Such activities promoted community cohesion.10

The CMCs have also embarked on a pilot project which involves the conduct of visits by paired teams of trained

CMC mediators and grassroots leaders to the residences of unwilling disputants embroiled in Neighborly conflicts to

persuade them to try mediation. In many ways, this replicate the concept of a “kampong ketua” or Malay village elder,

who historically played the role of “mediator” in village disputes.11

Community mediation in Singapore was established from the idea of Prof. S. Jayakumar, the Minister for

Law and Minister for Foreign Affairs of Singapore in further promoting ADR process in Singapore. In 1996, the

inter-agency Committee was tasked to explore on how to further promote mediation in Singapore. In 1997,

mediation was recommended by the Committee12

to be promoted to resolve social and community disputes.

Particularly, mediation is an Asian tradition and culture that are worth to be preserved. Prof. S. Jayakumar

10 Community Mediation Center Annual Report 2002-2003, p. 5.11 Community Mediation Center Annual Report 2003-2004, p. 5.12 The Committee on the ADR (Alternative Dispute Resolution) was chaired by associate professor Ho Peng Kee, then Senior

Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Law. See Also Community Mediation Center Annual Report 2002-2003, p. 9.




supported the recommendation and the Ministry of Laws was tasked to look into introducing community

mediation as part of Singapore’s dispute resolution infrastructure13

.

The committee in their report dated July 4, 1997, recommended that in order to prevent Singaporeans

becoming too litigious, less expensive, and non-adversarial methods or dispute resolution should be introduced,

covering a wide range of social, community, and family dispute14

.

The government of Singapore was very serious in their effort in establishing the CMC. They have upon

acceptance of the recommendation, and set up an ADR Division within the Ministry of Law to oversee and

co-ordinate the operation of the CMCs15

. The CMC Act (Community Mediation Centers Act) (CAP. 49A)

came into force in January, 1998 providing for the establishment of the first CMC in November, 1998 (Seng,

2003, p. 159).

The first center was established in Marine Parade District Hall, known as CMC (Regional East) and

commenced operations in January, 1998. Over the years satellite mediation venues have also been set up.

Currently, there are three main centers and seven satellite mediation venues in Singapore to provide disputing

parties with the additional convenience of having their cases mediated at an alternative location close to their

residence16

.

The first structure of the CMC is illustrated by Figure 2. The CMCs are managed by a team of Center

Managers and Executives under the purview of the CMU (Community Mediation Unit) of the ADR Division of

the Ministry of Law17

. The center activities and daily case management function are run by full-time staffs who

are civil servant employed by the Ministry of Law (G. Lim, C. Lim, & Tan, 2009, p. 2).

The latest structure is illustrated by Figure 3. The structure has changed where the CMU is set up within the

Ministry of Law to oversee and coordinate the CMC’s work. The consultant has replaced the Deputy Manager

(Operation and Training). CMC (Regional East) has moved its operation to CMC (Subordinate Court) effective

since February 16, 200718

. The CMC has improved its administration tremendously in ensuring the effectiveness

of its services since 1998. The CMC Act provides that the minister may arrange for evaluation of the CMC at any

time he thinks fit19

. Subsequently, the ministry may make improvement and changes of the CMC in its operation

and activities.

The CMC Act is the governing law for the CMC. It covers the CMCs, mediation includes mediators and

some miscellaneous issue such as the mandatory submission of the CMC annual report by the director to the

minister to be laid before the parliament20

. The act provides that any person is allowed to refer a dispute to the

center and also the magistrate may refer any appropriate case from the Magistrate Court to the center 21

. The act

13 Community Mediation Center Annual Report 2002-2003, p. 3.14 Community Mediation Center Annual Report 2002-2003, p. 9.15 Community Mediation Center Annual Report 2002-2003, p. 9.16 Community Mediation Center Annual Report 2009-2010, p. 4.17 Community Mediation Center Annual Report 2002-2003, p. 11.18 Community Mediation Center, Ministry of Law, Singapore Government (Online). Retrieved fromhttp://app2.mlaw.gov.sg/ContactInfo/tabid/312/Default.aspx.19 See Section 16 Community Mediation Center Act (Cap. 49A) (1998).20 See Section 21 Community Mediation Center Act (Cap. 49A) (1998).21 Community Mediation Center Annual Report 2002-2003, p. 9. See also Section 15 Community Mediation Center Act

(Cap. 49A) (1998).




also provides that the mediation process is voluntary22

in line with the tenet of mediation. Nobody will be forced

to opt for mediation in resolving their dispute. In the event, the parties decided to withdraw from mediation

session at any time, they may do so23

.

The fundamental character of CMC is to cater community dispute and relational issues consistent with its

mission. The center resolve dispute within family, relatives, disputes between stall holders, provision for shop

owners, neighbors, sometimes even land lord and tenant issues. It does not handle commercial disputes, family

violence24

, and any dispute that involves seizable offence under any written law25

.

Figure 2. Organisation structure of community mediation in 2002-2003.

Source: Adapted from CMC Annual Report 2002-2003, at 11.

22 See Section 12(1) Community Mediation Center Act (Cap. 49A) (1998).23 See Section 12(2) Community Mediation Center Act (Cap. 49A) (1998).24 Community Mediation Center Annual Report 2003-2004, p. 13.25 Community Mediation Center Annual Report 2008-2009, p. 5. See also Section 15 Community Mediation Center Act (Cap.

49A) (1998).




Figure 3. Organisation structure of CMC as at July 2011. Source: Adapted from CMC Annual Report 2010-2011, at 7.

The mediation session is to be conducted with a little formality and technicality, and with as much

expedition as possible26

. This requirement is maintaining the original tenet of mediation, informality. The rules of

evidence do not apply to mediation sessions27

. The mediation services are rendered free of charge, with only a

nominal administrative fee of SGD (Singaporean Dollar) 5.00 charged to the complainant at the point of

registration, to deter frivolous case registration28

.

The CMC’s mediators are volunteers who have undergone basic mediation training before they are

appointed for a 2-year term. The content of the training includes understanding the objective and philosophy of

mediation, the mediation process, techniques of communication, and counseling skills.

During the early stages of the center, the training of mediators was provided by the center 29

. However, in

2004-2005, the training of mediators has been shifted to the CMU and they have focused on this task to sustain a

high level of professionalism of the center’s volunteer mediators30

. In 2002 and onwards, mediators who had

conducted a requisite number of mediations were conferred with the title of “Master Mediator”. The highest title

accorded is one of “Senior Master Mediator”, where the mediator assumes the role of mentoring, training, leading,

and developing fellow mediators31

.

The basic training comprises an intensive 2-day Basic Mediation Workshop conducted by CMU Consultant,

Senior Master Mediator Dr. Lim Lan Yuan. Volunteers who are deemed suitable will then be shortlisted and

26 See Section 10(1) Community Mediation Center Act (Cap. 49A) (1998).27 See Section 10(2) Community Mediation Center Act (Cap. 49A).28 Community Mediation Center, Ministry of Law, Singapore Government (Online). Retrieved from

http://app2.mlaw.gov.sg/MediationServices/MediationProcedure/FeesCharges/tabid/307/Defult.aspx.29 Community Mediation Center Annual Report, p. 18.30 Community Mediation Center Annual Report 2004-2005, pp. 6-7.31 Community Mediation Center Annual Report 2010-2011, p. 17.




nominated for appointment as mediators32

by the Minister for Law33

. They are required to upgrade their skills

continually. The ongoing advance training in mediation, thematic workshops and roundtable session enables

them to share experiences and learn from one another 34

.

Community Mediation Report 2003-2004 provides training structure diagram as illustrated by Figure 4

attached herein showing the stages that need to be undergone by the mediator to be appointed as mediator and

thereafter to upgrade their skills. Later, in 2005 on top of undergoing the 2-day course, the volunteer selected had

to undergo two co-mediation sessions with experienced CMC mediators. The appointment of the volunteer is by

evaluations and recommendation of the co-mediator and the CMC Director, and subsequently by an official

appointment by the Minister of Law35

.

Figure 4. Training structure diagram of Singapore CMC. Source: Adapted from CMC Annual Report 2003-2004, at 22.

The latest structure of training is provided by the Community Mediation Report 2010-2011 as illustrated by

Figure 5 attached herein. In 2010, the requirement of upgrading the mediators’ skill was made mandatory. The

mediators are required to attend courses organized by CMC as part of their continuing professional development.

Thus, Advance Mediation Course (see Figure 4) previously provided by CMU was changed to Continuing

Professional Development. The mediator training under Continuing Professional Development comprisesInternal Training and External Training. In 2011, CMC introduced a series of Master Classes which comprise of

three modules: (1) Situational Management Mediation; (2) Sharpening Mediation Skills; and (3) Moving

towards Settlement, which are led by CMU Consultant under Internal Training course. CMC also invites external

trainer such as the Singapore Mediation Center to provide courses under the External Training to improve the

mediators’ skills.

32 Community Mediation Center Annual Report 2009-2010, p. 11.33 See Section 8 Community Mediation Center Act (Cap. 49A) (1998).34 Community Mediation Center Annual Report 2004-2005, p. 17.35 Community Mediation Center Annual Report 2005-2006, p. 32.




Figure 5. Training structure diagram of Singapore CMC. Source: Adapted from CMC Annual Report 2010-2011, at 22.

The mediators are respected by members of the society from all walks of life, different age groups, and

ethnic groups and professions. They comprise mainly of grassroots and other community leaders, chosen for their

commitment and dedication to community service work. This made them easily recognized and respected by the

resident. The reason to appoint such person by the CMC is to enforce the CMC philosophy of empowering

communities to work out their own problem36

.

The efforts of the CMC have resulted encouraging increase in number of the cases referred to the CMC and

the percentage of settlement. The CMC Annual Report 2005-2006 reported that in 1998, there were 120 cases

referred to the CMC Regional East, the one and only center at that time. In April 1999, the second center, CMCCentral was set up. Subsequently, the number of cases has increased to 211. In 2001, the third center, CMC

Regional North was set up and the cases referred to the center were 273. Total cases referred to the center from

1998 to 2002 were 1,063 cases and the settlement rate was 75%37

. The cases that have reached settlement for the

five years period were 797.

The CMC Annual Report 2010-2011 reported that from 1998 to 2010, there were 5,349 cases mediated and

72% have reached settlement38

. That means almost 3,851 cases have been solved by the center within the

duration of 13 years. It may be concluded that from 2005 to 2010 the cases solved by the center through

mediation increased by 79%. The Singapore CMCs show that an efficient center will provide good services to the

people. Subsequently, it will encourage the citizens to resolve their dispute by community mediation in theirneighborhood.

Result, Discussion, and Recommendation

Singapore has developed community mediation as the method of resolving neighborhood dispute upon the

setting up of the CMC Act, i.e., the law and thereafter developed the CMCs. The law and the center provide a

good foundation for CMC. Malaysia on the other hand has started a pilot program to see the effectiveness of

36 Community Mediation Center Annual Report 2005-2006, p. 17.37 Community Mediation Center Annual Report 2002-2003, p. 21.38 Community Mediation Center Annual Report 2010-2011, p. 8.




community mediation in Malaysian urban society. The programwas started without a centerand regulatory laws.

This is the different between the Malaysian and the Singaporean community mediation in establishing this

method of dispute resolution in both countries.

In Malaysia, there are two units under DNU involved in the pilot project of Community Mediation, i.e., the

Unity Management Unit that deals with community mediator and the Community Development Unit that deals

with the Rukun Tetangga Committee. Both are dealing with the same persons who are involved in the project. It

is afraid that the instructions received from the two units might be redundant or contrary. However, the

instructions in most of the times complement each other. If the instructions are contrary and redundant, the

mediator cum Rukun Tetangga Committee may face confusions or problems. The only reason why the Rukun

Tetangga Committees are chosen to be the community mediator in the Community Mediation pilot project is

because they are the grassroots leaders. This situation may also create conflicts since the Rukun Tetangga

Committees are holding two positions.

It is suggested that to avoid conflict between the two positions in future, the community leader should be

given choice either to be a community mediator or Rukun Tetangga Committee. The community mediators then

may concentrate on mediation and Rukun Tetangga Committee may concentrate on their duties. Nonetheless,

Rukun Tetangga Committee must be trained for community mediation as they supposed to mediate under Section

8 of the Rukun Tetangga Act 2012.

The writer proposes that Malaysian CMC should be the institution to provide the training to the Rukun

Tetangga Committee, despite that they have separate center. Thus, the DNU may utilize all the resources in CMC

to provide the training. It is suggested that despite the fact the Rukun Tetangga Committee is also a community

mediator, they should not mediate unless in an urgent case. They are advised to refer the cases to CMC to be

handled by the community mediators. It is also suggested that with regards to the issue who may request for

mediation, the CMC should adopt a method where the request may be made by the disputants or the third party.

Hence, the Rukun Tetangga Committee will be the third party to request for a mediation to be conducted to the

CMC. This situation will give confident to the resident in the mediation tenet of impartiality of mediator.

Currently, the offer of training for community mediators is limited to the Rukun Tetangga Committee. In

other words only the Rukun Tetangga Committee has the chance to be a community mediator. Many professions

do not have the opportunity to join this program due to no information on how to join this program or the DNU is

yet to open application for others except the department’s staff. It is suggested that DNU opens the application to

all professions to be community mediators with conditions that they need to be active in community service. If

this takes place, the writer believes that many citizens are interested to get involved in this project.

It is recommended that the training provided by DNU may also be focused on professional mediators. Thus,

there will be two types of training: the first sense and the second sense as mentioned earlier in this paper. The

advantages to have two types of community mediators are mediators will have a proper training that will suit their

practice with the level of thinking of the residents in their neighborhood. Singapore has been providing the

professionals mediators training the community mediator and it works well. Singapore CMC under the Minister

of Law managed to resolve 72% out of 5,349 cases mediated in the center. Even though Singapore has shown an

excellent progress, Malaysia may not follow blindly. A suitable system needs to be created to suit the people

since Malaysia is a bigger country with more population.




The second reason to have type of training is in recent situation, many Malaysian have information about ADR

and mediation especially the professional persons. Every field now is promoting mediation for example mediation

in business, mediation in architecture, court-annexed mediation, mediation in company, etc.. Thus, the second sense

mediation is not suitable for the professional people as they may have advance information on mediation.

The writer proposes an organization structure of Malaysian CMC as illustrated by Figure 6 attached herein in

the urban areas. It is proposed the CMC to be under the DNU under the Unity Management Unit. There will be a

Manager who is answerable to the Unity Management Unit. The Manager will be assisted by a Deputy Manager

(Development) who will handle further training for the mediator and liaise with Institute of Research and National

Integration Training (IKLIN (Institut Kajian dan Latihan Integrasi Nasional)) that has been incorporated to handle

all trainings for DNU. The manager will also be assisted by a Deputy Manager (Operational) who will be assisted by

the Center Manager in handling CMC activities and operations. The Center Manager will be assisted by two officers:

(1) the officer who manages the affairs of community mediators, the operation of mediation sessions, and any cases

that have been reported directly to the center; and (2) the officer who manages the cases reported by the Rukun

Tetangga and handles community mediators who are also Rukun Tetangga Committee.

Figur e 6. Proposed organisation structure of Malaysian CMC.




Malaysia needs to have a separate CMC from the Rukun Tetangga. It is important to have a different identity.

The Rukun Tetangga is a developed program with a set of laws, whereas community mediation is developing and

at its initial stage. The residents who might not have time to participate in Rukun Tetangga program will have the

opportunity to participate in Community Mediation Program. It is hoped that the DNU will open application for

others to join this Community Mediation Program. If this pilot project is prolonged with this nature, not many

residents will have the chance to participate and contribute.

Conclusions

Malaysia has taken an excellent step in introducing formal community mediation in resolving dispute

between her multiethnic, multicultural, and multireligious citizens. However, Malaysia is still new in

implementing the formal community mediation. There are many rooms for improvements. The most important

action to be taken is to have a CMC that is separated from Rukun Tetangga together with a regulatory law. The

separate entity, a center, and a set of rules will develop the community mediation better under DNU.

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