How Can The Subaltern Speak: Moving Beyond The Nation-State

Construction

Vassar College

By: Emily Bender

email: embender@vassar.edu

cell: 847-716-0672

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The Oxford English Dictionary defines identity as “who or what a person or thing

is; a distinct impression of a single person or thing presented to or perceived by others”

(“Identity,” 2014). Essentially, identity is not as an inherent fact but a constructed

impression or perceived act. These generated acts collectively construct our cultural

identity. It possible that those with identities dejected from the discourse of citizenship,

the subaltern, can reclaim subjectivity on their own? Spivak’s answer is that this is

impossible—that the subaltern cannot speak for themselves (Spivak, 1988, 104). In this

paper I will re-examine the possible means that the subaltern can use to speak. While

dejecting the native from their own nation-state is suppose to be a punishment of

objectification, it also places them in a unique position of being freed from the confining

boundaries of its structure. And it is through this freedom that the subaltern can establish

new discourses of individualistic identity and reclaim their subjectivity—but only

through moving beyond the confines of the nation-state.

The nation-state is imprisoning because instead of allowing for creation of

individual subjectivity it reproduces objects of the state. An intrinsic link exists between

the survival of cultural identity and the survival of the state. Socrates explains this in his

idea of the creation of the perfect state in Plato’s The Republic:

[Rulers] are to be told that their youth was a dream, and the education and training they received from us, an appearance only; in reality during all that time they were being formed and fed in the womb of the earth…Citizens, we shall say to them in our tale, you are brothers, yet God had framed you differently. Some of you have the power of command, and in the composition of these he has mingled gold wherefore also they have the greatest honor; others he has made of silver, to be auxiliaries; others again who are to be husbandmen and craftsmen he has composed of brass and iron…the fostering of such a belief will make them care more for the city and for one another (Plato, 2000, 81).

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The creation of this cultural script of literally convincing citizens (including rulers) that

they came from “the womb of the earth” links their individual identity with that of the

state. This reinforces loyal citizenry because the destruction of the state results in the

destruction of their sense of self.

This is the biggest danger of the nation-state construction. From this point

forward I will refer to these produced citizens as citizen-objects. Hardt further elaborates

on this in the context of the modern nation-state: “The international divisions of labor and

power, the hierarchies of the global system, and the forms of global apartheid we will

discuss in the next chapter all depend on national authorities to be established and

enforced. Nations must be made! Nation building thus pretends to be a constituent, even

ontological, process, but it is really only a pale shadow of the revolutionary processes out

of which modern nations were born” (Hardt, 2004, 23). Under the surface nation-states

are produced apparatuses defined by apartheid —the explicit lines of which are expressed

by the differences of race and culture that are used to separate from one from another.

This is what is meant by that the most democratic moment is the moment of exclusion;

because it is in this moment that the boundaries of the citizen-object are created. But they

are defined in terms of difference, rather than substance.

If the nation-state defines subjectivity in the relational context of differences,

what does it mean to be a subject separate of production by the nation-state? First a

distinction should be made between subject and object. A component of subjectivity is

individualistic desire (Spivak, 1988, 67-68). Individual desire is absent in the nation-state

because the nation-state constructs the citizen-object’s script of what they desire, hence

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making them objects. Subjectivity is an active process, as Isaiah Berlin explains within

the context of his concept of positive liberty:

The ‘positive’ sense of the word ‘liberty’ derives from the wish on the part of the individual to be his own master…I wish to be a subject, not an object; to be moved by reasons, by conscious purposes, which are my own, not by causes which affect me, as it were, from outside. I wish to be somebody, not nobody; a doer—deciding; not being decided for, a self-directed and not acted upon by external nature or by other men as if I were a thing, or an animal, or a slave incapable of playing a human role, that is conceiving goals and policies of my own and realizing them (Berlin, 1969, 126).

Desire of individual goals and policies is part of the process of subjectivity, but to

substantively realize these goals and polices is to become a subject—to have liberty.

Otherwise fulfilling desires of “external forces” (the nation-state) makes the person into a

“thing, or an animal, or a slave” (an object). Ironically it is the subaltern themselves,

rejected from citizenship of the nation-state, that are closer to achieving subjectivity since

the first step of this process is disconnecting from the desires of the nation-state.

Existing outside the structure of the nature-state allows the subaltern to desire in

way that the citizen-object of the nation-state cannot. The citizen-object of the nation-

state can only see their constructed desire. But the subaltern can both see the desire of the

citizen-object and simultaneously outside the construction, as Du Bois explains within the

context of being black in America:

…the Negro is a sort of seventh son, born with a veil, and gifted with second-sight in this American world,—a world which yields him no true self-consciousness, but only lets him see himself through the revelation of the other world. It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others, of measuring one’s soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity. One ever feels his two-ness,—an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder. The history of the American Negro is the history of this strife — this longing to attain self-conscious manhood, to merge his double self into a better and truer self (Du Bois, 1903, chap. 1 para. 3-5).

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It is through “double-consciousness” that the subaltern can begin to construct their own

independent desires through seeing beyond the limitations of the nation-state’s

constructed desire. The position of the subaltern goes beyond this structure because they

desire “…to merge his double self into a better and truer self.” They are neither part of

the nation-state nor exist outside of it, but rather are trapped between its margins and can

see its edges (the veil). But it is precisely because the subaltern is stuck silent between

the margins that Spivak argues they cannot speak for themselves, and only can be spoken

for by others “representing” them (Spivak, 1988, 70). Thus, Spivak sees that that the

subaltern can never fulfill Berlin’s positive liberty (even if they are already disconnected

from the nation-state), because they never possess the means to fulfill their individual

desires. Thus the subaltern can never become a subject.

However, means do exist that the subaltern can utilize in order to realize their

desires. As Du Bois stated, the subaltern desires to produce something new, a “truer self”

that is beyond the scope of the nation-state to suppress. One possible mean of producing a

new subject identity is violence. Fanon argues that violence is the only way that the

desire of the subaltern can be realized: “National liberation, national reawakening,

restoration of the nation to the people or Commonwealth, whatever the name used,

whatever the latest expression, decolonization is always a violent event…Decolonization

is truly the creation of new men. But such a creation cannot be attributed to a

supernatural power: The “thing” colonized becomes a man through the very process of

liberation” (Fanon, 1963, 1-2). For Fanon violence is the ultimate form of agency—the

subaltern goes beyond speaking through action. And through forcing themselves free

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from the margin the subaltern can reclaim their subjectivity and establish a “national

reawakening” of the subaltern consciousness.

However, there is a certain danger in this, as Hardt explains using the Jewish

myth of the golem: “The golem is traditionally a man made of clay, brought to life by a

ritual performed by a Rabbi….The golem’s destructive violence, however, proves

uncontrollable. It does attack the enemies of the Jews but also begins to kill Jews

themselves indiscriminately…[the myth of the golem is] about the inevitable blindness of

war and violence” (Hardt, 2004,10-11). The golem metaphorically represents the agency

of the “national reawaking” of the subaltern consciousness. The individual desire that the

subaltern developed from its position in the margins of the nation-state is blinded by the

“national reawaking” that is necessary in order for the production of violence to be

carried out successfully. Is this formulation of a collective will individual desire is lost,

and those within the margins who dissent from this discourse of violence are perceived to

be equal in enmity as the citizen-object oppressors. Violence does not produce a new,

“truer self.” Rather violence alone reproduces the citizen-object among the reawakened

national subaltern consciousness.

Another form of means that can be pursued that preserves individual desire is

education. Violence fails as a means to achieve desire because it erases the ability of the

subaltern to achieve individual desire. Education, on the hand, is an independent striving

that can have great collective impact and Du Bois argues it can go so far as to lift the

subaltern from the margins:

…Education leaps to the lips of all:—such human training as will best use the labor of all men without enslaving or brutalizing; such training as will give us poise to encourage the prejudices that bulwark society, and to stamp out those that in sheer barbarity deafen us to the wail of prisoned souls within the Veil, and

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the mounting fury of shackled men…The function of the Negro college, then, is clear: it must maintain the standards of popular education, it must seek the social regeneration of the Negro, and it must help in the solution of problems of race contact and co-operation. And finally, beyond all this, it must develop men (Du Bois, 1903, chap. 6 para. 7; 28).

Du Bois proposes an alternative to Fanon’s violent development of men. Du Bois sees

that education is a way for the subaltern to speak — to have the capabilities to engage in

a discourse with the citizen-object through “the social regeneration of the Negro” and

overcome those who want to keep “prisoned souls within the Veil.”

Djebar demonstrates both the success and failure of this discourse in the context

of a young Arab girl’s experiences in French occupied Algeria: “Ever since I was a child

the French language was a casement opening on the spectacle of the world and its riches.

In certain circumstances it became a dagger threatening me. Should a man venture to

describe my eyes, my laughter or my hands, should I hear him speak of me in this way, I

risked losing my composure…The game of banal, flirtatious compliments couldn’t take

place, because it takes two to play” (Djebar, 1993, 126). The French language acted as a

“casement” that allowed the girl to realize her desire to understand and engage with the

dominant French occupants. However, unlike violence, which destroys and transforms

the state, the aims of the education work from within its institutional boundaries. And

because educational discourses work from within the nation-state’s boundaries the

unequal power dynamics of domination still exist that perpetuate oppression. The Arab

girl could understand the French man but could not speak back to him because their

social relations were inequitable. Thus education demonstrated the limits of her desire

just as much as it allowed her to realize them. So long as educational desire is pursued

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within the oppressive hegemony of the nation-state, the subaltern can never fully realize

their equality and subjectivity.

Perhaps then the means the subaltern should pursue is a combination of violence

and education. Violence destroys oppressive institutional structures while education

preserves individual desire. Education therefore qualifies violence — giving it boundaries

and ends. Such a case where this combination succeeded was the establishment of the

modern Filipino identity. Before the Spanish arrived in the Philippines in 1521 there was

no Filipino nation-state, instead there were many different native identities (Niel, 1993,

10). The Spanish attempted to convert the different native groups to Catholicism in order

to assimilate them to the Spanish identity (Nadaeu, 2002, 81-82). However, the different

native groups instead found their education in Catholicism as a common ground that

transformed them together, as Macdonald explains:

What Christianity brought to the Philippines was a religious code of ethics, an entirely nonsecular look at the good versus the bad, a new concept of evil, and an ideology of salvation….Once apprised of this, the Filipinos in a real sense ‘appropriated’ the Christian message and used it to suit their pleas for justice and freedom. This observation has not escaped historians like Ileto (1979) who has demonstrated that a theory of mass social action was derived from a reading of the Bible. The story of Christ, as depicted in the Payson play, was used to define a certain type of action in the world—revolutionary action (Macdonald, 2004, 82).

This new Filipino identity brought the different native groups together into united

resistance movements against the Spanish (Guerreo, 1981, 241). This product of a

transformed identity is what Du Bois means is the subalterns desire “…to merge his

double self into a better and truer self.” The Spanish finally left the Philippines in 1898,

and even though they were replaced by the Americans, the independent Filipino nation-

state was finally established in 1946 (Hutchcroft, 2003, 269). This new state would not

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have been established without both the common Catholic education that helped redefine

identity and shape the goals of the Filipino nationalistic movement, and the violent

resistance that was used to transform institutions. The case study of the Philippines is not

a only an instance of the subaltern speaking but also of transforming, reclaiming, and

achieving substantive desire in the form of a new subjectivity. However, this new

production took the form a nation-state—the dangers of which take us back to the

beginning of this paper. Is progress truly made them if the subaltern is eventually

transformed back into the citizen-object?

I would even argue further that in the situation where the subaltern creates this

new (temporary) subjectivity, this subjectivity is never actually fully achieved because it

is immediately objectified by other nation-states. As aforementioned, Hardt characterizes

the international system of one of “global apartheid.” This is demonstrated through the

production of imaginative geographies, as Gregory explains:

In his critique of Orientalism, Edward Said describes this unequal process [of cultural creation] as the production of imaginative geographies, and anthropologist Fernando Coronil connects it umbilically to what he calls Occidentalism. By this he means not the ways in which other cultural formations represent ‘the West,’ important though this is, but rather the self-constructions of ‘The West’ that underwrite and animate Its constructions of the other….Orientalism is abroad again, revivified and hideously emboldened -because the citationary structure that is authorized by these accretions is also in some substantial sense performative. In other words, it produces the effects that it names. Its categories, codes, and conventions shape the practices of those who draw upon it, actively constituting its object (Gregory, 2004, 4;18).

Imaginative geographies construct these imaginative differences between different

nation-states. The production of the Orient came into existence as an object of western

perception. We can see that Gregory is right in asserting that Orientalism “is aboard

again” by just looking at The United States’ perception of the Philippines. Stemming

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from its colonial legacy, Lleto argued in his 1999 essay “Orientalism and the Study of

Philippine Politics,” that the United States perceives everything that is Filipino as

different and inferior to everything American (Rafael, 2008, 477). The Orient is the

margin between nation-states as much as the subaltern is the margin within nation-states.

The subaltern can never realize its subjectivity through the creation of a new nation-state

because it will become objectified by whichever other nation-state it had gained its

autonomy from.

The only way to realize desire is through the decentralization of the nation-state

as the focal point of power. The mistake is to believe that the only politcal substantive

space that can be produced is the nation-state. The state form of space is easy to

conceptualize because of its tangibility. But if we deconstruct space itself conceptuality it

is as O’Reilly, taking the definition by Massey, defines it as “ ‘…the spatial configuration

of power-imbued social relations’ ” or more specifically it is produced by, “ ‘actively and

continually practiced social relations’ ” (O’Reilly, 2014, 152). The nation-state is just one

form of space produced relationally. In this relationship the state is centered

hegemonically, with all other aspects of identity flowing secondary from it (including

national identity). In this configuration the (western) state is always the determinant of

social relations do to its position at the center.

By removing the state as this central source of power we can see how marginality

itself does not exist. Just as Orientalism is a production of western nation-states, the

concept of the subaltern, or of the native, are also productions of colonialism (Lazarus,

1993, 75). As aforementioned it is these points of exclusion that give the nation-state its

substance through difference. Spivak therefore makes an essential point when she says

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that, “When a cultural identity is thrust upon one because the center wants an identifiable

margin, claims for marginality assure validation from the center” (Spivak, 2009, 61).

Self-determinative claims of subjectivity as the subaltern, from the Orient, or as the

native produce the effects that it names — meaning that making claims from the margin

produces these groups as marginal, and confirms the nation-state as centrality. This is

what Fanon means by when he says that: “The colonist and the colonized are old

acquaintances. And consequently, the colonist is right when he says he ‘knows’ them. It

is the colonist who fabricated and continues to fabricate the colonized subject. The

colonist derives his validity, i.e., his wealth, from the colonial system” (Fanon, 1963, 2).

The nation-state could not exist without the production of these marginal

identities— and thus the nation-state’s oppression of these identities are a measure of the

nation-state’s own insecurity. Fanon explains this within the context of the native

identity:

The ‘native’ is declared impervious to ethics [by the colonist], representing not only the absence of values but also the negation of values. He is, dare we say it, the enemy of values. In other words, absolute evil. A corrosive element, destroying everything within his reach, a corrupting element, distorting everything which involves aesthetics or morals, an agent of malevolent powers, an unconscious and incurable instrument of blind forces (Fanon, 1963, 6).

The colonist of the nation-state fears the native because conceptually the native is the

ontological, natural subject that existed long before the creation of the nation-state. The

nation-state brands the native as evil because the native challenges the produced identity

of the nation state. The nation-state claims that the native lacks values because the

native’s values are not artificially produced but are a result of existing desire. This

individualistic desire threatens to disrupt the script produced by the nation-state. Thus the

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native is an ideal of freedom branded as evil because it is a “corrosive element” that

dissolves the absolution of the nation-state’s power and control.

Political configurations that that challenge the centrality of the nation-state have

the potential to corrode the hierarchy of the entire structure. One example of this type

structure are networks, as Hardt explains:

[Networks] power cannot be understood accurately as flowing from a central source or even aspolycentric, but rather as distributed variably, unevenly, and indefinitely. The other essential characteristic of the distributed network form is that the network constantly undermines the stable boundaries between inside and outside. This is not to say that a network is always present everywhere; it means rather that its presence and absence tend to be indeterminate. One might say that the network tends to transform every boundary into a threshold (Hardt. 2004, 54-55).

The network exists beyond the boundaries of a state. They are an intangible form of space

that are connected through ideas rather than through the concrete boundaries of state lines

— which allows them to exist both within and outside of nation-states. They reclaim the

margins between nation-states as series of thresholds that hold them together as a force of

desire. Instead of falling into the trap of making demands from the margins, they refuse

to be marginalized altogether by existing outside the power structure of the nation-state

and challenge relational production of space.

One example of a network today is the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant

(ISIL). ISIL is a Sunni Jihadist group with the united goal of establishing a transnational

Islamic state. (“Background Briefing: What Is ISIL?”). ISIL is mainly operating

throughout Iraq and the Levant— which includes areas in Turkey, Egypt, Syria, Lebanon,

Israel, Jordan, and the Palestine territories (“Background Briefing: What Is ISIL?”). ISIL

challenges the centrality of the nation-state by placing the value of nation above that of

state. This is especially threatening to the health of the United States’ bio-politcal body—

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with Obama in a U.N. speech back in September 2014 announcing that: “The brutality of

terrorists in Syria and Iraq forces us to look into the heart of darkness…No God condones

this terror. No grievance justifies these actions. There can be no reasoning—no

negotiation—with this brand of evil. The only language understood by killers like this is

the language of force. So the United States of America will work with a broad coalition

to dismantle this network of death” (Obama, 2014). Like Fanon’s concept of the native,

the network of ISIL is the absolute evil threatening the health of the geo-politcal order

with its “network of death” that corrodes the absolute power of the nation-state by forcing

the U.S. to “look into the heart of darkness.” Thus the United States uses this reasoning to

justify its refusal to converse with ISIL.

However, the U.S. is forced to look and hear ISIL, because they successfully

managed to use the idea of the subaltern as a rallying point to render their desire explicit.

By forcing the U.S. to listen to their desires they are challenging the production of spaces

by renegotiating social relations—and thus must be destroyed. But Obama’s statement

works on another level as well, because as Marlow reminds us that Europe too “ ‘…has

been one of the dark places of the earth.” (Conrad, 1999, 5). This is another reminder that

the nation-state is a production that at one point came into existence, and is not an

ontological being. By challenging the U.S. ISIL forces us as Americans to look at

America as a construction back to its point of being a place of darkness—and how its

construction, very similarly to ISIL now, once came out of chaos, violence, and

domination (Conrad, 1999, 6-8). Thus this connection demonstrates then the shared

natural fact of human identity is very much a Hobbesian-esque heart of darkness.

When examined more closely the network resembles more of the nation-state than

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it may initially appear. The network resembles the nation-state in two main functions.

While mostly horizontal in its structure, the network still has an originating point from

which all other parts of it branch out. ISIL was created by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, and

although he was killed in a 2006 airstrike ISIL is now led by a man named Abu Ayyub

al-Masri (“Background Briefing: What Is ISIL?,” 2014). The second similarity is the

desire of territorial acquisition. ISIL already controls territory between Iraq and Syria’s

borders, has its own army, and its own justice system (“Background Briefing: What Is

ISIL?,” 2014). ISIL already resembles more of a nation-state than not—especially since it

is already establishing its own citizen-objects through rule over a territory. This brings up

another question: is it possible to establish a politcal configuration that removes territory

as a central aspect? Or is it possible to do it in such a way that preserves subjectivity

without resulting in violent domination?

To answer this we must further break down the origin of networks. The network

itself is actually a manifestation of the multitude. The multitude itself more closely

resembles subjectivity as Hardt explains:

Every sovereign power, in other words, necessarily forms apolitical body of which there is a head that commands, limbs that obey,and organs that function together to support the ruler. The concept of themultitude challenges this accepted truth of sovereignty. The multitude,although it remains multiple and internally different, is able to act in common and thus rule itself. Rather than a political body with one that commands and others that obey, the multitude is living flesh that rules itself (Hardt, 2004, 100).

The multitude is the manifestation of individual identity through collective action. The

multitude, however, should not be confused with the concept of a nation. The subtle

difference between the two is that the nation is the imposition of a collective identity

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upon a group of people—an object produced as a function of colonialism (Lazarus, 1993,

75). Rather the multitude is a collective of individual, active and consenting parts that

together form a being of “living flesh.” All of the individuals that comprise it come

together and work as a collective body. This fulfills Berlin’s definition of subjectivity

through the multitude both conceiving ideas of their own and fulfilling them. The

multitude is a conversation where all are spoken and heard. In this way the multitude is

actually the antithesis of the nation because the differences between individuals must be

rendered explicit and can never be “flattened into sameness, unity, identity, or

indifference” (Hardt, 2004, 105). The multitude reorganizes the ideas from the margin by

not only rendering them explicit but also by placing them in the center.

Centering the most marginal of ideas arrives us in the most literal sense at the

individual. The individual therefore is the most marginal production. As Fanon

demonstrated, an intimate link exists between the citizen-object and the marginalized

because they reciprocally bring each other into existence—and it’s through that same link

that can undo this production as we saw between the shared heart of darkness of the

United States and ISIL. The subaltern is not a tangible existence in the same way that the

native is not a tangible existence. Rather like the native the subaltern is an ideal of

freedom as Butler explains: “Desire is intentional in that it is always desire of or for a

given object or Other, but it is also reflexive in the sense that desire is a modality in

which the subject is both discovered and enhanced. The conditions that give rise to

desire, the metaphysics of internal relations, are at the same time what desire seeks to

articulate, render explicit, so that desire is a tacit pursuit of metaphysical knowledge, the

human way that such knowledge ‘speaks’ ” (Butler, 1987, 25). The idea of the subaltern

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renders explicit the individual desires that individuals outside the subscription of the

citizen-object seek. Perhaps then Spivak is correct when she asserts that the subaltern

cannot speak—because the moment that desire is rendered explicit it is transformed into

substance.

The subaltern cannot be created nor destroyed because it is desire. The subaltern

is meant to be a reminder to us both of what we want to produce and become, and also of

how we are produced already. If the citizen-object of the nation-state is the ultimate

production than the individual is it the purest form of the subject. This is because it is

only within ourselves that we can completely hear and understand the desires we speak

of. The individual itself therefore is the most powerful threat to destroying the production

of the citizen-object. The nation-state will always continue to attempt to destroy the “evil,

corrosive” individual. But as I have demonstrated, individuals operating through

collective desire possess the ability to destroy the power of the nation-state. But the

nation-state can never destroy the individual because the subaltern will always exist.

There will never be a point where we are satisfied with our produced identity. I was

hoping that this exploration would reveal to me a conception of a political institution that

creates and preserves subjectivity — and the subaltern exposes that this is far from being

the nation-state. Yet at the same time the produced identity of the nation-state also is

protection from the reemergence of our natural, violent heart of darkness that appears

when political structure is removed. It is because of this paradox that I fail to

conceptualize of how a more ideal political institution would be constructed.

But the subaltern also forces us to continually critically analyze the structures

around us. Such as in Heart of Darkness Marlow’s crew blindly accepted their European

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identities while both Marlow and Kurtz began to question their societal identity once

away from the metropole (Conrad, 1999, 64; 107-108). But while Kurtz succumbs to the

darkness (Conrad 1999, 107-108) Marlow chooses to face it and forges his own path. He

ultimately relies on his own inner strength to reject the “nightmare” of both his crew and

Kurtz’s unrestrained behavior (Conrad, 1999, 116). His chosen path is defined by what he

actively chooses to restrain himself from. He forges his new identity within boundaries

created out of his own morality and strength (Conrad, 1999, 90). Like Marlow we need to

critically look into the heart of darkness and continue to ask the question of what we

desire to become in order to create our own identities. And it is this inner dialogue that

we need to keep listening to.

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