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CHAMELEON LURE and CULTURAL
MIXING. (This text is only a questioning. There are no certainties though
the structures of some sentences may seem assertive. It is then the mere
consequence of my inability to word these questionings accurately.) When I was asked to take part in an
anthology on the themes of metamorphosis or the chameleon, I first wrote a
short-story. But soon I realised the story was about empathy between two men.
Gradually, my thoughts gaining ground, I came to the idea of a “chameleon lure”as opposed to empathy. The chameleon, by its mimicry and a
biological process I know nothing about, changes the colour of its skin to
match the colour of the medium on which it rests. It
takes the colour of the stone, the branch, the big and thick leaf it rests on.
It’s rather convenient and funny for an animal, but not so for a human being. It’s
convenient for the animal, which may hide this way, or believe it’s hidden from
the eyes of the others, whatever they are, friend or foe. Should
a human being behave like a chameleon, change his thoughts or change his
perception and expression, as swiftly and frequently as a chameleon changes its
skin, it would soon lose his identity, every day, every hour, all the time. He
would be a nonentity; he wouldn’t be trustworthy any longer. That
person wouldn’t be able to bring anything to the Other. That
person would be a pallid, distorted reflection of the Other to whom he longed –
by changing- to give love, compassion and help unsparingly. And
yet, many people, in the tropics, give in to the lure of the chameleon and
adapt their discourse and artistic achievements to what I call the “ collective
mood “of the moment. It
is so easy and comforting. It
is also easy not to use one’s intellect, or to use it merely to be carried away
by the most prevailing, ambient thinking, the most likeable and appealing one. Overshadowing
one’s critical mind, overshadowing discerning doubt comes to denying oneself
all creative achievement, all novelty and thus to deny every opportunity to get
humanity to advance, much to the advantage of a too conservative opposition to
progress. I’d
like to digress on what writing in Writing in a dominated country
cannot be a neutral act, no matter which community you belong to. When you belong to the dominating community,
the one holding the keys, not only to power, but not particularly those keys,
but especially those that make it possible to understand the concepts
underlying the laws of all kinds which govern society, when your own language
is the dominating language, the language of colonisation, the language used at
school, the language of communication between the various ethnic groups, of
course, but also between the speakers of various indigenous languages, when
your culture is the culture of colonisation, that which contributes to stifling
the indigenous culture, writing then becomes a comitment, at the oposite of any
neutral act. But let there be no mistake, it
will not be enough to produce words, sentences, chapters and publications for
writing to be effective. Writing is above all the dialogue with oneself, it is
questioning, doubt, and writing is living on the edge. If you want your writing to be effective in
achieving rebirth, if you wish to attain another consciousness through it, in
other words if you write because your energy exceeds your will, then the only solution,
the only door through which you can pass is to open up to daily existence as
well as to the World. To
be born again through writing requires the pen to be dipped in the ink of
sincerity and experience. There is no point in writing with a guilty conscience
because I am not guilty of anything other than my own acts. Self-flagellation,
mea culpas, shouldering the coloniser`s burden, are all undoubtly doubt
necessary at some stage in one's development. This is only true of writing
until such time as the realisation comes. To continue down that path, - if that
relieves your conscience and gives you a sense of morbid exaltation, - is
futile when you find yourself at the frontier, when you must create, find your
own way. To write constantly with a guilty conscience provides no assistance
with overcoming or transforming the situation at hand, it is not enough, and
you expect more of writing. To restrict you to feeling guilty as a purpose in
itself unfortunately also means succumbing. By submerging myself in writing, I
hoped, I expected to get to know the world better and myself and especially to
better understand the relationships, which have built up between human beings.
In a country still colonised or being decolonised, this issue of human
relationships, between different ethnic groups and cultures is of course
fundamental, essential. Writing is this creative energy, essentially looking to
the future, towards more justice, a better balance, more friendship, more
consideration, a better quality of life. The idea is not particularly to write
about the suffering of the colonised people, that suffering can only be written
about by he or she who has experienced it or still experiences it on a daily
basis. One can write about compassion, understanding, knowing, suffering and
the trials and tribulations suffered by the other. In a situation still
experiencing the consequences of colonialism, to write in this way is not a
waste of time, neither is it useless because many people are still quite
unaware of all aspects of the other`s life. It is an essential step, without
which there can be no continuation to writing.
To write of the suffering of the other is a primary form of vigilance
but not an end in itself, it is a first step towards a greater understanding of
your country's situation. However I believe that it is dangerous to appropriate
another`s suffering because that would be like writing about something you had
not experienced. No one can write of another`s suffering. Writing in a
dominated country when your own culture is the dominating one means first and
foremost writing of grandeur, of universality,
of the contribution of the other`s culture to the genius of mankind. There is a
duty to this other person who for a long time has been reduced to the simple
existence of a Stone Age man without a real culture, the duty is to reveal to
the world the existence, in the most complete sense of the term including the
cultural, political and economic dimensions, of the other. To reveal that those
who we rub shoulders with have been able to and still can exist without
us. To write about my feeling and my
experience of the existence of the other in his every dimension, far from being
a risk, is quite on the contrary, a unique chance to grow, a source of
enrichment and development, on the spiritual, moral, cultural and political
levels. To write so that others may open their eyes and love and respect the
other, he to whom the dominating culture, one's own culture, has denied all
humanity, without realising that this has meant that it has denied its own
children that same humanity. To
be sincere also implies that you are aware that it’s not by denying yourself or
being your own destroyer that you can hope to attain the Other’s love.
Self-denial may initiate one’s own mental and emotional unbalance. In other words by attaching
excessive guilt to one's culture, one's civilisation, cannot contribute, in the
short-term to the emancipation or the achievement of more justice and more
equity. This again would be to succumb, to commit cultural suicide; the
rejection of one's roots is another wall to be imprisoned behind. To write at all times with
vigilance. It is preferable to be vigilant
about yourself rather than commit self-mutilation. What I call vigilance is avoiding
these various ways of giving up. 1°Colonial self-satisfaction and the rejection
of the full dimension of the other, 2°self-guilt as an end in itself, cultural
suicide and its attendant refusal to accept responsibility for yourself.
Vigilance means being careful about yourself, about what I love in myself and
what I love in the other, it`s about expressing that love. Vigilance also means
being careful to keep watch around you for what goes against what I believe in,
the understanding of people, particularly in a multi-ethnic and multicultural
situation, and to say so. The universal can be encapsulated
in a few words, a few ideas, a few dramatic circumstances and so much the
better. In the name of this universal, the dominant culture has set too much
aside. Vigilance is also exercised to maintain differences and too bad for that
which, only apparently, goes against hastily defined universal values. The
“ chameleon lure” is to be related, on its superficial side to the dogmatic
assertion of the necessity of a cultural mixing. Some people in The
dream of a union between all men is still nourished by many people, who are
often well-meaning but somehow, too sentimental. And yet, in the New Caledonian
present environment, that dream only leads to artistic vagaries and to new
forms of cultural domination which are more harmful than the colonial
domination. To
mould into the other with a pathetic self-abnegation in order to pay for one’s
parents errors and to be like one person with others, what an awful temptation.
How easy but how blinding! We have to stand up to it if we don’t want to be
changed into a chameleon by the longing born from the near dictate of “
cultural mixing, the only cultural hope for a country to be!” Common
identity is the successful product of the ordinary political field; a passport
for everyone, an ID for everyone. But, as far as the cultural field in a wider
sense is concerned – the field encompassing not only artistic dimensions but
also everyday life – then identical, common, identity are idle fancies for many
generations to come, for sure! As a writer and therefore a
creator but also a seeker of meaning and beauty and truth, I prefer to think
and say that I am in a cultural interface,- to use a term borrowed from
economic geography,- both for the area of exchange and encounter that it
provides and also for the mental space that it can engender in everyone. I have
the feeling that I am living in a place of borrowings, of meetings, of
confrontations, or friendships, of love and of rejection. A space, which is
that of a blank page, a theatre or dance, stage, a path where two or more
cultures have decided to meet. The attitude of the writer, but such that it is
an attitude that one can believe to be that of all creators can only be one of
momentum. Cultural mixing is never achieved. It can only be perpetual creation,
alloys, alliances forming and disintegrating, borrowings, rejections,
questioning of oneself and one's parents and historical culture, free and
independent exchange. This path is that of ‘cultural
interface’, which stands in opposition, at the present time, to the widespread
and too easily accepted idea of ‘cultural mixing’, a rapid and practical
association of terms, forming a vague shapeless sack into which everything is
stuffed, in the bottom of which you find more mouldy crusts than fresh bread.
Cultural interfacing, however, is the recognition by creators, artists,
painters, musicians, writers, architects and poets of the vision that we exist
in a space where fortunately the borders are vaguely drawn, where Pacific and
Western cultures meet and cross-fertilise. Therefore the idea of an mixed
culture, with mixing as the ultimate goal, leads the artists to want to create
something mixed, something fully and finally mixed (as if what happens
genetically could automatically happen in painting or poetry). The idea of cultural interfacing leads one to
create something personal, a one-off result of energy from different horizons.
I dream of no longer seeing paintings in exhibitions boasting to be the
manifestation of culturally integrated painting and recognised as such just
because an artist has contented himself or herself with sticking a couple of
signs on a canvas (masks, totems or even petroglyphs), of Kanak culture,
without any multiplied energy showing through.
The interface as a mental
attitude is the attitude which makes it possible to guarantee an intellectual
and mental equilibrium, to keep the field of spontaneity open, to remain within
oneself and at the same time to be closer to the other, while avoiding fusion. What I reject is not the idea of
cultural mixing, it would be madness and ignorance on my part to do so, but
it's the fact that in New Caledonia the political, administrative and cultural
authorities are using this idea, this possible future reality, and presenting
New Caledonia and cultural mixing, not only as a “fait accompli” but, and more
especially, as a wish expressed and totally shared by all the people of this
country. It's a bit early for That
outlook we have on the Other and the outside helps us not to fear and not to
avoid unbalance. The fear of doubt or of questioning, the fear of being
rebellious to the consensual single thinking are the greatest dangers, the
greatest stumbling blocks to the evolution of our country, be it political or
cultural. The
consensus shouldn’t be the excuse to refuse critical opposition, even virulent
one. The country must go ahead, it is through doubt and continuous questioning
that these steps forward will be achieved; you can’t rule them, they will
spring from everyone’s endeavour, and doesn’t endeavour start with questioning? You
need daring – a daring similar to the one of the Matignon and Noumea
Agreements; this daring cannot only be the privilege of those who have the
power, it must also be the privilege of the citizen, as though a Gordian knot
had to be undone perpetually or sometimes even cut, and so opening up the way
we have still to go. The
duty of rebellion is our means, the means of the writer. That’s not to say that
we are going to follow the path of the 1980s but the path we imagine for the 21st
century; I wish it to be the path of vigilance. Vigilance towards oneself fist,
without giving way to a guilty conscience nor to the arrogance that lies in
wait for the one who holds a single bit of power. It is up to the artists as much
as it is up to ordinary people to practice and give life to a possible future
cultural integration and not up to the various powers to decree that it is to
be so. To assert the urgency of an integrated culture from the top of the
pyramid of the hierarchy also accelerates innovation in the dominated culture
despite that culture`s own internal tempo. The results are likely to benefit a
not-always-very-pleasing process of world cultural globalisation, because in
the process of acceleration, yet again, it will be the cultures of powerful
countries, which have the best chances of coming out on top. To
live in a place of a genuine “ Cultural Interface”, allows our cultural
identity to develop, to evolve, to be more vivid and not set in a portentous
academicism, firmly anchored in illusive convictions, too far away from the
concern of ordinary people. Let’s make the most of it and keep our hearts and
minds open, while guarding us against being mere chameleons, smearing our
thoughts with the fashionable dye – which will soon be forgotten when politics
and economics won’t get a thing out of it any more. Let’s
guard against being only a mirror of the outside, since the strength of our
heart is its ability to seek in itself the stamina of life and to irradiate the
space around. The
chameleon is friendly and attractive; it is under the illusion of freedom and
change, but in the long term It
is nothing, it looks sad and if you watch it closely it doesn’t look so happy.
The chameleon changes its colour without it being a well-considered decision on
its part. It does so because it can’t do otherwise. The animal is conditioned
for that and it can’t change anything about it. The poor animal is nothing but
lies and deceit, to start with it deceives itself and then he deceives the
Other, but he only deceives another blind who takes the change of colour for a
metamorphosis. As
for us, a continuous and conscious metamorphosis could indeed be our salvation.
To achieve that we should dare being nothing, not being anything, and venture a
permanent metamorphosis, the one that is alertness and discernment. The
chameleon can’t achieve that, indeed! Being
receptive to compassion, to metamorphosis and to empathy is only possible if
the foundation is solid enough and that solidity is totally unalike the
ignorance of the chameleon which takes the skin for the being. The
various Agreements, of Matignon and then of I
was talking a bit earlier of a Cultural interface, I wonder if we are not
rather within the realm of a Cultural Front. A realm where indomitable
differences are facing each other, not so much within the artistic fields, but
certainly more in the fields of economics, politics and even of education. |