The systematic cultural reappropriation & suppression of people’s collective notions of self, nature, & haiku
Haiku, it's "a cicada shell of its former incarnation, verging on extinction in the area of
world credibility as a serious literary genre". (Robert D. Wilson's online essay "The Colonization
of Japanese Haiku" on the Simply Haiku Journal website).
So why are English Haiku Idioms (ehi) and more specifically hokku/haiku in particular suffering
from literary gentrification, while teetering on the verge of extinction? Well some publishers, scholars,
critics, poets, and Mr. Wilson suggest it's due to "the effects and depth of the colonization of the Japanese
language and cultural memory via its adoption of the German-based university system; a colonization that
would, in time, water down the depth and aesthetic integrity of hokku". (Donald Keene, "Dawn in the
West").
“Gandhi understood this ... the systematic and complete elimination or suppression of the native
... language ... of one people by another. Even though the people in question might be given material
benefits through education ... if there is systematic destruction of their ... relationship with nature.
Stripping people of their collective notion of self is a prelude to ... the process of colonization ...
(which) goes on today under the name of 'development' wherein success is measured by the criteria of
Westernization. ... Gandhi fought against this form of colonization as much as against its material and
political manifestations … Although he was not against Christianity.” (Excerpt From: Malhotra, Rajiv.
“Being Different.”iBooks.)
Neither Gandhi nor Malhotra were referencing Japanese Poetry, still their thoughts in regards
to colonization and its effects on native language, material benefits via western education, and our
relationship to nature are all relevant to this discussion. Gandhi and Malhotra did so not in opposition to
Abrahamic religions, but as a part of an effort to constructively critique them, alongside their own
Dharmic religions. They did so in large part to prompt discussions with other interested parties. I am
using their words to do much the same with haiku. In doing so I'm not suggesting that Japan has had its
language eliminated; still it's hard to deny it hasn't been suppressed in regards to its adaptation in the
literate Western World.
Much like Chinese Characters this suppression is most evident in regards to the decline of young
Japanese, Chinese, and Korean’s ability to remember the stroke order of their character based writing
systems. These systematic collateral casualties of the A-W world occur as advancements in smartphone
technology erodes and suppresses as Gandhi put it "peoples collective notion of self", their "ethnic and
cultural identity". Yes I am aware you can input characters with keystrokes, and even awkwardly do so
with finger strokes. Still this process of finger stroking is prohibitively cumbersome, and restricts the ease
of use that is supposed to personify the smartphone experience. Thus instead of going thru numerous
impedimentary steps to finger stroke in their characters in the correct order, most give in to convenience
and dictate or type in their characters. This subtle, seemingly inconsequential change in behavior,
inputting characters via a keyboard or vocally, rather than finger stroking characters into a text is an
example of what Rajiv Malhotra was referring to when he stated "Cultural appropriation gives a false
impression of equalization.” (Excerpt From: Malhotra, Rajiv. “Being Different.” iBooks.). This cultural
appropriation is also evident in how english mukigo/senryu is becoming indistinguishable from
kigo/haiku.
This is also an example of how Chinese, Japanese, and Korean peoples receive "material benefit"
only at the cost of the "suppression of their native language" (Gandhi). Take this logic a step further and it
becomes intersectionally apparent that the smartphone maker Samsung might be characterized as having
been gentrified and or self colonized too. I suggest that Samsung has been gentrified and or self colonized
in regards to how it’s been assimilated into the global financial market (“developmental success”). As a
result Samsung financially thrives (”material gain”), in exchange for contributing to the intersectional
suppression of their “native language” (Korean/Hangul). This intersectional suppression of their "native
language" becomes deceptively apparent, in regards to how Samsung coerces it's native smartphone users
to suppress their culturally unique way of stroke ordered character driven writing, in lieu of the A-W's
iPhone keyboard driven writing model.
It may not seem that the suppression of this culturally unique native language on smartphones
relates to haiku, but I maintain they correlate intersectionally. They correlate in regards to the systemic
intersectional suppression of the Chinese, Japanese, and Korean Peoples "collective notion of self". This
notion of self is subtly suppressed when character based writing is culturally appropriated for keyboard
based writing on smartphones; much the same occurs when mukigo/senryu is appropriated in place of
kigo/haiku. These forms of A-W reappropriation, and native language suppression intersectionally
correlate to cause discord; discord in how people culturally identify with their unique collective notion of
self. This reappropriation and suppression also creates discord for everyone, intellectually and literally.
Whether or not the A-W world is doing so intentionally is irrelevant to this discussion. The fact that all of
these issues (colonization, gentrification, the systemic suppression and or reappropriation of native
language, the collective notions of self, cultural identity, and our relationships with nature) intersect and
correlate with one another is what needs to be understood by writers and readers alike, in order to rectify
the discord in regards to haiku today.
Still the issue of Japan's colonization whether self imposed by itself or externally imposed by the
A-W world, is only one of the intersecting root causes behind the discord and decline of ehi (sedoka,
kataota, katauta, renga, choka, wakka, tanka, hokku, haiku, haiga, poekuagery, etc) like haiku. In Wilson's
essay he briefly touched on the fact that haiku began its decline during the Meiji Era, prior to the arrival
of the black ships. In this essay I’ll take this hypothesis several steps further.
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