Saturday, October 8, 2016

A (subjectively) racialized view of art forms created and practiced by peoples of colour, haiku (Part II)

Unifying intersectional discord within english haiku idioms

How we conceptualize the world dictates how we contextualize nature, our past, our present, and our future. Just as our literary frame of reference conceptually, dictates how we contextualize English haiku idioms (ehi). We will most likely never come to a uniform consensus as to what defines haiku, although we can become unified in acknowledging some of its key components like kigo and kireji. These key components can act as the common threads that unify and personify haiku, all without dictating a uniform definition of haiku.         
             I've written this essay in response to Mr. Wilson's essay "The Colonization of Japanese Haiku"      
 (simply haiku journal.com) My purpose in doing so is to engage the haiku community worldwide in a discussion. A discussion that speaks to haiku's past, present, and future. A discussion that focuses in on some of the intersecting issues brought forth in Mr. Wilson's essay. These intersectional issues are presently hampering haiku. I will put forth solutions that might contribute to rectifying these issues. I will also speak to what has caused the decline in the quality and misconception of what defines Traditional-Classical (T-C) Haiku today. Most significantly, I will speak to what the process of elevating the quality of haiku written today might look like.

Non-linear and intersectional issues concerning haiku

I will focus on five of the many issues that I believe are hampering haiku today. The first issue 

is one also addressed in Mr. Wilson's essay. This issue is the colonization which enables the Anglo-

West’s (A-W) titular reappropriation of haiku, which has somewhat gentrified haiku as an art form. The 

second issue is our dysfunctional and or maladaptive perception of nature. The third issue is the inability 

of many to differentiate senryu from haiku. The fourth and key issue stems from our sociocultural 

discomfort in acknowledging the essential role kigo plays in defining nature in traditional haiku. 

Accepting, acknowledging, and literally coexisting with, rather than merely tolerating the essence of 

haiku goes beyond the three F's of western sociocultural studies, folklore, food, & fashion. The fifth and 

final issue pertains to the sub vocal reading of haiku, at least initially.

I believe Mr. Wilson's essay conveys a well thought out overview of how and why haiku has been 

declining since the Meiji Era. I concur entirely with the factors and issues Mr Wilson put forth in regards 

to haiku's decline. His work prompted me to delve deeper into these five intersectional issues I've 

addressed in this essay.


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.)

Of course neither Gandhi nor Malhotra were referencing Japanese Poetry, still their thoughts in 

regards to colonization and its effects on native languages and 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 belief systems. 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 (and somewhat gentrified) 

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 

Chinese, Japanese, 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 gentrified finger stroking is prohibitively cumbersome, and 

restricts the ease of use that so personifies the smartphone experience for native english users. 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"

 via 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 would 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 Android/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, our 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 which has been occurring 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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