Can the English Teacher Speak?

Padma Devkota

Can the English Teacher Speak?

    The very walls of the Central Department of English (CDE) ought to be tired of flame-wingèd charms called  "postcolonialism" and "postmodernism" bouncing off of them all the time. Here, no one really cares to discuss "postincendiarism," which is safely locked up in the past as if it were not at all a threatening future. But black residues of reproachful flames still stain their forgotten nooks like a closed book of history that all fear to open and to read.
    Fear is, indeed, the dominating factor. Fear of exposure of academic and administrative incompetence. Fear of publicity of a hollow hunger for cheap applause. Fear of being recognized as a neo-colonialist with powerful drives for political domination over friend and foe. Fear of being caught red-handed as possessing a potent urge to economically exploit the institution for whatever it may be worth. Fear of being discovered as a culturally erased zombie ritualistically wed to the dominion of the English classroom. And this fear is what sustains us all.
    As intellectuals, a distinct and powerful voice should have sustained us, not fear. But, have we heard English teachers speak of their condition? Have they opposed the encroachment of the non-academic inside their departments? Have they cried out unanimously against sloth, deceit, malpractice, unprofessionalism or even sheer incompetence? No. Even those that contribute columns to English dailies complacently refrain from speaking sincerely about the problems of their profession. Instead, through the simple act of toleration of just about everything they have normalised such practices with a fake postmodernist's attitude of "I will not judge." They know that to judge is also to offend.
    An intellectual cannot prioritize personal survival in a bread-earning situation over articulated judgment related to community welfare. English teachers who seek the privilege of shining in a postcolonial aura must learn to lose the self to find a powerful cultural and intellectual identity. Such identity must create itself through voice, which, whenever lacking, sounds louder than an empty drum. Squeaked columns in English dailies are often better than nothing.
    Yet, even as the cultural construct of the Nepalese intellectual as a university teacher is "underscorched" by black stains of historical flames in the department, its "academic" staff continues replacing the playback machine in the classroom. With neither originality of perception nor a penchant for personalized expression, they hope to withstand the gale of public criticism with richly arrogant but poorly composed letters to the editor of an English daily or with fallacies and ad hominems tipped with eunuch rage.
Where have years of education gone? Or is the intellectual a false cultural construct, one that, by virtue of its heterogeneity, actually dissolves into a sort of subalternly silent collective? Like a modern Midas myth, whomever Father TU grants the license to teach that person becomes a life-long intellectual. And, Father TU is powerless to unbless itself with its deep yearned, long longed golden touch.
Waiting for Hermes would be absurd. Father TU must find the antidote to academic decadence within itself. This antidote must derive out of memory of history, not intentional disjunction from it. To seek the safety of deliberate forgetfulness of history is to ward off immediate shame at the risk of greater future failures. But the system of this institution has stiffened with years of malpractice. It is sick. Tradition spreads itself across the broken limbs of the institution like a steel plate that will not allow flexibility of movement. And, its domesticated watchdogs bark out orders that it cannot disobey in the night of national politics. The loudest and the most savage voice still dictates its will to the whole system of administration. In this situation, the only weapon of intellectuals is their voice. If they cannot find it, all will be lost.
But, can the English teacher speak?
He cannot if he does not dare to open this book of history and read the "underscorched" truth singed on the walls of the department. This is too painful an act because it requires a confession of incompetence and, perhaps, even malpractice to some extent. It is easier to blame the arson on mob psychology, which spares everyone of the crime, or to loosely accuse faceless hooligans who will never be punished because they will never be caught. The English teacher cannot speak because he cannot reconcile with the reality of his unprofessional role in starting the fire. It is easier for him to swim the current rather than to buffet it.
He also knows very well that any statement that contradicts the media announcements and exhibitions of imaginary success of CDE will most probably be counteracted with silent but powerful actions—administrative or otherwise. Therefore, he will not speak because university authorities who themselves cannot speak respect a lack of sincere and honest speech as in the fawning expressions of their yes-men. Promotions will be deterred or opportunities will be snatched away. It is a general practice in our great nation to permit a public freedom of speech but to punish in secret the tongue that does not support the authority in power.
    Not only external deterrent forces freeze his speech, but very personal and political reasons also keep him dumb. He has never learnt to say the things he alone has felt, either in English or in his mother tongue. Self-expression never entered the university's curriculum for very political reasons during both Ranarchy and Panchayat Regime. And, today, alliance with political parties only steals his freedom of intelligent expression; non-alliance only stamps him as a sub-human category disposable by the machinery of the state. So, he clings on to the only voice that remains, his own in the classroom, which he looks upon as that of a university intellectual's, far above that of the madding crowd below. His individuality shines brightest there.
    But is the English teacher aware that his brightness has already paled before that of historical flames? His credibility at risk, his performance under criticism, his honesty under scrutiny, his knowledge under interrogation, his very existence under threat, what has the English teacher done to expel public doubts and private regrets? How has he improved himself since then? Let him at least speak for himself and tell the world that the responsibility of enlightening it either rests or does not rest upon him. If it does, what has he done to enlighten himself? Uncritical silence can never assure an intellectual's survival.

Friday, December 30, 2005