Merging of East and West : Role of writers

Padma P Devkota

Merging of East and West : Role of writers

      To Carthage then I came
      Burning burning burning burning
      O Lord Thou pluckest me out
      O Lord Thou Pluckest burning
         - T S Eliot, "The Waste Land"
   Binary oppositions have persisted in various forms in human thought. East and West is one example of such a division which has proved to be more politically than culturally useful in the past. This division is too broad and too general to give an accurate picture of the various national cultures that are involved within each category. On the one hand, the East means not only Nepal but also India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Indonesia, Korea, Thailand, China, Japan and many other nations which are culturally diverse in themselves. The West, on the other hand, represents commercially affluent, socially homogenized, technologically advanced, and politically powerful. As a result, each nation of the East is pitted one at a time against the West which continuously provides the criteria by which eastern ideological and material advancement is measured. This partly explains the cultural impact of the West on the East.
   Nevertheless, this broad categorization has also proved useful to describe two major attitudes -- the materialistic and the spiritual -- towards the world as a perceived reality, which in turn reflects the nature of the perceiver. That the West is materialistic apparently means that it is commercial, competitive, clear, questing and concise. That the East is spiritual apparently means that it is religious, muddled, abstract, and inflated with myth and magic. Yet, such notions can only be quite erroneous as they are partly the result of body of Oriental literature which has its corresponding reflection in the Dick Whittingtonian reveries of the eastern aspirant to fabulous wealth, freedom and fame in the West. Whatever else the East and the West might mean, all meaning are true and false at the same time since impermanence is the only truth we all share with conviction.
   A vision of impermanence lies at the core of all Hindu philosophy and lifestyles. Reality eludes perception because it is a flux. Eyes see a stream of things they cannot properly define. Ears perceive a sequence that they attempt to interpret. Thought tries to capture the essence of this flux in a medium whose fundamental categories are themselves constantly changing. Categorical values fade away against a cosmic illusion, a lila, where consciousness can only discover itself as a part of the Brahman or the ultimate reality. Categories such as the East and the West have no place in the overall traditional Hindu consciousness.
   Yet, we too have felt the impact of such provisional categories as part of the modernizing process in the twentieth century Nepal. Starting in 1951 when the country opened up to foreign influences and tourism, lifestyles and patterns of thought have changed drastically. Cultural osmosis has taken place with a natural effectiveness, not always in the desired direction, under the influence of politico-economic factors. Tourism has become at once a major source of national income and a major influence upon national cultural conduct. The resulting change has largely accommodated Western values within the Hindu lifestyle. Yet it has also rejected the Hindu lifestyle as demoded and uncritically accepted Western influences as the arrowhead of modernisation which is conspicuously outrageous to the eastern "civiligentia"-- a mass of intellectuals who prefer not to be cut off from the roots of cultural inheritance.
   Eastern voices have always reacted strongly to cultural imperialism by claiming that aggression against culture can be as grave as a war crime. The world of the mid-century was filled with fear and distrust as a result of the war. This called for a mutual understanding among nations as well as peace and coexistence. Some way had to be discovered to save the rich cultural heritage of the people of Asia. One solution was to dispel distrust and suspicion through cultural exchanges. War had to be denounced by all peace-lovers. Imperialistic attitudes too had to be condemned. Rabindranath Tagore not only condemned Japanese imperialism on China as "a gregarious demand for exclusive enjoyment of all the good things on earth" but also wrote later on in life about war in these words:
      The poisoned war-snakes are spitting fire
      Prayers for peace shall be of no avail,
      That is why, on the eve of my life
      I call upon all to stand up,
      Prepare,
      And fight back the demon of war.
   Peace and human rights have ever since become major concerns not only for politicians but for all conscious writers of the East and West.
   Related to human rights are other concerns about race, religion, colour, sex, and so on. The feminist movement has strongly criticized the binary thought process and demanded a hearing in the name of human equality. Marxism, Freudianism, existentialism and many other attitudes to the world have contributed to the formation of a post-modernistic mind in the West. Although Nepalese writers uphold and cherish Freud, Marx, Sartre and others, post-modernism still feels like an empty space in Nepal.
   This is probably not an illogical phenomenon. Modernism in the West is a reaction to the nineteenth century culture and values. Culturally different, Nepal cannot be modern in the same sense that the West is modern. Modernism in Nepal has meant an influx of western ideologies and commercial products rather than a qualified search for national identity. To the Nepali, modernity has meant an unconservative stance as a progressive or a neoteric in terms of the amount of western influences that can be individually imbibed. This is of course a negative definition of Nepalese modernism. A more positive definition must consider a corresponding evolution and modification of recent values as opposed to, say, those that dominated the pre-Devkotian age.
   A very important contribution of the greatest modern Nepali poet, Laxmi Prasad Devkota, was to prove to the post-modern West -- or at least to that section of it which was willing to listen to him -- that what is marginal is modern as well. Writing from the periphery of the periphery of the world, Devkota speaks with a powerfully modern voice-- modern in the Western and the Nepalese sense of the world. To bring the Nepalese classical tradition to its height, to blow the bugles of modernity in national literature, and to be acclaimed as modern writer by western critics at the same time is a task of no small calibre. His vision is holistic, unbiased, yet nationalistic.
   In the body of his literary works, Devkota also sought a meeting point between the East and West. In the myths of these two factions of the world, he found a common dream. Yet, dreams are but vapours of a painful reality -- vapours that arise when conscious efforts to alleviate the pains subside. Similar dreams arise from similar problems. Similar problems bring people together. Seeking a solution to the problems of the modern waste land, T S Eliot, for instance, discovered that wise men of both the East and West, St Augustine and Lord Buddha, have prescribed similar remedies to the general ailment. The conscious writers’ job is not only to identify problems but to propose solutions too. This probably also explains Devkota's and the Romantics' penchant toward a painful Promethian consciousness. It is only through such awareness of a painful reality that dreams precede actions. As writers of the East and the West have constantly reminded us, together we can hope to conquer the evils of the world. Apart, we will only begin to dislike each other.
   Looking forward to the twenty-first century, therefore, we can assert that it is very important for writers of the world to be conscious of the yet painful reality of human inefficiency in creating peace and prosperity for all. Prophet, educator, clown or saviour, the writer must accept a social function first and then only take aesthetic naps in his or her ivory tower at intervals. He or she must learn to communicate, to create undeceiving words. His or her moral courage to speak up against all political attempts to suppress the writer's voice anywhere in the world must remain exemplary of a quest for newer horizons. Frontiers and restrictions must yield. Even age-long tradition and soul-deep culture must yield if such yieldings will create a better world to live in. The merger between the East and the West must first occur in the writer’s vision of a united world, which will then gradually materialize in times to come.