SECULARISM IN PAMUK’S SNOW; A POSTCOLONIALISM STUDY Oleh: Muh. Fajar (Dosen Tetap Prodi Pendidikan Bahasa Inggris STKIP PGRI Jombang & Mahasiswa S3 Universitas Negeri Surabaya) Abstract: Postcolonial criticism has always analyzed colonial power through the multifarious signs, metaphors and narratives of both the dominating and indigenous cultures, in other words, the cultural formations and representational practices can be understood as colonial discourses. Initially these discourses were examined primarily in terms of binary oppositions, as exemplified in Edward Said’s notion of Orientalism. This paper explores secularism as one part of binary oppositions opposed to religion in Pamuk’s Snow. Before the writer analyses secularism in this novel, thus he would like to discuss the concept of postcolonial theory, mimicry and hybridity, binary oppositions, then he focuses to discuss secularism as one part of binary opposition as opposed to religion in Pamuk’s Snow. Keywords: Postcolonial Study, Secularism, Orientalism Postcolonial Theory is Indian and the Professor of English at Postcolonial theory derived from the University of Chicago. The resulting much the same empirical datum as combination of Third Worldist cultural multiculturalism, that of the collapse of politics and post-structuralist theory has European imperialism, and of the Britain become an important, perhaps even Empire in particular. What characteristic, feature of the multiculturalism meant to the former contemporary First World radical metropoles, postcolonialism meant to academy. As with multiculturalism, the the former colonies. Postcolonial theory argument commenced not so much with was initially very much the creation of a celebration of subordinate identity as “Third World” intellectuals working in with a critique of the rhetoric of cultural literary studies within ‘First World’ dominance, which sought to ‘decentre’ universities. The key figures are Edward the dominant—white, metropolitan, Said and Gayatri Spivak, the first european—culture. The central Palestinian, the second Indian, both ‘postcolonialist’ argument is thus that Professors of Comparative Literature at postcolonial structure has entailed a Columbia University, and Homi Bhabha revolt of the margin against the SECULARISM IN PAMUK’S SNOW; THE POSTCOLONIALISM STUDY Muh. Fajar metropolis, the periphery against the positively against the inferior status of centre, in which experience itself colonised peoples. becomes ‘uncentered, pluralistic and Furthermore, Gail Ching-Liang nefarious’1. Low 3 stated that Said’s Orientalism Moroever, Milner and Browitt 2 emerges as a key moment in the state that the origins of postcolonial development of postcolonial theory theory can be traced to Said’s within the academy. Drawing on Foucalt Orientalism, an impressively scholar and Gramsci, Said’s monograph is a account for not of ‘the Orient’ itself but polemical and critical study of the ways how British and French Scholarship had in which the Occident has sought to constructed the Orient as ‘Other’. For objectify the Orient through discourses Said, Orientalism was a ‘discourse’ in of the arts and the human and social the Foucaldian sense of the term: ‘an sciences. Said’s definition of Orientalism enormously systematic discipline by as a ‘discourse’ was distinctively which European culture was able to enabling for the emerging field of manage—and even produce—the Orient postcolonial theory because it enabled ....during the post-Enlightenment period’. critics to see how different sorts of The ‘Orient”, he wrote, became an object cultural and representational texts ‘suitable for study in the academy, for contributed to the formalisation of display in the museum ...for theoritical structures of power. Said sees an illustration in anthropological, biological, intimate connection between systems of linguistic, racial and historical theses knowledge and strategies of domination about mankind and the universe, for and control; hence his critique is an intances of economic and sociological interdisciplinary interrogation of western theories about development, revolution, intellectual, aesthetic scholarly and cultural personality, national or religious cultural traditions. character. Orentalism is—does not According to Young4, postcolonial simply represent—a considerable theory as a “political discourse” emerged dimension of modern political-intellectual mainly from experiences of oppression culture. Moreover, it functioned by way and struggles for freedom after the of a system of binary oppositions in “tricontinental”3 awakening in Africa, which the West, its possessions, Asia and Latin America: the continents attributes and etnicities were valorised associated with poverty and conflict. Postcolonial criticism focuses on the oppression and coercive domination that 1 Ashcroft, B., Griffiths, G., & Tiffin, H. (Eds.). 1989. The Empire Writes Back: Theory and Practice in Post-Colonial Literature. 3 Habib, M.A. R. 2005. A History of Routledge: London. Literary Criticism: From Plato to the Present. 2Milner and Browitt. 2002. Contemporary Blackwell Publishing. Oxford. Cultural Theory: An Introduction. 3rd Edition. 4Young, R J C 2001. Postcolonialism: An Routledge: London historical introduction. London: Blackwell OKARA, Vol. I, Tahun 8, Mei 2013 48 SECULARISM IN PAMUK’S SNOW; THE POSTCOLONIALISM STUDY Muh. Fajar operate in the contemporary world 5. The examines how these texts contruct the philosophy underlying this theory is not colonizer’s (usually masculine) one of declaring war on the past, but superiority and the colonized’s (usually declaring war against the present femine) inferiority and in so doing have realities which, implicitly or explicitly, are legitimated colonization. It is especially the consequences of that past. attentive to postcolonial attitudes— Therefore the attention of the struggle is attitudes of resistence—on the part of concentrated on neo-colonialism and its the colonized and seeks to undestand agents (international and local) that are the nature of the encounter between still enforced through political, economic colonizer and colonized with the help of, and social exploitation in post- for intance, Lacan’s views of identity independent nations. formation. In addition, Young 6 states that Thus, from the above explanation, postcolonial criticism has embraced a it can be understood that the term number of aims: most fundamentally, to postcolonial is a problematical term. reexamine the history of colonialism Post, in this study, is not after from the perspective of the colonized; to colonialism (the end of colonialism), but determine the economic, political, and the effects of colonialism. This term may cultural impact of colonialism on both the refer to colonialism done by the colonized peoples and the colonizing European countries towards the “East”. powers; to analyze the process of It may also refer to any colonialism done decolonialization; and above all, to by a certain country to other countries. participate in the goals of political The term colonialism here indicates the liberation, which includes equal access nature of “power” in a power relation to political and cultural identities. among individuals (in everyday life). Hans7 suggests that postcolonial Thus, Bhabha’s famous terms of studies critically analyses the hybridity and mimicry are suitable for this relationship between colonizer and study. colonized, from the earliest days of Hybridity and mimicry are useful exploration and colonization. Drawing on to characterize what postcolonial Foucolt’s notion of ‘discourse’, on literatures are. Bhabha’s hybridity is a Gramci’s ‘hegemony’, on deconstruction, complex argument concerning the notion and as the case may be, on Marxism, it of a “contradictory and ambivalent space focuses on the role of texts, literary and of enunciation” where the “continuities otherwise, in the colonial enterprise. It and constancies of the nationalist tradition which provided a safeguard against colonial cultural imposition” are 5Ibid 6Ibid disrupted by a process of negotiation 7 Bartens, Hans. 2001:214. Literary and translation that “presages powerful Theory: The Basics. Routledge. London) OKARA, Vol. I, Tahun 8, Mei 2013 49 SECULARISM IN PAMUK’S SNOW; THE POSTCOLONIALISM STUDY Muh. Fajar cultural changes”8. Mimicry is trying to Wolfreys 10 states that binary opposition scrutinize the ambivalences portrayed in refers to any pair of terms which appear a text that builds new identities and diametrically opposed; therefore: maintains the difference at the same good/evil, day/night, man/woman, time. centre/margin. Inliteral theoretical Bhabha 9 argues that opposition discourse, neither term in a binary against the West is not a resolution to opposition or pair is considered absolute. the paradox of the West. It only Rather, one term defines and is, in turn, maintains the binary opposition of the defined by what appears to be its West and the Rest. Therefore, to avoid opposite. As the work of Jacques the trap of the binary opposition, Derrida shows, any pair of terms, far postcolonial studies focus on “hybridity”. from maintaining their absolute semantic Hybridity is a third space, or a space in- value, slide endlessly along a semantic between. It is the space that provides chain, the one into the other through the the words with which we can speak of effect of difference. Also, Derrida makes Ourselves and Others. By exploring this clear how the apparent equivalence of hybridity, this “Third Space”, we may