A Sea for Bacounters Edited by . , . ~. ~. - Essays,Towards a Postcol.ontal €ommonwealth Stella Borg Barthet ' ~ A Sea for Encounters EssAys Towards a Postcolonial Commonwealth The present vohune contains ~ essays on: the reJevance of 'Commonwealth' literature; the treatrncrrt of Dah III literature and cuhure; the teaching of African literature in the UK; 'sharing P • and Drum magazine in South Africa; black British book covers as primers cultural contact: Christianity, imperialism. and CODVt:rsron; Orar!& Pendek and PaptlmS in colonial Inc:lone8ia; Carnival and drama in the anglopbone Caribbean; issues choice between tho Maltese Janguage and Its Others: and patterns of interaction Detween married couples in Malta. As well as these, there are essays providing close read S of works by the following authors: ChinuaAchehe Murray :ul Amitav Ghosh V.S. NaipauJ Andre Adman Peter Carey Nadine Gordimer Michael OrKiaatje Diran Adehayo Amit Chaudhuri Antjie KIog Tayeb Salih MonicaAli Austin Clarke Hanif Kureishi Zadie Smith Edw ...dAtiyah Sara Jeannette Naguib Mahfouz Ahdaf Soueif Margaret Atwood Duncan David Malouf Yvonne Vera C.ONTRIBUTORS Jogamaya Bayer tuomas Hununen Concepcion Mengibar--R.ioo Katrin Berndt Gen'ichiro ltakura Susanne Reich.l Sabrina Brancato Jacqueline Tondot Brigitte Scheer--8chaezler Monica Boogaro Karen King- AribisaJa Lydia Sciriha Judith Linge CouUi Ursula Kluwick Jamie S. Scott Robert Cribb Dorothy Lane Andrea Strolz Natasha DiJ.tilkr Ben Lebdai Peter O. Snunm r Evelyne Hanquart- Turner Lourdes l.6pez--R.opem Cynthia vanden .c:::cn Marie HerbilJon Arnin Malak Clare Thake ""Vo.C'~a Uo Daniel Massa Srf.LLA BOllo B ARTHl:T is Senior Lecturer in the Department iJf English at lhe l lruversity of Malta. Shejs the authbr of papers and book chaptl:J"S, mostly on Maltese. Australian, and African fiction. Her current research ' ests include North African and African-American WIlting. COVEll PAINTING: courtesy of Pawl Carbonaro ross Readings in the Post / Colonial ultures literatures in English 117 Series Editors Gordon Collier tHena Maes-Jelinek Geoffrey Davis (Giessen) (Liege) (Aachen) Amsterdam - New NY 2009 Published with the financial support of the following institutions: t.. Commonwealth Foundation • All text-editing and layout for EACLALS by Gordon Collier Cover painting courtesy of Pawl Carbonaro Cover design: Pier Post The paper on which this book is printed meets the requirements of "ISO 9706:1994, Information and documentation - Paper for documents - Requirements for permanence". ISBN: 978-90-420-2764-0 E-Book ISBN: 978-90-420-2765-7 © Editions Rodopi B.V., Amsterdam - New York, NY 2009 Printed in The Netherlands For Victor Introduction and Xl 1 TOWARDS A POSTCOLONIAL COMMONWEALTH The Relevance of Commonwealth Literature DANIEL MASSA 3 The Commitment Exclusion P O. STUMM The of African Literature in the UK: Theoretical and Pedagogical Implications MON) BUNGARO 2 BORDERS AND CROSS1N the Borders in Monica Ah's Brick Lane and V.S. JOGAMA 4l Transcultural Outlooks in The Buddha and Some SABR1NA BRANCATO 51 IOVlsnnes:s. and Blackness: Zadie Smith's The Man GEN'ICHJRO ITAKURA 67 The Pleasures of Slave Food: The Politics of Creolization in Clarke's Pigtails 'n Breadfruit LOURDES LOPEZ-RoPERO "The Most Crewe in AU the World'>: Sharing Places in South Africa NATASH DISTILLER 93 Nadine Gordimer's The Today's World BEN LEBDAJ 3 PERCEPTION, TIME ·nn.... n-nl<1 Encounters: the Reader for Cultural Contact 117 The Limitations of the Female Longing for Unconstrained Space in Yvonne Vera's Burning KATRIN BERNDT 12.9 Amit Chaudhuri' s EVELYNE HANQUART-TURNER 143 149 In the Museum of Loss: Re:l1ections on Andre Adman's BRiGITTE SCHEER-SCI:-lAEZLER 4 RELIG10N AND THE SACRED Dominion from to Sea: , h...";;,t",,n 111"<J Imperialism, and the Trope DOROTHY LANE 177 Male and Female Chinua Achebe's Fall Apart KING-ARIBI 193 "You're Not Mad": Ironies of lsI am in Tayeb Salih's MH7rni'1lln 10 North JAMIE S. SCOTT 205 5 HISTORY AND NARRA TlVE Nature Conservation and Cultural Preservation in Orang Pendek and Papuans in Coloniallnclonesia ROBERT CRIBB 223 Colonial Encounters or Clash of Civilizations? Fiction Mahfouz, Tayeb Salih, and Ahdaf Soueif AMIN MALAK 243 A British Nal)ol~~On Can the Strike Back? Edward Atiyah's The Eagle Fliesfrom the East JACQUELlNE JONDOT 253 The Personal and the Public: MichaelOndaatje's Met.afiction and the Question of Political Engagement URSULA KLUWICK 273 'True Stories' in the Course of Time 111 Atwood's The Blind Assassin ANDREA STROLZ Carey's Jack Maggs and Maloufs Remembering Babylon CVNTH1A DRJESEN The aITllv.:tle:sOtle into Theatre: Carnival and Drama in the Anglophone Caribbean CONCEPCION MENOiBAR-R1CO 32 3 6 LANGUAGE AND TRANSLATJON Larlgmlge, and the of Amitav Ghosh TUOMAS HUTTUNEN 335 and Instruction: Issues of Choice Between the Maltese Language and Its Others THAKE 349 Different Genders, Different Conversation Patterns of Interaction Between Married Couples in Malta LYDIA SCIR1HA raf:lslaltinlg Narrative in the New South Africa: Transition and Transfonnation in A JUOJTH LOTGE COULLlE 379 Notes on Contributors 397 Index 417 Identity and Instruction Issues of Choice Between the Maltese Language and Its Others CLARE THAKE VASSALLO N AN AGE OF GLOBAL1ZED LANGUAGE, minority languages are under threat of annihilation. Almost one-third of the global population is competent in English to varying degrees. Historically, I the movement of the language can be traced through the voyages of exploration to the Amer­ icas, Asia, and the Antipodes, followed by the nineteenth-century British colonial expansion in Africa and the South Pacific. This was followed by mass European emigration to the 'melting-pot' nations which hosted multi­ lingual, multicultural and multiracial populations brought together by the use of the English language as official or semi-official language. The use of Eng­ lish in the USA, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada has further contributed to the global spread of English which is represented in every continent. The fact thal the USA and Britain are, politically, two highly influenlial nations, and that the media and technology industries, as well as the entertainment industry, all function in English have effeclively made English, in its many varieties, the most used medium of communication on a global level. One of the implications of the power exerted by the English language is that it poses a threat to the survival of minority languages that live side by side with English. The fear of language-loss is a very real one; David Crystal estimates that "at least 50 per cent of the world's 6,000 or so hving lan­ guages will die out within the next century.,,2 Among the concrete moves to I See David Crystal, English as a Global Language (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1997, 2003), for a full discussion of the historical, cultural, and economic aspects of the global spread of the English language. 2 Crystal, English as a Global Language, 20. Crystal discusses this point in detail in Lan­ guage Death (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2000): ch. 1. 350 CLARE THAKE VASSALLO ..::> counter this trend is the European Union's stance in using its members' national languages and in actively protecting minority languages spoken in the Union, recognizing them as the unique cultural artefacts and means of cultural expressions that they indeed are. lt is against this background that we are to consider the particular case of Malta's national language. A national language is clearly a depository of a particular nation's memory and experience of the worJd through time. It bears tTaces of the attitudes of its inhabitants, of its history, as well as of its particu­ lar climatic and social environment, which are reflected in its vocabulary, its expressions, and even its verb-structure. It is easy, therefore, to revere a nation's language as a prized possession, and to regard the use of the lan­ guage as the epitome of what it means to belong to a particular culture. A frequently recurring notion in postcolonial writing is the desire,] more often seen as a right, to be aJlowed to speak one's own native language. Yet this feeling is neither universal nor historically consistent. In fact, the specific historical case of language-choice and language-use in Malta in the nineteenth century, described in this essay, seems to fly in the face of this Donn. The question of language also has a considerable impact on the practical issue of fonnal education in a country. The selection of a language of instruc­ tion in schools, the fact that the language is to be accessible in written foml , and the availability of text books for students in that language, are jusl a few considerations related to the practical aspecls of schooling. In an interesting anomaly, the culturally and lin!:,TUistically specific situation pertaining in Malta in the early-nineteenth century could not be dealt with according to the estab­ li shed nonns of British colonial education policy, tri ed and tested in far larger colonies such as India. A brief historical overview will highlight the essential language issues. Malta carne under British rule in ]800 and had previously been under the dominion of the Order of the Knights of SI John of Jerusalem, from early in !.he sixteenth century, bar two years, ]798 to 1800, when it fell under French rule. 4 Under the domination of the Kni ghts of St John, the education of the local people was hardly given any attention al all . The language used by the ) See discussions in Bill Ashcroft, Pos f-Colollial Trallsformation (London: Routledge, 2001), Alistair Pennycook. English and /lle Discourses ofCo lonialism (London: Routledge, 1998), and The pos/-Colollial Studies Reader, cd. Bill Ashcroft. Gareth Griffiths & Helen Tiffin (London : Routledge, 1995): esp. Part IX ("Language"), as a sample of works which deal with the issue of language and nation.