09-01-2006, 06:04 AM
Interesting paper..
http://www.tobiashubinette.se/asianists.pdf
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Some plausible explanations</b>
So with all this said, why are Nazis and extreme rightists so frequently and variously involved with Asian Studies as empirical evidence from the Swedish milieu shows? To begin with, a first point of departure must be a general appreciation for Asian peoples and cultures coming from the public at large in the West. Contrary to the various cultures of the Americas, Africa and Oceania which Western colonialism encountered during its conquest of the world and which with few exceptions were deemed âprimitiveâ according to the âscientificâ logic of Social Darwinist thinking, Asia was considered to be an equal at least in its glorious past of empire buildings even if its contemporary state was universally condemned to have fallen into rampant stagnation and decay, thereby legitimizing missionary activities and military interventions and in the end outright occupation and colonization. The âOriental lureâ whereby Westerners simply create their own Asia by the use of the classical colonial strategies of representation and appropriation has certainly played an important role in the development of Western culture. Orientalism can be found among such diverse representatives as the canonical authors of Romanticism, the various occultist and esoteric New Age sects inspired by âOrientalâ philosophy, religion and âAriosophyâ like the Jungians, the Hare Krishnaits, and the followers of Rudolf Steinerâs Anthroposophy or Madame Blavatskyâs Theosophy, and last but not least Western popular cultureâs almost childlike fondness of everything from belly dance to yoga, comics and cinema, acupuncture and martial arts, and numerous other expressions of âOriental mystiqueâ.67 There is of course a difference between the turning up of âOrientalâ elements in Western high and popular culture versus academia such as American poet and Fascist Ezra Pound who like the French poststructuralist Roland Barthes was obsessed by the âpictographic characters of the Orientâ and feminist scholars like Julia Kristeva and Hélène Cixous who are in search of âOriental femininityâ, but the tendency to use Asia as a projection of visions and dreams is clearly the same.68 The American Sinologist Raymond Dawson traces the Western tradition to use Asia as a backdrop for ideological visions back to the Age of Enlightenment with its chic chinoiserie.
According to Dawson, China and soon also Japan became symbols and role models for Conservative forces and in their longing for the pre-modern, and âthe laws of natureâ were often translated into Confucianism as a political ideology with social hierarchies perceived to be naturalized. Thus, the conservative types naturally admire Confucian East and South East Asia, while the hardcore Nazis go for Central and South Asia in their search for Aryan brethren, and the more aesthetic-minded seem to prefer West Asia where they can find solace for their romantic Orientalism. One bizarre aspect worth mentioning of the quest for the origin of the white race is the various âscientificâ proposals of the Kalmucks, the Maoris, the Ainus or even the Koreans as distant kin to the white race.70 In other words, by imagining and conceptualizing an Asia of their own, Asia becomes a code word for political authoritarianism, racial homogeneity, patriarchal familialism and cultural traditionalism, all typical extreme rightist components in a Western ideological context. During the course of 20th century history, all these ideological ingredients have been able not only to survive but to dominate the field of Asian Studies either as the racist Orientalism of the colonialist era, or as the anti-Communist and highly politicized Area Studies of the Cold War. Accordingly, it is no surprise that a Nazi of the 1930s like Essén and a Nazi of the Cold War like Ek are to be found as rewarded and respected Asian Studies scholars.
Paradoxically, even present daysâ Neo-Nazis are showing a growing appreciation for
East Asia, a region perceived as âracially homogenousâ and where âthe Führer principleâ is governing. In 1996, the American Neo-Nazi magazine Resistance published a dialogue between the Canadian ideologist George Eric Hawthorne and Andrew Oswald, an Afro-American Moslem from Nation of Islam, where both were praising the rapid industrialization 15 of South Korea and China as a natural result of an âAsian National Socialismâ.71 The scientific grounding for this comes from theories of East Asian intelligence superiority with the race theorists Richard Lynn, Philippe Rushton and Arthur Jensen as its main proponents and widely popularized through the bestseller The Bell Curve (1994).72 Barry Sautman has examined this image of East Asians as intellectual âsupermenâ, and how it has been used to explain the Pacific Asian economic miracle not only by Westerners but also among Asians themselves in the indigenized version of internal Orientalism.73
However side by side with this appreciation, there is a continuous paranoid and resurgent fear of Asia, whether manifested as the âyellow perilâ at the time of the colonial period, the âJewish perilâ during the 1930s, the âOriental despotismâ of âSocialismus Asiaticusâ during the Cold War, the current âgreen perilâ of Islamism, Huntingtonâs âConfucian-Islamic allianceâ or Bushâs âaxis of evilâ, as an almost equal to Western civilization and therefore its coming combatant in an inevitable race war for global power and in the end its possible future superior.74 Because of this fear and perceived danger, it is absolutely necessary for the Westerners to master the languages and cultures of Asia not to mention to dominate the region politically and economically. This does not exclude the somewhat mundane fact that todayâs Asian Studies and the study of Asian languages and cultures also has a lot to do with the spread of global capital and business opportunities as Tom Oakes points out.75 To master Asia and the Asians was also the reason why Asian Studies in the West was born in the first place with Arabic as its first subject in the 13th century at the time of the Crusades. In analogy with this, it was during the 18th century when Western colonial domination in Asia became more pronounced and obvious, that the study of the various languages spoken on the vast continent took on a more serious manner with the birth of Orientalism or Oriental Studies. James Hevia has written on how British scholars ethnographically mapped its way through China just like they did in India by the building up of an extensive Orientalist archive as an integrated part of
the colonial project to be able to decode and recode the country, provide intelligence in the contest with other Western powers and dominate the local scene, but also to be able to show that the spirit of this ancient and venerable civilization was gone forever and that it had stagnated and therefore was ripe for colonization, while simultaneously creating its own fears of the country in the form of the âyellow perilâ which still makes itself heard in the subconscious mind of Western culture.76
Further, as has been shown by Ravi Palat in his analysis of Asian Studies as Area
Studies and by Harry Harootunian for Japanese Studies, Asian Studies is indeed composed by a strange mixture of classical Orientalism and Area Studies with its heavy stress on knowl16 edge of languages and pre-modern history as the method of understanding contemporary Asia and even diasporic Asians, and more importantly with its positivist, atheoretical and descriptive nature in commenting, categorizing, cataloguing and translating manuscripts and artifacts which all too often have been stolen and looted, and which still unfortunately is the main activity of Asian Studies in Sweden and in most other European countries.77 Finally, the asianists themselves are with few exceptions predominantly white males, the absolute majority coming from an upper-class background, and they are the ones monopolizing the positions of secure, well-paid and full-employed tenures and professorships. To be an Asianist is a lifestyle by consuming the racialized Other and going native considering the fact that so many occasionally like to dress up in âOrientalâ clothes, play âOrientalâ games, practice âOrientalâ dance, martial arts and meditation, and eat âethnicâ food, while many female Asianists like to color their hair black or use âAsianâ make-up style. Ethnic Asians in the field of whom most happen to be females, are confined to low-paid part-time teaching as ânative informantsâ â
conversation teachers, calligraphy instructors and the like.
Even more disturbing is the still going strong general feminization and infantilization
of Asia as according to my personal estimate of Sweden and Europe at least 75 percent of these white men are married to Asian women, driven by the sexualization of Asian women with its classical ingredients of Harem fantasies, Indian Tantrism, geishas and kisaengs, and contemporary Middle Eastern homosexual sex tourism and South and South East Asian heterosexual or even paedophilic sex tourism, while the rest and all too many of the female Asianists have adopted an Asian child. The phenomenon of sexual relations between âscientistsâ and ânative informantsâ has been dealt with by Benedict Anderson for the case of United States as it obviously has persisted in the field, even if reversed from those of the colonial era: ââ¦[r]ather than the scholar-bureaucrat being creolized by these relationships, out there in the colony, it is the spouse or significant other, moved to California or Massachusetts
who is likely to be Americanized.â78 Thus, paradoxically Asian spouses or adopted children become Americanized or Europeanized, while the Asianists become Asianized. However, the Asianists do not stop at collecting ânativesâ in their colonial desires; they also collect âOrientalâ art, manuscripts and rare books which very often have been purchased and smuggled out using dubious methods, a practice which is legitimized by shallow scientific arguments colonial rescue fantasies. So to sum up, I argue that the fact that Asia functions as a topos of fear and desire either as a distant homeland of, an equal to or a threat to the West, explains the fact that the field of Asian Studies has become a sanctuary and safe haven for Nazis and ex17
treme rightists, race ideology, right-wing extremism, white supremacy, authoritarian thinking and colonial romance. Through this twofold schizophrenic and split process Asian Studies largely missed the moments of de-colonization and de-nazification, and continues to live on fuelled by racist fantasies and dreams.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
http://www.tobiashubinette.se/asianists.pdf
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Some plausible explanations</b>
So with all this said, why are Nazis and extreme rightists so frequently and variously involved with Asian Studies as empirical evidence from the Swedish milieu shows? To begin with, a first point of departure must be a general appreciation for Asian peoples and cultures coming from the public at large in the West. Contrary to the various cultures of the Americas, Africa and Oceania which Western colonialism encountered during its conquest of the world and which with few exceptions were deemed âprimitiveâ according to the âscientificâ logic of Social Darwinist thinking, Asia was considered to be an equal at least in its glorious past of empire buildings even if its contemporary state was universally condemned to have fallen into rampant stagnation and decay, thereby legitimizing missionary activities and military interventions and in the end outright occupation and colonization. The âOriental lureâ whereby Westerners simply create their own Asia by the use of the classical colonial strategies of representation and appropriation has certainly played an important role in the development of Western culture. Orientalism can be found among such diverse representatives as the canonical authors of Romanticism, the various occultist and esoteric New Age sects inspired by âOrientalâ philosophy, religion and âAriosophyâ like the Jungians, the Hare Krishnaits, and the followers of Rudolf Steinerâs Anthroposophy or Madame Blavatskyâs Theosophy, and last but not least Western popular cultureâs almost childlike fondness of everything from belly dance to yoga, comics and cinema, acupuncture and martial arts, and numerous other expressions of âOriental mystiqueâ.67 There is of course a difference between the turning up of âOrientalâ elements in Western high and popular culture versus academia such as American poet and Fascist Ezra Pound who like the French poststructuralist Roland Barthes was obsessed by the âpictographic characters of the Orientâ and feminist scholars like Julia Kristeva and Hélène Cixous who are in search of âOriental femininityâ, but the tendency to use Asia as a projection of visions and dreams is clearly the same.68 The American Sinologist Raymond Dawson traces the Western tradition to use Asia as a backdrop for ideological visions back to the Age of Enlightenment with its chic chinoiserie.
According to Dawson, China and soon also Japan became symbols and role models for Conservative forces and in their longing for the pre-modern, and âthe laws of natureâ were often translated into Confucianism as a political ideology with social hierarchies perceived to be naturalized. Thus, the conservative types naturally admire Confucian East and South East Asia, while the hardcore Nazis go for Central and South Asia in their search for Aryan brethren, and the more aesthetic-minded seem to prefer West Asia where they can find solace for their romantic Orientalism. One bizarre aspect worth mentioning of the quest for the origin of the white race is the various âscientificâ proposals of the Kalmucks, the Maoris, the Ainus or even the Koreans as distant kin to the white race.70 In other words, by imagining and conceptualizing an Asia of their own, Asia becomes a code word for political authoritarianism, racial homogeneity, patriarchal familialism and cultural traditionalism, all typical extreme rightist components in a Western ideological context. During the course of 20th century history, all these ideological ingredients have been able not only to survive but to dominate the field of Asian Studies either as the racist Orientalism of the colonialist era, or as the anti-Communist and highly politicized Area Studies of the Cold War. Accordingly, it is no surprise that a Nazi of the 1930s like Essén and a Nazi of the Cold War like Ek are to be found as rewarded and respected Asian Studies scholars.
Paradoxically, even present daysâ Neo-Nazis are showing a growing appreciation for
East Asia, a region perceived as âracially homogenousâ and where âthe Führer principleâ is governing. In 1996, the American Neo-Nazi magazine Resistance published a dialogue between the Canadian ideologist George Eric Hawthorne and Andrew Oswald, an Afro-American Moslem from Nation of Islam, where both were praising the rapid industrialization 15 of South Korea and China as a natural result of an âAsian National Socialismâ.71 The scientific grounding for this comes from theories of East Asian intelligence superiority with the race theorists Richard Lynn, Philippe Rushton and Arthur Jensen as its main proponents and widely popularized through the bestseller The Bell Curve (1994).72 Barry Sautman has examined this image of East Asians as intellectual âsupermenâ, and how it has been used to explain the Pacific Asian economic miracle not only by Westerners but also among Asians themselves in the indigenized version of internal Orientalism.73
However side by side with this appreciation, there is a continuous paranoid and resurgent fear of Asia, whether manifested as the âyellow perilâ at the time of the colonial period, the âJewish perilâ during the 1930s, the âOriental despotismâ of âSocialismus Asiaticusâ during the Cold War, the current âgreen perilâ of Islamism, Huntingtonâs âConfucian-Islamic allianceâ or Bushâs âaxis of evilâ, as an almost equal to Western civilization and therefore its coming combatant in an inevitable race war for global power and in the end its possible future superior.74 Because of this fear and perceived danger, it is absolutely necessary for the Westerners to master the languages and cultures of Asia not to mention to dominate the region politically and economically. This does not exclude the somewhat mundane fact that todayâs Asian Studies and the study of Asian languages and cultures also has a lot to do with the spread of global capital and business opportunities as Tom Oakes points out.75 To master Asia and the Asians was also the reason why Asian Studies in the West was born in the first place with Arabic as its first subject in the 13th century at the time of the Crusades. In analogy with this, it was during the 18th century when Western colonial domination in Asia became more pronounced and obvious, that the study of the various languages spoken on the vast continent took on a more serious manner with the birth of Orientalism or Oriental Studies. James Hevia has written on how British scholars ethnographically mapped its way through China just like they did in India by the building up of an extensive Orientalist archive as an integrated part of
the colonial project to be able to decode and recode the country, provide intelligence in the contest with other Western powers and dominate the local scene, but also to be able to show that the spirit of this ancient and venerable civilization was gone forever and that it had stagnated and therefore was ripe for colonization, while simultaneously creating its own fears of the country in the form of the âyellow perilâ which still makes itself heard in the subconscious mind of Western culture.76
Further, as has been shown by Ravi Palat in his analysis of Asian Studies as Area
Studies and by Harry Harootunian for Japanese Studies, Asian Studies is indeed composed by a strange mixture of classical Orientalism and Area Studies with its heavy stress on knowl16 edge of languages and pre-modern history as the method of understanding contemporary Asia and even diasporic Asians, and more importantly with its positivist, atheoretical and descriptive nature in commenting, categorizing, cataloguing and translating manuscripts and artifacts which all too often have been stolen and looted, and which still unfortunately is the main activity of Asian Studies in Sweden and in most other European countries.77 Finally, the asianists themselves are with few exceptions predominantly white males, the absolute majority coming from an upper-class background, and they are the ones monopolizing the positions of secure, well-paid and full-employed tenures and professorships. To be an Asianist is a lifestyle by consuming the racialized Other and going native considering the fact that so many occasionally like to dress up in âOrientalâ clothes, play âOrientalâ games, practice âOrientalâ dance, martial arts and meditation, and eat âethnicâ food, while many female Asianists like to color their hair black or use âAsianâ make-up style. Ethnic Asians in the field of whom most happen to be females, are confined to low-paid part-time teaching as ânative informantsâ â
conversation teachers, calligraphy instructors and the like.
Even more disturbing is the still going strong general feminization and infantilization
of Asia as according to my personal estimate of Sweden and Europe at least 75 percent of these white men are married to Asian women, driven by the sexualization of Asian women with its classical ingredients of Harem fantasies, Indian Tantrism, geishas and kisaengs, and contemporary Middle Eastern homosexual sex tourism and South and South East Asian heterosexual or even paedophilic sex tourism, while the rest and all too many of the female Asianists have adopted an Asian child. The phenomenon of sexual relations between âscientistsâ and ânative informantsâ has been dealt with by Benedict Anderson for the case of United States as it obviously has persisted in the field, even if reversed from those of the colonial era: ââ¦[r]ather than the scholar-bureaucrat being creolized by these relationships, out there in the colony, it is the spouse or significant other, moved to California or Massachusetts
who is likely to be Americanized.â78 Thus, paradoxically Asian spouses or adopted children become Americanized or Europeanized, while the Asianists become Asianized. However, the Asianists do not stop at collecting ânativesâ in their colonial desires; they also collect âOrientalâ art, manuscripts and rare books which very often have been purchased and smuggled out using dubious methods, a practice which is legitimized by shallow scientific arguments colonial rescue fantasies. So to sum up, I argue that the fact that Asia functions as a topos of fear and desire either as a distant homeland of, an equal to or a threat to the West, explains the fact that the field of Asian Studies has become a sanctuary and safe haven for Nazis and ex17
treme rightists, race ideology, right-wing extremism, white supremacy, authoritarian thinking and colonial romance. Through this twofold schizophrenic and split process Asian Studies largely missed the moments of de-colonization and de-nazification, and continues to live on fuelled by racist fantasies and dreams.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->