As a person of South Asian descent, I'm a bit confounded by this piece. Reading that last paragraph, I can't help but think Khoury's critique is colored by his own experience coming from a family of Syrian descent. I am very sympathetic and share a lot of his pain but, while there are parallels between both instances of imperialist abuse, I can't help but feel his indignation is misplaced and not particularly relevant to the British exploitation of South Asia. As a result, the only points that I feel Khoury has much traction are Zimmerman's callous attitude toward racism in general and the character of King Louis.
Indians actually tend towards a great deal of pride in their country and culture and, for the most part, HAVE moved beyond the British raj. In fact, many cultural critics within India would describe this pride as borderline hubris that often handicaps the nation, and prevents Indians from adequately admitting the many human rights issues still to be addressed: the endemic government and police corruption, the religious conflict, the classism and racism that is prevalent there as relics of the (now abolished, but in many regions only in a de jure sense) caste system, the widespread mysogyny that often manifests as violence and disenfranchisement. This is changing, thankfully.
Britain does have a different breed of racism in existence today, however; stemming in large part from the uneasy relationship between Western secularism and the influx of Islamic immigrants into Western Europe. Reactionary Islam and the incipient Islamophobia and Neo-Nazism is a huge problem in much of Europe today, the likes of which we Americans could never fathom. These extremists on both sides constitute less than 5% of the general population in most Western countries, but they are a very loud and very dangerous contingent. Unlike in the U.S., Europe doesn't really have a very open race dialogue. It's simply not talked about, but allowed to fester unaddressed until it errupts at football matches or skinhead rallies. America gets a bad rap for its race relations, but it really is nothing compared to what I have seen in Europe.
So would a production of Disney's Jungle Book that is "a critique of Kipling’s terrible politics" be particularly salient or enlightening? When we have violent racism in existence around the world today, what victory is won by skewering the politics of a man who died almost a century ago? If you read Victorian accounts of India, they display attitudes that are quite foreign to modern-day Indians and Brits alike. Racism still exists, certainly. But the level of indignation in Khoury's essay is really confounding to me. People are being MURDERED today around the contemporary race and religious dialectic, and I'm supposed to be up in arms about some theatre director who appropriates my people's cultural aesthetics for a musical?
With a few exceptions of ignorant provincialism, I usually actually find it more flattering when Westerners are taken with the art, food, music, and religion of my culture than offended. They're usually very earnest and no more offensive than American anime fans or Anglophiles. I'm actually more offended when Asian culture is outright ignored and Asian actors are marginalized, which is not the case at all with this production, which has a substantial South Asian cast and South Asian musicians.
Updated On: 6/12/13 at 07:22 PM
