It seems that the “without borders” suffix has become cache amongst liberal and international organizations. Blogging, by nature, is without borders (although coorporations seem to be reclaiming and dividing up the Africa internet) provided that one has access to a computer, one can both publish and read to contentment. As can be found in my quip of “Blogging beyond the pass system” below borders and, I suppose, lines of difference form a critical part of my interests. And, although, part of this interest arises from transnational feminism and anti-colonialism, the majority of it comes from my opposition to apartheid.
Apartheid can serve as a valuable metaphor for thinking culture and can, especially, warn those of us who care about identity politics run a muck. When we become so fastidious in our identitities that we can no longer think beyond our own little banal corner of being empathy becomes impossible, and, more critically, when empathy goes away the evil Other is formed. Also– the concept of universality beyond social differences becomes unthinkable. I know that my one reader will charge me with essentialism here, but I need to be brave and finally say what I have been thinking all along: there is such a thing as a universal. I might not know what it is or how to name it in language but, nevertheless, one exists and I hope to find it in graduate school.
But, I digress. The “Without Borders” thing seems to be a little different from the anti-apartheid movement. The anti-apartheid movement was more akin to an anti-colonial movement to empower the black majority of SA within the political electorate. Not to mention to end the torture, policing and removal of black people within their own borders (here the sovereign SA as we know it today). Conversely, “Without Borders” seems to be part of the touchy feely liberal machine, which vilifies governments of color in order to provide services to the “masses” living under these regimes.
Now, don’t get me wrong, governments like, for example, the Sudanese need to stop fucking around with black people who live in its borders and comprise the majority of its populations. But to go in as doctors, and lawyers as an after thought does not empower these people toward soverignty. The “Without Borders” franchise seems to have more in common with a world without borders=one Empire, than an anti-colonial movement.
But, back to blogging, I like it. It seems to be a real place of freedom…where differences can be outright made up, if not just performed in the Judith Butler sense. Probably, I am just a rookie and idealistic here.
So the question to my readers: is blogging more like “without borders” or an actual anti-essentialism that can oppose an apartheid-like id politics?
Hello, there. I was reading your blog and thought I would share my thoughts with you. Somehow I am not convinced that blogging (or the internet for that matter) contests difference; it seems to me that it reinforces it. Does “existing without a body”–a physical representation which can be mapped, defined, etc–mean universality? No. After all, what do we do on the Net (on facebook or friendster, etc) but create idealized cyber-selves? Sure, on the surface it looks like transcendence, but, since we cannot imagine outside of our identities (we can, but only through the prism of our “real identities”) the cyber-self is psychologically encumbered with those markers we assume to be only the domain of the body.
For instance: how do i know you are a woman? you say so. you didn’t have to. but because of this, your cyber-self becomes imbued with all sorts of things–by me, by you, by other readers. sure, they don’t know what kind of woman you are, but for many men, this isn’t necessary–they will still nit-pick and split hairs over your words. When they read, they are not reading, but looking for your weak spots.
Therefore, a universal does not seem possible, simply because of the way it is imagined–i.e., the “bigger issue” etc. The “universal” that brings us together is always the qualities of the domainant class, and it is up to exveryone else to wise up and join the “human family.” But, what family are they joining when they are the family unit? Even the universal is a marker. Whn I hear someone talking about the universal on the Net i know what and who they are. A white guy.
Hi, thanks for stopping by here. Interesting that you say you can not transcend your id on the Net, when we both know that you are not female, only posturing as one to conceal your id from me. If you had not told me (on the phone) that you left this reply my reaction would have been totally different.
So, you did fool me. Of course, then you do not become a woman but you become a man posturing as a woman. A type of transvesitism…but I think that this reinforces the idea that at core we are some gender or other and the performance is the fake.
I also think that you misread my notion of the universal. I am critical of the “without borders” thing for precisely the reasons you state (ie without nations usually is a psydonym for one white empire). But I think that the net can allow for something other than this type of universality. It allows people, for a moment at least, to conceal their identitites. I don’t think that this is always a bad thing. If I am a white man, who feels intimidated by feminism, I can go into a feminist blog and learn a thing or two in a different way than I could, say, go into a women’s studies class. I think that these types of encounters could potentially produce freedoms that are previously unknown in liberalism.
Hi, I think your point about new kind of freedom blogging offers is very insightful and I totally agree with you. But I don’t know if “without borders” idea is as bad as you say. Yes, some imperialists abuse the ideal of the world without borders to justify their (white-dominated) empire, but it doesn’t have to be the way as colonialists use; we can envisage the world without borders, without oppression. In other words, I think imperialism can be present, but isn’t inherent, in the “without borders” philosophy.
I support anti-oppression/anti-colonial movements, but there are always dangers of nationalism within these movements, just like dangers of imperialism threaten the “without borders” ethos…