White skin Brown Masks

"White skin Brown Masks" is a book by Kaja Silverman.

Plot

Kaja Silverman starts his book by referring to two important notions which are ‘nation’ and ‘race’. In Seven pillars of wisdom we find that the concepts of nation and race are subjected to a complete deconstruction, especially when they are related to the Arab unification. In his description of the Arabs, Lawrence considered them to be manufactured people. His description is not based on spiritual or geographical factors, but on linguistics factors. As he puts it in Seven Pillars of Wisdom:

A first difficulty of the Arab movement was to say who the Arabs were. Being a manufactured people their names have been changing in the sense slowly year by year. Once it meant Arabian. There was a country called Arabia; but this was nothing to the point. There was a language called Arabic; and in it lay the test. [Quoted in White Skin Brown Masks. P. 17.]

This quote may imply that Lawrence was aware of the fact that language is one of the components which contribute to the construction of Arabs identity and nationalism.

In the first chapter of "Seven Pillars", Silverman argues, Lawrence unconsciously shows a sense of colonial subjectivity when speaking of him. He repeatedly states his important role in the Arab revolt against the Ottoman Empire. He believes that his role with the Arabs is similar to that of the commander’s role. He states that his role is to exploit [Arabs] environment in order to press others out of theirs.Quoted in White Skin Brown Masks. P. 19.] To do so Lawrence is obliged to imitate the Arabs to the extent in which the Arabs would imitate him back. This, as Kaja Silveman put it, leads the Arabs to enact a return to the self. That is, the Arabs ‘‘become once again what they have always been.’’P. 19.] Here, one can say that this return to the self is probably a kind of identity reconsideration.

Kaja Silverman refers to Lawrence's notorious "Twenty-Seven Articles" to show how Lawrence’s Arab masquerade was of great help to him in dealing with the Arabs. In those articles Lawrence states that constituting ‘‘one self as an ideal within the terms of native culture- to outdo the Arabs in their Arabness’’ is the best way to lead them, because this would make him, Lawrence, a standard to follow. The strategy of outdoing the Arabs in representing ‘‘Arabness’’ is clearly stated in one of Lawrence’s advices to his British colleagues:

Leave your English friends and customs on the coast and fall back on Arab habits entirely. It is possible, starting thus to level with them, for the European to beat the Arabs at their own game…If you can surpass them, you have taken a great stride toward complete success…Quoted in White Skin Brown Masks. P. 19]

In fact, Lawrence’s imitation of the Arabs did not stop at the level of simply ‘aping’ them. It unpredictably led to the rewriting of Lawrence own subjectivity. This is so, because the repeated imitation of the Other leads (sometimes) to the identification with that Other. In the case of Lawrence, his imitation of the Arabs did not only result in his identification with the Arabs, but it also made him able to ‘‘insert himself into the structural positions occupied by certain Arabs.’’ [Quoted in White Skin Brown Masks. P. 20] This shows that Lawrence is able to penetrate into the Arabs environment and occupy important structural positions only by assimilating the image of the Other.

Kaja Silveman argues, however, that internalizing the external images of the Arabs by Lawrence does not mean the he became an Arab. For, to become an Arab, Lawrence ‘‘would have to be photographed through the screen of Arabness not only by the collective Arab gaze, but by it British equivalent.’’ [Quoted in White Skin Brown Masks. P. 47] In addition to that, Silveman also focuses on the notion of ‘skin’ colour which is, for Lawrence the only thing that he could not change:

In spite of the effort for these years to live in the dress of Arabs, and to imitate their mental foundation, an effort which has quit me of my English self, and let me look at the west and its conventions with new eyes, nevertheless I could not sincerely take on the Arab skin. [Quoted in White Skin Brown Masks. P. 48]

This passage, Kaja argues, does not mean that the definition of Arabness is mainly based on the notion of skin. It only shows that Lawrence imitation of the Arabs has never been completed.

Even tough Lawrence lived with Arabs and as an Arab for about two years, and even identified with Arab nationalism for other three years, he never considered him self and Arab. Britain, in return, considered him as its own all the time, and Lawrence history ‘‘defined him as a British citizen.’’ There is, however, no doubt that the process of passing the self through the medium of the Other may have effects which are beyond those related to the alienation of the self. In the case of Lawrence, Silverman states, the passing of the self into the medium of the Other must have resulted in a significant shift in Lawrence Identity.

Footnotes

Works cited

* Silverman, Kaja. 1989. "White Skin, Brown Masks: The Double Mimesis, or, With Lawrence in Arabia." Differences 1:3-54. Bloomington : Indiana University Press.

E. Lawrence, The Seven Pillars of Wisdom: A Triumph (New York: Doubleday Anchor, 1991).

Lawrence, T. E. "Twenty-Seven Articles", The Arab Bulletin, 20 August 1917. Downloaded text available at: http://www.cgsc.army.mil/carl/resources/biblio/27articles.asp