COMPTES RENDUS - AFEC

Comptes rendus
White Masks (the title is given hère and elsewhere as Black Skin and White
Masks) by the Martinican psychoanalyst and revolutionary Franz Fanon
(1925-61), she begins (p. 31): "Never has a lone word among the myriad
languages of humanity made so much history as the Chinese character yi
35-" This is quite a generalization, to say the least, but Liu is just warming
up: "By history I mean world history. Countless events and fantastic happenings
hâve corne to pass over the last two centuries [World War II? The
Great Leap Forward? - JF], but none could rival the singularity of the
Chinese word yi in its uncanny ability to arouse confusion, anxiety, and
war. Yi is one of those monstrous créatures one must reckon with, subdue,
destroy, or exile before it cornes back to haunt us." I was unaware that a
single word was capable of starting wars, but Liu's suggested désire to
"destroy," "exile," or "subdue" it sounds almost as violent. What could
possibly be in a name? Sticks and stones?
Liu is decidedly not advising that we find a proper translation for yi;
she even suggests that translation as such may be impossible. Her point is
that the British seized on this term to mean "barbarian," and after their
victory in the Opium War they demanded that the Chinese term be stricken
from ail treaties. Chinese and Manchu protestations to the contrary, it was
excised. Thus, yi meaning "barbarian" became a super-sign, which Liu
tells us repeatedly is a "monstrosity."
Did yi truly signify "barbarian" (meaning the opposite of civilized or
cultured), or did it simply mean "foreign" or "alien"? In the middle of a
dispute between two parties - in this instance, the British and the Qing
empires - the involved parties are the last entities one should turn to for a
clear understanding of the issue at hand. That is why I tried to médiate the
dispute by invoking a third party outside the clash and avant le fait. Japanese
Neo-Confucians of the seventeenth and eighteenth century clearly
thought that yi meant "barbarian" (as in uncouth, uncivilized); some accepted
the désignation for themselves and hoped Japan would improve and
become more like China, while others (as in the case of Asami Keisai,
cited above, and others) found the désignation offensive. In both instances,
however, there was no doubt in the least concerning the connotation of the
term yi (and there was, of course, no intermediate English term). And, if
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