Lotus and its afterlives: Memory, pedagogy and anticolonial solidarity

Abstract

In this article we examine the Lotus: Afro-Asian Writings journal as an insurgent space that reflected Afro-Asian solidarity. We argue that Lotus constituted “infrastructures of dissent” and “infrastructures of solidarity” which were constructed between different anti-colonial movements. Though Lotus was widely circulated through different geographies, debated and discussed, there remains very little scholarly attention around its origins, impact, and the forms of solidarity it aspired to engender. There have been a number of studies on the “Bandung Spirit” and the “Tricontinental” conferences, yet there is generally less attention to the networks of artists, authors, exhibits, and magazines that discussed and debated forging insurgent solidarities under difficult circumstances. The article thus explores how cultural production was used by Afro-Asian artists to enact “creative solidarity” and the ways Lotus provided a means for cultural producers to share knowledge, theorize, and build relations across anti-colonial struggles, albeit in a space not outside the political dynamics and contradictions of the moment. We also conceptualize Lotus as an anti-colonial archive and suggest that such archives can be used pedagogically in efforts to decolonize curriculum, through a histories from below approach, to remember those occluded from history.

Keywords:

• Anti-colonial archives
• Afro-Asian solidarity
• Lotus journal
• decolonizing curriculum
• cultural resistance
• Palestine

Acknowledgement

The research for this article has been supported by the OSUN Center for Human Rights and the Arts Faculty Research Grant, and funding from the Jackman Humanities Institute at the University of Toronto and the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 We acknowledge that the revolutionary cultural figures we outline here are primarily men. During this period hetero-patriarchy figured into the circulation of works of male revolutionaries and their ideas across contexts. While we are aware of the dynamic role women played in various third world organizations, their works remain(ed) on the margins in the context of Lotus—one of the shortcomings of the journal that speaks to the social relations of the period.

2 The largest archival special collection is housed at the American University of Beirut (AUB) in Lebanon. The AUB has collected and preserved many volumes from 1972 to 1991 in Arabic and several in English and French. The AUB collection is incomplete, however, as it has several volumes missing including the period Lotus was based in Beirut. The second largest collection of Lotus is housed at the University of Toronto in Canada, which primarily constitutes materials from the Cairo period (1967–1977). The University of Toronto collection houses the English language volumes 1–35. This collection stops after volume 35, when Lotus was relocated to Beirut. There are also some copies at the American University of Cairo library. The Afro-Asian Writers Office in Cairo also holds copies mainly of the Cario years as well. In attempting to assemble the volumes we have located copies left in libraries, a few bookshops, but also with individuals.

3 Resistance culture is the use of radical arts practices and traditions to oppose oppressive and exploitative systems of power and social relations. It is also the use of art practices, symbols, and meanings to produce counter-hegemonic knowledge and history.

4 We acknowledge that (settler) colonialism is ongoing in many geographies such as Canada, the US, Palestine, Puerto Rico, Kashmir, and elsewhere, and the struggle is not yet over.

5 For example, according to Trouillot (1995) the French state archives silenced the history of the Haitian revolution.

6 For Freire conscientization was more than awareness or consciousness; rather it describes the process through which a person moves into action. For oppressed peoples he argued conscientization can move them towards liberation and transforming their conditions of oppression.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Chandni Desai

Chandni Desai is an Assistant Professor at the University of Toronto.

Rafeef Ziadah

Rafeef Ziadah is a Lecturer in Politics and Public Policy in the Department of International Development at Kings College London.