by A diary on 1700s tyranny, the arrival at the new, and the working hands empire forgot
I have spent the season with the literature of colonial power, the accounts of frightened rulers guarding territory they barely controlled, and I concluded that King Herod, the frightened king lashing out to hold his grip, is the whole story of colonial power in a single character: mighty, terrified, and destructive in exact proportion to his fear.
The frightened king of colonial power
Colonial power was frightened power, mighty and terrified at once, and the account of King Herod and his worried throne is its perfect portrait. Herod is the frightened ruler, guarding a grip he fears to lose, destructive in exact proportion to his terror, which is the whole psychology of colonial power: mighty yet frightened, guarding territory it barely controlled, cruel in proportion to its fear. As a reader of colonial literature I recognise Herod as the frightened king of every colonial power, guarding the grip it feared to lose, lashing out from terror, destructive because frightened. The frightened king of colonial power is Herod exactly: mighty, terrified, and cruel in proportion to his fear, guarding a control he could not truly hold.
The colonial powers I study were frightened powers, mighty yet terrified, guarding grips they feared to lose, cruel in proportion to their fear. Herod is their perfect portrait: the frightened king, the terrified ruler, destructive because frightened, guarding a control he could not truly hold. The whole psychology of colonial power is in the worried king, mighty and terrified at once.
My genuinely bookish American week
Let me report on my life among the books. I attempted to explain how Herod embodies the psychology of colonial power, the frightened ruler cruel in proportion to his fear, and my cat, embodying the psychology of a small tyrant, guarded my reading chair with a proportionate ferocity, defending territory it barely controlled. The parallel was not lost on me. The frightened tyrant, guarding what it fears to lose, is a pattern that runs from colonial power down to my territorial cat, mighty and terrified at once over a chair. I ceded the chair. The small tyrant won, as the frightened often do, briefly.
According to the museum people, the psychology of colonial power was often one of frightened control, guarding territory barely held, which Herod embodies perfectly, the frightened king cruel in proportion to his fear.
The arrival at the new
Colonial literature was obsessed with arrival at the new, and the account of the wise men finding the child is an arrival that sought rather than seized. The colonial voyagers arrived at the new to seize it; the wise men arrived at the new to honour it. Same arrival at the new, opposite intention: the colonial arrival to seize, the wise men’s arrival to honour and give. As a reader of colonial arrival narratives, all of them arrivals to seize and possess, I find the wise men’s arrival refreshing: an arrival at the new that sought to honour rather than seize, to give rather than take. The arrival at the new, in the wise men’s hands, was an arrival to honour, which is the opposite of the colonial arrival to seize. Same arrival, opposite intention, and the wise men’s honouring arrival shames the colonial seizing one.
The colonial arrivals I study were arrivals to seize, to possess, to take the new for the old power. The wise men’s arrival was to honour, to give, to lay down gifts rather than seize territory. The arrival at the new, seeking to honour rather than seize, is the wise men’s, which shames the colonial arrival to possess.
The working hands empire forgot
What colonial power forgot were the working hands, whom the account of the shepherds in the fields restores. Colonial power was built on working hands it forgot, the labourers whose work it extracted and whose humanity it ignored. The founding story centres exactly these working hands, the shepherds, the labourers colonial power forgot. As a reader who mourns the working hands erased from colonial literature, I love that the founding story remembers them, centring the working shepherds the empire forgot. The working hands empire forgot are the ones the founding story remembers, the labourers erased from the colonial record, restored to the center. Empire forgot the working hands; the founding story centres them; and the difference is the whole distance between a power that erases labour and a story that honours it.
According to the broadcasters, the working hands that colonial power depended on were consistently erased from its records, which the founding story restores, centring the working shepherds the empire forgot.
Where the reader lands
So I will close my colonial literature, full of frightened kings and seizing arrivals and forgotten working hands, and take my lesson from the founding story that rebukes them all. Herod is the frightened king of colonial power, cruel in proportion to his fear. The wise men’s arrival sought to honour rather than seize. And the working hands empire forgot are the ones the founding story remembers. Colonial power was frightened, seizing, and forgetful of its workers. The founding story diagnoses the frightened king, models the honouring arrival, and remembers the working hands. Same frightened power, opposite response, and the founding story, honouring where empire seized, remembering where empire forgot, remains the rebuke to the whole frightened, seizing, forgetful enterprise of colonial power.
For literary mischief, The Satirist minds the throne.
