Thesis on Cyberjaya: Excerpt

FROM THESIS ON CYBERJAYA:
DISCUSSIONS ON GENERAL STATEMENTS CONCERNING LANGUAGE
by Azly Rahman

Written at Columbia University, December 2003

“Culture has more to do with the houses we inhabit that with the habits we acquire”
− Herve Varenne


Introduction

In the previous chapter I concluded with the idea that hegemony is structured into the consciousness of the nation through a strategy of disciplining and controlling that arise out of the establishing of institutions of control that are now inscribed onto the landscape using informational communicational technologies. The regime of the fourth prime minister Mahathir Mohamad established institutions that uses advanced technologies to enrich national strategies on the one hand, and to maintain control beyond better than the imposition of raw power. Hegemony permeates at various levels: philosophical to psychological; structured by the institutions built and the ideological state apparatuses employed.

In my analysis of the genealogy of cybernetics I discover the transcultural flow of idea of technological determinism that has branched out into various levels of structurations and appropriated by the author to be embedded, as suggested by a philosopher of technology, into an inert form of nationalistic developmental policy (McClintock, 2001) that is wired up to the most advanced capitalist centers of the world. In the following sections I will discuss the implications of my findings and how they generate propositions and tools of analysis. I will first discuss some general statements concerning language particularly on the notion of the “intertextualized nation”, and next discuss propositions concerning “cybernating nations” such as Malaysia, and finally discuss a set of tools I propose for the analysis of concepts that have genealogy and manifestations.

The “intertextualized” nation

The findings on Malaysia’s grand project of social transformation can be looked at not only from the point of view of the flow of idea from one realm to another i. e. from the realm of cybernetics to the physical-material realm of Cyberjaya but from a linguistic perspective as well. The digital text is inscribed onto a landscape; a process that fragments the soul of the nation and creates a hypermodern state that is authored and signatured by what is defined as “world-class companies”. The ”inter-textualized nation” is a consequence of Malaysia’s developmentalist project of hypermodernity. The state becomes a neatly written subtext to a larger and more established matrix of Grand Narrative called corporate capitalist developmentalism whose ideology and sophisticated tools of empire-ing is the forte of advanced industrial nations. Malaysia becomes a periphery wanting to be part of the Center, a subtext continually being written to tell the story of the text.

Kristeva (1980) writes about intertextuality as a linguistic situation in which one idea in a text is linked to another. The Self, in Kristeva’s analysis is influenced by “subtexts” outside of itself that defines its textuality and a s a consequence, loses its authenticity. A similar argument about the loss of authenticity is made by many a philosopher who writes about the consequence of modernity (Taylor, 1991) In this dissertation, the Malaysian MSC is an example of a nation that is ideologically linked to other ideas outside of the nation itself. In this case Malaysia’s development is intertextualized with the idea of Western corporate interest by way of the advisory panelship, transfer of technology, and most importantly the colonization of corporate English Language onto the material and psychological development of the nation. The textuality of the nation is then characterized by the weaving of corporate and foreign discourses onto the developmentalist agenda of the nation, facilitating the withering of the nation-state and enhancing the role of the nation as a hypermodern Periphery of the Central capitalist nation of an equally hyper-modernized international capitalist system.

The “nation as text” becomes one that is continuously being co-authored by international inscribers interested in capitalizing on the cheap labor offered. The international inscribers were given the best of privileges such as generous ten-year tax-breaks, freedom from being harassed by worker unions since only “in-house unions” are allowed to exist, and state-of-the-art facilities to attract them to invest in the new Malaysian economy. The will to be “nationalistic” exists only in the form of signs and symbols that are touristic in nature, such as in the images and symbols of culture that are at the consumptive level and are merely showcases of tradition. The evidence gathered on the textuality of this nation lies in the signs and symbols in the cultural and industrial complexes; signs and symbols of predominantly American corporate business interests. Hence, not only the nation is inter-textualized by its linkages to other forces of influence, such as of the iconoclasms of Stanford University Area, United States of America, but also these signs and symbols are transmutating and hybridizing with the local hosts, as evident in the practice of street-naming on the campus of Malaysia’s Multimedia University. In this sense, the development of the state parallels the development of the United States with regard to the influence of industries and corporations and the installations of technologies to march capitalism to its triumph (Noble, 1977; Noble 1984; Nye, 1990).

In the area of social reproduction, the schooling system, from the primary to tertiary levels, is turning towards the re-using if English Language as the language of Science and Technology and inscribed into the policy-making documents of languages of instruction. The emphasis of on the use of computer technology in schools, embalmed in the policy of creating Smart Schools to produce computer-literate workforce (“wired schools”) parallels also the influence of computer giants in determining the nature of policy inscriptions on American public schools (National Commission on Excellence in Education, NCEEE, 1985) Such is an analysis of the intertextuality of Cyberjaya.

In the section below, I discuss propositions concerning the development of nations undergoing transformation such as Malaysia’s.


Thirteen Propositions Concerning "Cybernating" Nations

From the findings of this study, I was able to generate propositions concerning nations undergoing transformations as a result of the utilization of newest informational communications technologies. Malaysia is an example of such as nation. The MSC is specifically its test-bed and Cyberjaya is an embodiment of a city built out of the regime’s interpretation of the concept of cybernetics.




ON CENTER-PERIPHERY THESIS

1. In a globalized post-industrialist world, the development of a cybernating nation will continue to follow, to a degree or another the Center-Periphery pattern of development.


ON COMPLEXITY SYSTEMS

2. Pure historical materialist conception of change cannot fully explain why nations cybernate; the more a nation gets "wired" the more complex the interplay between nationalism and internationalism will be.

ON SEMANTIC/STRUCTURALISM

3. The more a nation transforms itself cybernetically, the more extensive the enculturalization and transformation of the word "cybernetics" will be.


ON THE POLITICAL-ECONOMY OF LINGUISTIC TRANSFORMATION

4. The extent of the enculturalization of the concept of "cybernetics" will determine the speed by which a nation will be fully integrated into the global production-house of the telematics industry


ON AUTHORITARIANISM

5. The stronger the authority of the regime the greater the control and magnitude of the cybernating process. In a cybernating nation, authority can reside in the political will of a single individual or in a strong political entity, consequently producing the author’s “regime of truth”.


ON THE WITHERING OF THE NATION-STATE

6. The advent of the Internet in a developing nation signifies the genesis of the erosion of the power of government-controlled print media. Universal access to the Internet will determine the total erosion of government-produced print media. Subaltern voices will replace Grand Narratives.


ON CENTER-PERIPHERY AND GLOBALIZATION THEORY

7. Creative consciousness of the peoples of the cybernating nation will be centralized in the area of business and the arts, modeled after successful global corporations.


ON RESISTANCE

8. Critical consciousness of the people of the cybernating nation will be centralized in the area of political mobilization and personal freedom of expression, modeled after successful Internet-based political mobilization groups.


ON HEGEMONY/CENTER-PERIPHERY THESIS

9. At the macro-level of the development of a nation-state, the contestation of power is between the nation cybernating versus the nations fully cybernated, whereas at the micro level, power is contested between the contending political parties/groups.

ON RESPONSE TO RESISTANCE

10. The more the government suppresses voices of political dissent, the more the Internet is used to affect political transformations


ON MODERN IMPERIALISM

11.The fundamental character of a nation will be significantly altered with the institutionalization of the Internet as a tool of cybernating change. The source of change will however be ideologically governed by external influences, which will ultimately threaten the sovereignty of the nation-state



ON DEEP-STRUCTURING

12. Discourse of change, as evident in the phenomena of cybernation, is embedded in language. The more a foreign concept is introduced, adopted, assimilated, and enculturalized, the more the nation will lose its indigenous character built via schooling and other means of citizenship enculturalization process


ON PARADIGM OF RESEARCH

13. Postmodernist perspectives of social change (discourse theory, semiotics, Chaos/Complexity theory) rather than those of Structural-Functionalists, Marxist, or neo-Marxist, can best explain the structure and consequences of cybernetic changes.



These thirteen propositions most obviously need to be refined in order for us to look at the phenomena of transcultural consequence of computer-mediated communications from perspectives beyond ones that may be characterized by pure Structural -Functionalists or neo-Marxists.

Formulations concerning “Tool of Transcultural Analysis”

From data analyses on the various nature of “inscriptions” and from the propositions generated, we move on to our findings concerning the idea of “transcultural flow of ideas” I suggest we use as a method to analyze concepts that are enculturalized. There are 13 components to the idea and the discussions will be part of looking at the possibility of going beyond theory generating but to develop a set of tools for cultural analysis especially as it pertains to the problematique of cultural imperialism and hegemony of concepts.

Drawing from some of the findings in this analysis and in thinking of the term hegemony in the analysis of the transcultural and transmutational flow of the concept “cybernetics”, I'd like to propose how we look at ideas and conjure a paradigm of looking at how they become hegemonizing. I use the word “culture” in transcultural flow to refer to the idea of “a culture of cybernetic capitalism” that has come to color the developmentalist agenda of many a developing nation. I use to the word “transmutate” to refer to the process of synthesis an hybridization of, at the most macro of all levels, the cultures that come into contact with each other and, at the most micro of levels, the words that come into existence by an arranged marriage in the hypermodern developmentalist scheme of things. The words in Figure 39 below represent my own understanding of how we may arrive at a systematic analysis of foreign words by looking at the dimensions of the case:




FIGURE HERE





Transcultural Tools of Analysis as Process of Subjectivizing

The findings of this study has allowed me to present a table of explanation on how hegemonic formulations can be analyzed. The idea of cybernetics as it progresses from its philological roots in the idea of the explanation into the behavior of living systems onward to its evolution as a systems theory to its appropriated and hybridized version in the case of Malaysia’ Cyberjaya and the MSC, is an example of an idea that can be analyzed as a transcultural process. I analyzed Cyberjaya and the MSC as a genealogy. In the table below (Table 30) I present the parts of the tool for analyzing hegemonic ideas that have history and consequences. I call the strategy “tool of analysis for trans-cultural flow of ideas ” to highlight the idea of ideological migration from one cultural system to another and to analyze it as a phenomena of social change that has its roots and consequences in the social relations of production.



1. CONCEPTUAL FORMATION

How did the idea begin? (i.e. history, philology, genealogy).
What is its genesis?
What are its historical materialistic dimensions?



2. CONTEXT OF TRANSFER

Was the concept imposed upon the people?
How did it get transplanted—through colonization? Neo-colonization?
Did it evolved naturally out of the cultural tradition of the people?
(One may look at the impact of the Iranian Revolution on the Islamic world.)


3. COLONIZING PROPERTIES

How hegemonic is it?, due to it foreignness,
Do we need the people to possess a high level of technical knowledge to understand and apply the concept.


4. COMPLEXITY OF THE CONCEPT

Is the idea still difficult to be understood? Does the society need a restructuring in the architecture of knowledge
in order to understand the concept as its subdivisions?


5. CONDITION OF TRANSFER

What is the nature of the social history of the recipient nation/people?
How has the people tried itself to understand the new concept?
How has the ideological state apparatus played a historical role in developing the base-superstructural foundation of hegemony?


6. CIRCULARITY OF TRANSFER

How has the concept evolved from a point of origin and gets enculturalized). One may look at examples from the media and visual arts.



7. CRITICAL DIMENSION OF THE CONCEPT

What are the contradictions inherent in the concept?

8. CREATIVE DIMENSION

What is so appealing and novel about the concept.
What are the liberal and illiberal democratic dimensions of the concept?


9. CONSEQUENCE OF ADOPTION

What are the changes that happened when the concept was adopted and becomes a network of enterprise of policies? How were people, geography, places, and technology affected?



10. CULTURAL DIMENSION AND IMPLICATION

What is the nature of the relationship of the new concept to the social relations of production?




11.CULTURAL/COMUNITARIANISTIC ASPECT


Is the concept democratic? If so, is it of the nature liberal or illiberal?
Is I of the nature t is protectionist, participatory, or pastoral democracy?


12. CUI BONO or ‘WHO BENEFITS’?

Who/what institutions benefit from the institutionalization of the concept? What form of class structure did it create? What contradiction did it bring



13. CONTROL of IDEOLOGICAL AND SUPER-STRUCTURAL ADVANCEMENT


How is the concept advanced/ideology of it pushed or marketed?
What institutional and political support is given to the idea (see for example the Islamization of management in Malaysia)


The above represent my ideas and analyses on what might be developed as tools of cultural analysis in looking at transcultural flow of ideas. These tools are indeed a series of questions to inquire into the kaleidoscopic nature of a concept, such as the inquiry into the transformation of “cybernetics” to “Cyberjaya” which illustrated a range of issues the tools of analysis as above can be utilized. In other words, tools here means to deconstruct and to get to the genealogy and the maturity of the concept itself. Because these series of questions attempt to provide foundations to the ‘dialecticness” of the concept in question an further inquire into the ‘materialistic’ foundation of the concept, these tools can be looked at as ‘counter-foundational’ it is a philosophical and dialogical enterprise.

Hegemony does not exist in a vacuum, nor transplanted onto the landscape of peoples. Concepts become hegemonic after a series of transformations aided by fertile ground of such growth. The fertility might be in the form of political stability, authoritarianism in the way the national leadership advances such formations, or simply via clever marketing of the concept itself. Herein lies the need to perform a surgical-cultural analysis of the genealogy of the conceptual transformations.

I believe we may now need to arrive at a Theory of Hegemonic Formations if we can find relationships between the dependent and independent variables to concepts discussed in the context of transcultural flow of ideas. This dissertation on hegemonic formations, from the concept of cybernetics to the conditions of the creation of Cyberjaya, can perhaps be a good illustration of this theory. Concepts such as ‘jihad’, ‘democracy’, ‘peacekeeping’, ‘globalization’, ‘freedom’, can be put to such analysis by the tools I propose.

Implications for further inquiry

To elaborate, below are some of the illustrations of the applicability of this concept of transcultural flow of ideas as it further relates to the study of Malaysia:

• Constitutional monarchy
• Nationalism
• Parliamentary democracy
• Liberal Education
• Islamic Education
• Islamization
• Islamic Reformation

In answering the question of the process of "cybernation" and how cultures change and new social conditions emerge, and how we are to look at phenomena from a kaleidoscopic perspective, I propose thenceforth, any concept be analyzed from the above thirteen lenses of conceptual formulation.

I hope that through this study, we may then design more studies on states undergoing a conscious counter-hegemonizing process. Furthermore we can discern the creative dimensions of the strategies used by different nations and finally formulate models to further inquire into the structure of “cybernetic” revolutions (see Kuhn, 1996). In other words, we can embark upon in-depth and longitudinal studies of the ways in which nations control or are being controlled specifically by “digital communication technologies,” how social relations are reorganized, and how these states are integrated into the continuing complexities of the global capitalist system.

ENDS