Iron Law and Colonial Desire: Legality and Criminality in Paton’s Too Late the Phalarope
Abstract
Too Late the Phalarope [1955]1971 provides an occasion to reflect on the relationship between colonialism, law and criminality. I argue that Paton indicts Afrikaner Christian nationalism by dramatising a paradox inherent in it. Afrikaner nationalism’s uncompromisingly strict legality – both the normativity that regulates the behaviour of members of the Afrikaner community, and the strict enforcement of these norms – renders its members vulnerable to that which the community disavows and criminalises in the Immorality Act: the libidinal attraction to the Other manufactured by colonialism’s “desiring machine”. Moreover, by producing the conditions under which the “colonial desire” of the colonised – the desire for continued survival – cannot lawfully be fulfilled, colonial law is responsible for the criminality of the colonised.
Opsomming
Too Late the Phalarope [1955]1971 bied ’n geleentheid om na te dink oor die verhouding tussen kolonialisme, reg en misdadigheid. My argument is dat Paton die Afrikaner-nasionalisme aankla deur ’n dramatisering van die paradoks inherent daaraan. Hierdie nasionalisme word gekenmerk deur ’n streng, kompromislose klem op wet-likheid, sowel wat die normatiewe regulering van die gedrag van Afrikaners betref, as die streng toepassing van die betrokke norme. Hierdie wetlike klem maak lede van die Afrikaanse gemeenskap ontvanklik vir juis dit wat die gemeenskap kriminaliseer terwyl dit hom daarvan distansieer: die libidinale aangetrokkenheid tot die Ander, vervaardig deur die “begeerte-masjien” van kolonialisme. Deur toestande voort te bring waaronder die “koloniale” begeerte van die gekoloniseerdes – die begeerte vir voortgesette oorlewing – nie wettiglik vervul kan word nie, is die koloniale reg bowendien verantwoordelik vir die kriminaliteit van die gekoloniseerdes.
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