Considering Mark’s duplication of colonial ideology, his rhetorical and emotional power, could be related to Stewart’s (1984:70-103) argument that when anti-hegemonic movement turns hegemonic, it often involves gigantic emotions of obedience, loyalty and faithfulness. In this way, Mark reduplicates colonial ideology and presents an all-authoritative Jesus who will eventually annihilate all opponents and all other authorities. For Mark, the colonial (non)choice mentality of ‘serve-or-be-destroyed’ is reproduced in his Jesus.
This is the very seedbed of impunity. Impunity recreates its own law and hierarchy and demands to be submitted to. It has no fixed or written law but on the contrary makes its own laws as situations demand13. In any given situation, the law of impunity must prevail. It must reduce its victims to subordinates even when it defies logic to do so. It remains at the top and asserts itself as the alternative consciousness and eventually as the dominant consciousness. Hasn’t Mark done the same thing in creating his Jesus? Yes he has and much more, in fact, he has recreated in his gospel a “hierarchical, punitive and tyrannical concept of ruler and ruled, while claiming that it was all for the best” (Samuel, 2007:47).
Since as Lewis (2000:12) has aptly cited, “impunity is the wife of power.” What are the relationships and outcomes of impunity in a situation of (over)powering as we find in Mark? A consideration of postcolonial implications of Markan exousia in the evolution of impunity is important.
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There are two main concepts that enshrine these potentials for impunity that need to be brought out i.e. binarism and othering.
2.6.1 Binarism
If in Ashcroft’s et.al (2007:19-20), view signs have meaning not by a simple reference to real objects, but by their opposition to other signs, then, signs by their difference form the framework in which binarism thrives. Binarism framework takes into account extreme forms of difference possible e.g. sun or moon; man or woman; birth or death; black or white etc. Such oppositions, as Ashcroft shows, are very common in the cultural construction of reality. The problem with such binary systems is that they suppress the spaces between the opposed categories so that many overlapping regions end up appearing in-between the expected categories. Postcolonial studies have demonstrated the extent to which such binaries entail a violent hierarchy, in which one term of the opposition is always dominant e.g. man over woman, birth over death, white over black etc. and that, in fact, the binary opposition itself exists to confirm that dominance.
Adoption of binary conceptualization means that any activity or state that does not fit the binary opposition becomes subject to repression or ritual. For instance, the indeterminate stage between child and adult – ‘youth’ – is treated as a suspicious category, a rite of passage subject to considerable suspicion and anxiety. Subsequently, the state between the binarism, such as the binary colonizer or colonized, will evidence the signs of extreme
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ambivalence manifested in mimicry, ‘cultural schizophrenia’ (Ashcroft et.al 2007:20), or various kinds of obsession with identity.
Moreover, and as Ashcroft (2007:21) shows, the binary logic of imperialism is a development of that tendency of Western thought in general to see the world in terms of binary oppositions that establish a relation of dominance. A simple distinction between centre or margin; colonizer or colonized; metropolis or empire; civilized or primitive represents very efficiently the violent hierarchy on which imperialism is based and which it actively perpetuates. Binary oppositions are structurally related to one another, and in colonial discourse there may be a variation of the one underlying binary –colonizer or colonized – that becomes rearticulated in any particular contexts. Clearly, the binary concept becomes very important in constructing ideological meanings in general, and extremely useful in imperial ideology.
Although binary distinctions are not always necessarily motivated by a desire to dominate (Spurr, 1993: 103), Mark 1:21-28 sets up conditions fit for binarism with an intention for control. In other words, Mark plays binarism in such a way the ‘other’ cannot be avoided in his discourse of power. Binarism must re-order social relations to pave the best way for the colonizer and this is what we see in the introduction of Jesus’ authority in 1:21-28. Therefore, exousia of Jesus comes to expression in social relations thus creating binarism. In 1:21-28, and by use of the word exousia, Mark pits the Scribes against Jesus. Fundamentally, Mark employs the tactic of binarism to present a
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conflict of Jesus and the religious authorities. Mark heightens the intensity of this conflict with the authorities by absoluting the authority of Jesus.
2.6.2 Othering
Othering is another empire tactic that Mark employs to absolute Jesus’ exousia. Othering has to do with representation and the making of differences so as to affirm ones identity. In postcolonial studies, the term refers to the process by which imperial discourse creates its ‘others’ (Ashcroft et.al, 2007:156). Simply stated, this is the conception of existence as them verses us. This ‘other’ becomes the focus of inquiry especially when it is construed in the arena of power. Therefore, whereas the ‘other’ corresponds to the focus of desire or power in relation to which the subject is produced, the other is the excluded or ‘mastered’ subject created by the discourse of power (Virkama, 2010:47). Othering describes the various ways in which colonial discourse produces its subjects. In Spivak’s14 (1988:214) explanation, othering is a dialectical process because the colonizing Other is established at the same time as its colonized others are produced as subjects. In any case, in postcolonial discourse, the construction of the ‘other’ is fundamental to the construction of the Self.
In Mark 1:21-28, ‘others’ are created by the use of the term exousia in the way it requires a subject and an object. Mark does not leave the authority of Jesus in a vacuum. On the contrary, Markan Jesus is the ‘Other’ who creates his corresponding subordinates (others) by the use of the term exousia. Since impunity relies on ‘othering’ by creating others in order to take root, it
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can be argued that Mark’s conception of Jesus’ exousia, paves way for future treatment of Jesus and his subjects in the rest of the gospel. Unless for Mark, it cannot be excused why Jesus transgresses the laws of the ‘others’ to reinstate his ‘Other’ law. This lays foundations for the sprouting of conflict and the contours that impunity takes in Mark’s Gospel.