In Nestor Stephen remembers sitting in the Ste.
Geneviève libary beside a "delicate Siamese" who "conned a
handbook of strategy." According to the OED, one
meaning of "con" is "To get to know; to study or learn, esp.
by repetition (mental or vocal); hence, in wider sense, to
pore over, peruse, commit to memory; to inspect, scan,
examine." This Asian visitor to the French library seems to be
poring over a treatise on resisting imperial encroachment and
subjection.
At the turn of the century Siam, the kingdom that preceded
the 20th century state of Thailand, was pressured by French
colonial ambitions on its eastern flank and British colonial
ambitions in the northwest and south. These great European
imperial powers, especially the French, repeatedly demanded
territorial concessions from Siam. A 1904 Franco-Siamese
"convention" ratified and expanded concessions extorted in
1867, 1888, and 1893. An Anglo-French convention, also in
1904, defined Siam's territory relative to the British
holdings in Burma and Malaysia, and the French ones in
Indochina. Siam suffered further losses in 1907 and 1909.
One ambition of empires, explored in Yuval Noah Harari's Sapiens:
A Brief History of Humankind (2011), is to spread their
culture—language, religion, learning, political and legal
systems, technological and industrial skills, art, leisure
habits—to subject populations. But the process is seldom
unilateral. The hegemon may absorb cultural practices and even
leaders from the provinces, and its own values and ideas may
be turned against it: "Many anti-colonial struggles were waged
under the banners of self-determination, socialism and human
rights, all of which are Western legacies" (225). India,
unified under the British raj, was led to independence
by Mohandas Gandhi, who studied law in London, mastered
English speech and manners, absorbed European values, and
insisted that they be applied abroad as they were at home.
The Siamese student is no Gandhi: his country has not yet
been swallowed by an imperial power. But the "strategy" he is
studying would seem to involve using French political or
military theories to resist the French conqueror next door.
Readers may want to reflect on the fact that Stephen is
committed to a similar project: using the English language,
and the cultural inheritance that comes with it, to write "Our national epic."
