Formulation of James C. Scott, from his book Domination and the Arts of Resistance, of the “infrapolitics of subordinate groups,” is especially interesting when thinking about one of Hawaii’s greatest cultural and social exports, the art of surfing. If you browse, you are no doubt aware of the various unspoken codes and rules that govern the tribe. These codes and rules exist, in part, as a kind of self-check on rosters and as a warning to outsiders or “non-locals”. (“Local”, especially in Hawaii, is quite a loaded term, however we can limit it in our discussion to replace surfers who are not from the area/surf spot.) If you don’t surf, then what to think knowledge about these codes or rules is largely filtered through the public transcript. However, the fact that there are, to varying degrees, different representations of the “surfer’s code” in both the public and hidden transcripts, it offers us an interesting window into how the hidden and the public collide.
As Scott explains, infrapolitics “is a politics of disguise and anonymity that takes place in public view, but is designed to have a double meaning or to protect the identity of the actors.” Surfers are known for rubbing wax on windshields, slashing tires, removing distributor caps and spark plug lines, siphoning gasoline, and various other acts of surf terrorism against cars they don’t recognize as “from” where. they surfing all the time. For example, one afternoon a friend and I got out of the water at Lahilahi, a deep sea wave full of sharks just down the road from Makaha and discovered that all the cars parked along the side of the road (except the ours) had “haole go home” written on them. My friend grew up on the west side of Oahu, so we were spared trying to remove the permanent marker (or whatever). Likewise, “warning” signs abound along the way to some surf spots. Roughly spray-painted or drawn on walls, signs, sidewalks or trash cans, the markers indicate who can surf and who can’t. Again, if you ever surf China Walls, a surf spot in Portlock on the east side of Oahu, jump the fence (which was placed there for public safety, thank you Linda Lingle) and walk down the path to the stairs that lead to the “Finger” (a specific section of the wave at China’s) and you’ll see warnings like “if you don’t live here, don’t surf here”, (which is ironic because who can afford to live in Portlock?) “go home” and “hit it, haole”.
Before it was appropriated by the mainstream and spread to the masses, the surfers’ speech is also a good example of hidden transcription. Words like “rad”, “tubular”, “gnarly”, and “bitchin” were used. within the public transcript both to mark the identity of the subservient group (if you knew how and why these words were used, you were aware of the club) and to alienate the elite (I’m thinking here of Sean Penn’s character “Jeff Spicoli” doing match wits with “Mr. Hand” in Fast Times at Ridgemont High.) These days, what It is not said seems to carry more weight. For example, all surfers know that if the waves are good at their local beach, you don’t tell anyone. There’s nothing worse than a carload of surfers piling into the lineup because one of the “brothers” spilled the beans on a new swell. The “secret spot” is another prime example of this speech of silence, as the surfers go to great lengths to make sure the hidden spots stay hidden. For example, I took a friend’s boat ride across the channel to Molokai to surf a “secret spot”, only to find half a dozen other boats there when we arrived. My friend was visibly irritated. He recognized a couple of friends on some of the other boats and proceeded to curse them for leading people to flight (when he was guilty of the same crime).
Inevitably, these codes and rules lead to confrontations with the public transcript. However, these incarnations of hidden transcription within the public sphere, as Scott posits, is no longer meant to “protect the identity of the actors”, rather the actors are very much in the public eye. So while the events that led to the formation of surfer groups like The Hui, Wolfpack and Bra Boys find their origins in the occult transcript, their establishment and resulting reign are a very important part of the public transcript (as is evident in movies like North Coast, blue crush, bra boysTV shows like the 808, and all Da Hui and Wolfpack merchandise available at your local Costco). I find it ironic that these groups complain about how they are perceived in public because of their pre-revolutionary antics. Watch any of the aforementioned shows or movies and these groups (literally, boys, Kala Alexander, Fast Eddie, Makuakai Rothman, etc.) act in the same stereotypical “gangster” manner. Sure, these are popular renderings, mediated by corporate dollars and sales predictions, but try to catch a wave anywhere between Off the Wall and Ehukai anytime between November and February and you’ll get the same attitude from these types of jokers, regardless of how well versed you are in occult transcription. It makes me wonder if, at the very moment of its introduction into the public narrative, the hidden transcript cannot help but be subverted in some way. At what point does the hidden transcript become “the self-portrait of the ruling elites as they would have seen themselves?” It seems as if these inherent codes and rules, once encoded in a representative identity, reads very much like the narrative of the elite. It is, in many ways, “designed to be impressive, to assert and naturalize the power of the ruling elites and to hide or euphemize the dirty laundry of their rule.” So what do we do with Scott’s formulation? Is the object of his liberating analysis, or is it similar to Althusser’s “steel trap,” in which we simply exchange master ideologies for other master ideologies?
Works Cited:
Scott, JamesC. Domination and the Arts of Resistance: Occult Transcripts. Yale University. Press, 1990. Print.