Jáfia Petersen
ENL 110B
Professor Evan Watkins
November 18th, 2014
Post-Colonial Colonialism
Although Edward Said is one of the intellectuals who helped start the field of post-colonialism, the topic of colonialism in Orientalism raise the following question: is there such thing as “post-colonialism”? Is colonialism not happening every day in various forms? It seems that the only difference from modern colonialism to its classic meaning is that a ruler representing the colonizer has physically left the colony but colonization, though less visible, still thrives. In our society, the effect of ideas does not try to forcibly control but instead they work by consent because consent allows knowledge to be spread out and to form biases.
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There is a difference between the power exercised by force and the power established through the ways that knowledge circulates and becomes authoritative or “hegemonic” (1871). Said focuses on this more passive mean of control established by the relationship between power and knowledge. He points out how viewpoints generate a colonized world and augment the supremacy of those who produced those viewpoints. But going back to Foucault, he argues that authors are not authorities but instead a receptacle of opinions. For Foucault, the closest an author can get to being an authority is when the author creates a field of discourse such as Saussure for instance. Said, however, disagrees with this because “Too often literature and culture are presumed to be politically, even historically innocent; it has regularly seemed otherwise to me…” (Said, 1887). He believes that authors who have reinforced “Orientalism” are indeed figures of authority because through them biased opinions are spread as power/knowledge. The question posed on the first paragraph of this essay, Is colonialism not happening every day in various forms?, is reinforced by Said in the following passage,
One aspect of the electronic, postmodern world is that there has been a reinforcement of the stereotypes by which the Orient is viewed. Television, the films, and all the media’s resources have forced
European colonialism has a lasting legacies on many African countries. European colonialism started in the late 1900’s and continued until after World War II. Colonialism is a system in which one country takes control of the political and economic affairs of another nation, and imposes policies to control another nation. In the 17th century colonizing parts of Africa became popular European countries. In the year 1677, France colonized their first African country, Senegal. Specifically, an area called Saint Louis. France was most interested in Senegal for their easy access to the Gambia river to increase access to trade routes. During this time France and Britain were fighting over African countries that had easy access the Gambia river.. Earlier, 1638 the french established trade routes in Senegal. (historyworld.net). Later, 1677 France was able to seize Senegal for the Dutch which made Senegal France 's first colonized county. European nations decided to colonize the rest of Africa during the Berlin Conference that took place. Between 1884-1885 Europeans carved up part of Africa and claimed them as their own. Senegal has a reputation of being one of the better treated legacies of colonial power. However, there are still legacies of colonial power which shapes how Senegal is today.
Imperialism and colonialism have changed the perception of international relations in present day. Imperialism is a policy that enhances the power of a country through authority. For example, the authority would be an emperor, empress, military, government, etc. The imperialism and colonialism policy correlate to each other. Colonialism is a practice of obtaining full or partial control over other countries or areas filling these places with settlers and harnessing it economically (Amardeep, 2001). This practice is usually seen when countries with less power become overpowered by another country in which they take over and colonize their areas. When thinking about these two practices you may see colonialism as the actual practice and imperialism as the idea guiding the practice.
While the motives of colonists in the Americas were various- to build a new society, to promote Christianity, to acquire riches, or, as early colonists in New England expressed it, to secure a ‘competencie’ ; they all faced the same challenges of establishing themselves in an alien environment that would require them readjust and respond to new circumstances. It would be justifiable to submit that the main consequences of colonialism were largely detrimental for the native population. The colonisation of the Americas throughout the early modern period resulted in the decimation of the native population as they increasingly lost their traditional lands to white settlers. This can be attributed to
Classical Colonialism occurs when metropolitan nations fuse new territories or peoples through means which are virtually involuntary such as war, conquest, capture, and additional forms of enforcement and control. (Biauner 1987,150) Classical colonialism is distinguished by economic exploitation, forced entry, and cultural imperialism through the establishment of new institutions and methods of thought. (
Imperialism itself, although is sometimes meant to educate, is ultimately formed by an empire’s selfish desire to rule land. This is evident in the New Manifest destiny, carried out by the U.S, the British empire’s rule on several countries, as well as the Britain’s colonization of Africa many years ago that still takes a toll on them today. Although, in some cases imperialism is meant to educate instead of take-over. But, most countries who showed forms of imperialism had economic and strategic interests.
New Imperialism was the third wave of colonial expansion, precursored by Catholic colonialism in the sixteenth century and Mercantile colonialism in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. As the nineteenth century began, it became apparent that Europe and the United States were the dominant forces of the world, and that they were in control of defining global society. Proponents of New Imperialism believed that modern expansionism was necessary for economic, political, and cultural purposes that would benefit their own country. Furthermore, proponents also believed that colonization would modernize and incite progress in the civilizations outside of Europe and the United States. Nonetheless, New Imperialism established deep lines of contempt regarding Western power, marked with violence, throughout the world. Therefore, New Imperialism was a paltry act done by the Western world which seems to have produced little benefit.
The industrialization and the great technological development of Europe, especially at the time of the second industrial revolution, the generation of the world in two large groups: the industrialized countries and the non-industrialized industrialists. The former ended up imposing themselves on the latter, who remained under their direct or indirect dependence. Industrial Europe, thanks to its demographic vitality, its industrial, technical, commercial and financial superiority imposed its economic model, its values, ideals and its culture to a large part of the world.
Some parts of the world are not as free as other parts of the world. People that are free don't think about that a lot. Lots of places don't have freedom of speech and freedom of religion and freedom of rights. That’s why there's the declaration of the rights of man. Imperialism and the enlightenment affect the world so much in history.
Teachers who suffer from settler teacher syndrome, act within a system of schooling meant to solidify an epistemological and ideological foundation for settler colonialism, and do so with little critical consciousness. Having been indoctrinated into settler colonialism, and by seeing the system of schooling as neutral and normal, teachers are employed as cultural gatekeepers and function to maintain systems that are harmful to students of color. One could also use Hill Collin’s matrix of domination, a black feminist construct, to explain the phenomenon. Hill Collins described the matrix of domination as structural, disciplinary, hegemonic and interpersonal in nature - “the structural organizes oppression, the disciplinary manages oppression, the hegemonic justifies oppression and the interpersonal influences oppression” (blinded for review). In both the settler colonial framework and the matrix of domination framework, teachers are both actors and acted upon. Their places within a system of domination is dependent upon them not being furnished with the opportunity to critically interrogate the system they are so intricately linked to. I argue that suffering from settler teacher syndrome is not wholly a conscious condition, but rather an (un)intended consequence of functioning within settler colonialism. I’d also like to think that they suffer from lack of knowledge, and can therefore be (re)trained and (re)taught, to think and function differently within settler
Throughout history, Europe has been more advanced and developed than much of world Europeans took many voyages to spread their knowledge and gain power in the world. They began to colonize in almost every part of the world, beginning with the Americas. They eventually lost most of their control there and moved on. It soon became all of the west that was colonized in the east, which lead to imperialism. Similar to many other events in history, colonization and imperialism are very polarizing. There were two opposite sides and, like much of history, one side wasn’t really considered. The people who lived in the countries being colonized didn’t ask the westerners to take control of their country. The native people were mostly opposed to imperialism,
If postcolonial literature is the “process of dialogue and necessary correction,” of misconceptions concerning colonialism, then a comparative study of colonial and postcolonial works is essential for attaining a full understanding of the far-reaching effects of European imperialism (Groden and Kreiswirth 582). Reading colonial literature in dialogue with postcolonial literature engenders a more complete interpretation of the effects of imperialism by creating a point of reference from which to begin the revelation and the healing of cultural wounds resultant from European colonialism. Postcolonial literature reveals the lie of imperialism by suggesting that colonization was unsolicited by and unjustly administered to
The ground breaking text Orientalism written by Edward Said widened the arena for the post-colonial thinkers to consider the text with a new mechanism in Third World context. Orientalism has developed a purported approach of binary opposition to dismantling the East/West dualism in relation to Eurocentric edifice. The focal point of Said’s study is the ‘West’ and its observation of the ‘East’. The former having all positive traits: white, brave, dynamic, civilized, cultured, educated, rich of the ‘Empire’ identifies the ‘Eastern countries’ as the ‘Other’ with all the negative attributes: black, coward, static, barbaric, natural, uneducated poor people of the ‘Colony’-subjected to their contempt. The post –colonial
He saw this through many ways and because of what was mentioned in the above quote and “the Middle East crisis of 1973 that provoked Said to research and write Orientalism, which was published in 1978” (Irwin 2006, 281). His book however, is not a book about the “history[s] of the Oriental studies, but rather a highly selective polemic on certain aspects of the relations of knowledge and power. Its style and content strongly suggest that it is addressed exclusively to a Western readership” (Irwin 2006, 281). In his book he starts with two points or problems that he saw happen with what others said when studying the Orient. The first one was from Karl Marx who stated that “They cannot represent themselves; they must be represented” and the second was from Benjamin Disraeli who said “The East is a career” (Krishna 2009, 73). Both these points did not sit well with Said as they showed that knowledge or
A political-economic phenomenon whereby various European nations explored, conquered, settled, and exploited large areas of the world.
The postcolonial era presents various issues for the decolonized nations, like the reconstruction of a government and the maintenance of an economy. In addition to that, the individual identity of the colonized people is a complex issue that they must cope with as well, and it is an issue that is still present today. Compared to the other issues of postcolonialism, the construction of one’s identity might appear trivial; however, there are many problems of postcolonial identity, including the obligation of one to perceive themselves as people do from the outside through stereotypes, and the difficulty of unifying two conflicting identities: one that is created by outside sources, and one that is created through personal experiences.