Step Back to Move Forward
USA was the first colonized country to gain independence in
1776, followed by Haiti and Brazil. USA and Brazil were Europeans who sought independence
from Europe, while Haitians who fought for independence from France were slaves
mostly from Africa. The indigenous populations of all three were all but wiped
out.
Most countries that carry the tag of decolonization today were
native populations that achieved independence between the 40s and the 70s
across Africa, Asia and the Middle East. These countries remain trapped between
colonial and traditional values.
Along with military might and brutal suppression of
resistance, the more subtle instruments of subjugation have been education,
language and culture. Ironically it has been these very impositions that have
allowed voices of protest to turn colonial monologue into dialogue. From Dadabhai Naoroji in the late 19th
century to Frantz Fanon and Edward Said in the 20th century to Mehdi
Hasan and Shashi Tharoor in the 21st, the whispers of protest have
become strident and loud, as the Empire speaks back.
The plunder and loot of human and natural resources was
justified as a ‘civilising mission’ to uplift and develop a supposedly
‘backward’ people. Author Carey Watt says
the Anglo-American invasions
of Afghanistan in 2001 and Iraq in 2003 were also presented as
civilizing missions, and to protect the people of ‘the civilized world’.
Historians such as Niall Fergusson believe the US should
have been the natural heir to British colonialism, and believe Woodrow Wilson’s
replacement of Age of Empires with Age of Nations at the 1919 Versailles Peace
conference was the root cause of global chaos.
In the London based Intelligence Squared debate in 2007, the audience
voted 465 to 264 in favour of ‘we should not be reluctant to assert the
superiority of western values’.
The identities of ‘independent’ nations are kept tightly
reined by defining them exclusively by their colonial era, as post-colonial, or
third world or developing nations, rather than individual repositories of
cultures that evolved over centuries. Colonial powers created a native elite as
administrative supports, while curbing their power to address the needs of their
communities. Laws such as the Permanent Settlement Act which created the
Zamindari system in India in 1793 led to a lasting social instability and
oppression.
However, one can argue that the majority population was
never truly colonised. Below the radar, people continued to celebrate their religions,
culture and traditions, follow their own medical treatments, legal systems, poetry,
songs, dance, produce crafts, and share their stories whose sounds are
reverberating upwards into the circles of the intellectual elite.
Histories are being revisited to reveal the lie of
‘civilizing nations’. Africa was not
“the heart of darkness”, but a rich tapestry of kingdoms and empires. The assumed
uniqueness of western rationality, technology, rights of citizens or capacity
for capitalism is challenged by revisiting histories of non-western
civilisations. Confucius developed theories of education and moral-political
philosophy still followed today. Sanskrit shastars were scientific texts
exploring logic, moral-political thought and astronomy. The Mughals had
extensive libraries of manuscripts produced over three centuries, many
translations and exchange of knowledge, flourishing trade, smoothly run
administrations, legal systems, diplomacy and arts and architecture of a high
calibre.
The European colonial empires are not the only empires the
world has known. The Roman, Persian, Chinese, Mongol and Islamic empires each had
a powerful and lasting impact on the nations they occupied. Civilizations were
constantly being replenished with new cultures that were absorbed, and the
conquerors too were in turn changed. The Muslim empire evolved culturally by adopting
the best practices of the lands they conquered. While, as the Martiniquais
poet Aimé Césaire wrote, colonialism “decivilised” those
responsible. When violence was justified and normalised by European
beneficiaries of colonial rule, “a poison was distilled into the veins of
Europe and, slowly but surely, the continent proceeded towards savagery.”
National memory survives through story-telling, religious
practices, cultural ceremonies and the arts. Sankofa is a Ghanian word that
means "to go back and get it". It carries the idea of taking from the
past in order to enrich the present, or looking back in order to move forward.
From it comes the proverb “it is not taboo to go back and fetch what you
forgot”.
Durriya Kazi
September 17, 2024
Karachi
Comments
Post a Comment