Recycling Colonial attitudes through Neo-colonialism

Author: Tayyeba Ayyub.  

“The study investigates and exposes that how formerly colonized or postcolonial societies are recycling the colonial attitudes themselves, instead of rejecting and negating them, through the practices of Neo-colonialism which Loomba also referred as “Quasi-Colonialism”, which she then criticized, by expressing, that colonizers are making formerly colonized societies disable by making them economically dependent upon themselves (colonizers), but in this type of annexation colonizers are also involved directly or indirectly.” I will build my argument by taking insights from Ania Loomba and Vijay Mishra & Bob Hodge, who have also discussed this type of occupation and its impacts, that how they are again taking us back to colonization era. To establish my argument, I have analyzed essay from Arundhati Roy’s “Power Politics: The Reincarnation of Rumpelstiltskin” in which she exposes the modern Government and its involvement is endorsing neo-colonialism.

Roy in her book “Reincarnation of Rumpelstiltskin” gives examples that how India is letting foreigners especially colonizers, use their own land, people and resources which in turn is harming its natural resources and its ways of working, exploiting people and mocking humanity. Roy refers to an agreement between an Indian textile company and a US based garbage incineration company, that how they came forward with the idea of building “a big hydroelectric dam on the river Narmada in central India” (Roy 38). She criticizes both of the companies who, never had any experience to build dams, was doing a project of building huge dam, but they also had their hidden interior motive. People were dispersed and displaced and natural sources were used with evil agenda in disguise of providing people with facilities and electricity. The irony is, their claim was to facilitate people, while they ended up ruining their habitat, lifestyle and harming those people and “don’t bother with the violation of human rights and environmental guidelines” (Roy). West being the supposed superior entity, also puts an emphasis on human rights and protection of environmental rights, but here, where they are benefited from these tactics, they are explicitly ignoring guidelines and rules, in which somehow other societies are also culpable at the sake of putting their own people and environment at risk. Those “someone who had to pay the price” were people of that very own country, who lived there. The involvement of an Indian company with invaders, is something that refers toward the self-colonization as well as reinforcing of colonial mindset which Mishra and Hodge referred as “complicit postcolonialism”, in which they put emphasis on how, along with west, colonized countries are also recycling colonial hegemonic perspectives (Mishra and Hodge). Furthermore, Roy also discusses the time, on his visit to India, US president brought his own beds and pillows, indicating towards how white men does not consider third world countries, of any worth. She refers “poor people were herded away” (Roy), just to make those European men comfortable, people were displaced from their own land or houses, depicts “split subjectivities” of colonized (Loomba). Moreover, the “Privatization of power” Roy believes destroys the economy of country making rich people least bothered while poor people had to bear the consequences. The privatization of power can also be related, by taking the examples of Pakistani society, in which these rich housing scheme authorities, following the step of colonization, makes their own people displaced from their own land, just to flourish their business.

Following the step of colonizers, Pakistani housing societies and government are imposing their own authorities on people and make people submit to them. Under the mask of globalization practices of hegemony and imperialism are imposed, which discloses its similarity to the colonial era, that how they used to treat people from colonized country. There is no denial accepting that west is economically making other countries dependent upon them, so under the mask of helping other, they can fulfill their own agendas but somehow these countries are also culpable in reviving western hegemony as Loomba expresses that Modern colonialism did more than to extract tribute, goods and wealth from the countries that it conquered, it restructured the economies of the latter, so that there was a flow of human and natural resources between the colonized and colonial countries, so that “to manufacture goods in the metropolis, as I other location of metropolitan consumption, but the colonies also provided captive markets for European foods” (Loomba). Moreover, episteme is also dominated by west as “the postcolonial has adopted almost every conceivable postmodern theory as well as number of proportions which are absolutely eternal to the bourgeoisie novel of Europe” (Mishra and Hodge), this refers towards the inclination of postcolonial writers and writings towards the western elite style. Also, imposition of all Cambridge and Oxford syllabus in elite private schools, represents that there is prevalent hegemony of west over education in these countries as well as over people’s mind, which Loomba refers as the ways of production of knowledge and its hierarchies are “complicit in establishing imperialist hegemonies” (Loomba). Somehow, these all examples throw a shade at postcolonial societies for being complicit in recycling western ideologies.

I would conclude my essay by a quote of Oscar Wilde “imitation is the sincerest form of flattery”, here it indicates that even in today’s age we as postcolonial societies imitate western ideologies and perspectives, not completely but somehow, which shows our recycling of colonial behaviors as well as marks their superiority, hinting them to again colonize these countries one way or another. Mishra and Hodge suggest new discourse of postcolonialism that focuses on hybridity and somehow to detach ourself from western episteme to avoid reinforcing colonial ideals while Ania Loomba and Arundhati Roy provides with the framework to show how we as a colonized entity are reinforcing colonizers attitudes by taking part in their neo-colonial notions and gives suggestion to the postcolonial societies to make themselves economically independent. All in all, I would conclude my essay that even though in modern postcolonial societies, colonial attitudes are recycled and reinforced through neo-colonial tactics, we should look for a midway, by working on our own ideologies and by not completely rejecting western ideologies but also to treat our societies and people as a top priority.

Works cited

Roy, Arundhati. Power Politics. Brooklyn, South End Press, 1 Sept. 2002.

LOOMBA, ANIA.Colonialism/Postcolonialism, Forum for Modern Language Studies, Volume 52, Issue 1, January 2016, Pages 117–118, https://doi.org/10.1093/fmls/cqv106.

Vijay Mishra & Bob Hodge (1991) What is post(‐)colonialism?, Textual

Practice, 5:3, 399-414, DOI: 10.1080/09502369108582124.