Post-coloniality and Cultural Difference

In this week's column I wish to further examine the post-coloniality and Cultural Difference. Previously, I wrote that the scope of 'post-colonial' and 'post-coloniality' have been widened up to include not only the narrative, representational and political strategies of newly independent Asian/African nations but also modes of negotiations adapted by African Americans /Asian American and Asian British in dealing with legacies of colonialism, cultural imperialism and cultural identity.

Homi. K Bhaba, one of the theoretical gurus of post -colonial theory describes this phenomenon of contesting oppressive structures as the post -colonial criticism formulate their critical revisions around issues of cultural difference, social authority, and political discrimination in order to reveal the antagonistic and ambivalent moments within the "rationalisation" of modernity. In other words, what Bhaba suggests is a common platform for all who have paid a price for their 'difference' from the Euro-American, white or dominant culture.

Cultural difference

In further exploring this aspect of post-coloniality, Bhaba states that "contemporary post-colonial discourses are rooted in specific histories of cultural displacement, whether they are 'the middle passage' of slavery or indenture, the 'voyage out' of the civilizing mission, the fraught accommodation of the Third World migration to the West, or traffic of economic and political refugees within and outside the Third World." In this regard, post-coloniality also concerns about the cultural and artistic practices negotiating with colonial histories, globalization and neocolonial contexts.

Duncan Ivison in his book, Postcolonial Liberalism explores the challenges to liberal understandings of justice, citizenship, and democracy posed by the situation and the demands of indigenous peoples in contemporary democracies. Ivison suggests, the post-colonial state should be based primarily on three liberal values; Individuals and people are equal, they are free and that social and political arrangements be such as to promote the well-being of individuals and groups in the manner that they conceive of it.

It is obvious that Invison's post-colonial liberalism is aimed at formulating a 'form of mutually acceptable co-existence between indigenous and non-indigenous people'. Ivison asks :"How could a philosophical and political creed of individual rights and human dignity not find favour with those suffering from racial or cultural discrimination and economic and political marginalisation?"

The core values of the post-colonial liberalism underline that a post-colonial state should be committed to rights and dignity. Interestingly such a situation offers both challenges and opportunities for indigenous people. One of the challenges for the indigenous people is to contest the legitimacy of the state, particularly in the context of state sponsored violence against tribal people including aborigines in Asian and South American nations, and nominative concept of justice, equality and freedom. For instance, it has been observed that in countries such as Australia, the nominative concept of equal citizenship has been used to justify coerce assimilation of the Aborigines.

Post-colonial writing

Like the developments in the socio-economic sphere in the post-colonial context, a distinct development in literature negotiating with the legacies of colonialism, cultural imperialism and cultural identity can be defined as post-colonial writing. Pramode K Nayar defines post-colonial writing as "the textual/ literary processes through which formerly colonised people assert their difference from, resistance to, and negotiate with, European colonial masters and cultures while attempting to develop similar strategies to tackle contemporary globalising and neoclonising processes of Euro-American powers."

In one of the founding theorisations of 'post colonial literature', Australian academics; Bill Ashcroft, Gareth Griffiths and Helen Tiffin define the term 'post-colonial' "...to cover all the cultures affected by the imperial process from the moment of colonization to the present day. This is because there is a continuity of preoccupation throughout the historical process initiated by European imperial aggression. We also suggest that it is most appropriate as the term for new -cross cultural criticism which has emerged in recent years and for the discourse through which this is constituted."

Commonwealth literature

The wider recognition of the post-colonial literature and writing can be traced back to 'Commonwealth literature', a term widely applied to literature and writings emerging from former British colonies or in other words, from Asia, Africa, Australia, South America and Ireland. Primarily the term came into usage in the 1950s to describe writings from Africa, Asia and South America and it has also been associated with writers from formerly colonised nations such as Chinua Achebe (Nigeria) and R. K. Narayan (India) and writers from white settler communities including Australia. Although the term signifies certain equality of former colonised nations, Salman Rushdie has pointed out in "Commonwealth Literature - Does not Exist". Rushdie said that it compels people from diverse countries, cultures and colonial experiences to put into a 'ghetto' where the term indicates 'unreal, monstrous creature'. The term Commonwealth literature has been used until it is replaced with 'Post-colonial literature'.

The dominant themes of post-colonial literature in the 1950s -1960s were nationalism and the triumph of decolonisation. Following the political independence, writers, artists and intellectuals who lived in Europe returned to their nations in Asia and Africa. The early phase of post-colonial literature, writers such as Wole Soyinka and Chinua Achebe of Nigeria dealt with themes such as bi-culturalism (Europeans and natives), nationalism, local and tribal identities as opposed to the notion of universal humanism, usable history and generating a discourse about the nature of postcolonial identity.

These themes are among the themes expounded by writers such as Raja Rao, R. K. Narayan, George Lamming, Patrick White, and Derek Walcott in the early phase of post-colonial literature. During this phase, prominent among the major themes were cultural assertion and cultural nationalism. In the 1970s, the discourse primarily focused on overarching impact of colonialism on native cultures. Writers such as Bhabani Bhattacharya, Kamala Markandaya (India), V.S. Naipaul (Caribbean) and Chinua Achebe and Nggwa Thiong'o (Kenya) have further explored these anxieties.