The Colony

Someone asked me a while ago what my thoughts were on post colonialism. It’s a pretty big topic and so I briefly and poorly answered it with the promise to address it at a later date. I guess this is part of my attempt at formulating an answer.

In shock experiments with dogs looking at the psychological effects of continued stress, when the dogs had no ability to control the shock they were receiving, they eventually stopped making an effort to escape the shock. They could not function to preserve their own lives or well being and even when given the opportunity to preserve their own well being, would do nothing. Apply this phenomenon to human beings then, extending it slightly, and what you have is similar to the impact on a colonized people who have had their power and control taken away from them and eventually struggle to function and preserve their own livelihoods and well being when they have been trained to believe they cannot do it on their own or should not do it on their own. The impact of colonialism mirrors this but is, at the same time, much more than this.

Colonization deeply impacts the cultural identity of the colonized and takes from them- along with that belief in their own power- their vision of self and personal worth. They are told several things; first that they have no right to what is theirs; second that they cannot utilize their resources properly and must rely on the colonizer to “teach” them how to do it “right” ( usually the way of the 1st world country doing the colonizing); third that their way of being as a culture is inappropriate and backward; fourth that they are necessarily of that “backward” way and must be re-trained; and finally that they can never be anything but that backward way. The process of the colonizer is like the process of an abuser. Simultaneously telling the controlled that they are alternately terrible and wrong and yet capable of being trained and molded if only they submit to whatever it is the colonizer wants or views as right. They are told they are needed but that they are of no use unless they are changed in some way.

I think the best/ easiest way for me to respond is with a story. In 2002 I lived in Dakar, Senegal. Senegal was, up until 60 a French colony. The people colonized were primarily of the Wolof and Serer tribes. When Senegal was colonized by the French the British were simultaneously colonizing the Gambia. Now keep in mind that The Gambia is a tiny country that exists along the Gambi River and to the ocean, surrounded on three sides by Senegal. Because the lines chosen by the French and British were along water supplies, ports, and the like and not along any established tribal territories or lands, the tribe was effectively split and some ended up in the Gambia; some necessarily in Senegal. At the time I was in Senegal I lived in an apartment house with other students which was located behind an outpost of the French army. The French army base was this enormous pink stucco monstrosity fenced, as many domiciles were, by a high stucco wall creating the compound and guarded at the door by “security”. Against the wall of the compound was a small kola nut tree upon which rested, between the tree and the wall, a small dwelling made up of scraps of wood and tin with a fire pit outside the door which was a drapery. This to me is the most definitive picture of the impact of colonialism- a small home lived in by the rightful people of that land propped up on one side by their colonizer- both because of whom and (now) without whom they might not have a leg to stand on- and flanked on the other by the pitiful remnants of the country which they were afforded after the colonizer took all the other more valuable resources.

More than just creating a dependency on the colonizer though, post-colonial statehood has had a divisive impact on the controlled persons through a variety of venues. Firstly and perhaps most obviously was the language. In Senegal two main languages are spoken- French and Wolof. In the Gambia, although they are the same people, the languages spoken are English and Wolof. Throughout their schooling, if lucky enough to go to school, students are mandated to learn and utilize their previous colonizers languages. The children who do not go to school are relegated to only speaking Wolof (or Serer); significantly limiting their ability to go further than service jobs in homes, apprenticeships, and basic labor jobs. The dichotomy for those utilizing the language of the colonizer then is that they are made to communicate within the colonizers context if they would like to succeed but to do so they must relinquish that which binds them to their culture. This matter may also ring true to Native American’s who, through the atrocities of the boarding school system were isolated from their cultures and languages, made to take up the context of the colonizer, and alternately shunned from the colonizers community if they did reconnect to their own culture and shunned from the reservation community if they took on the whiteness too closely.

Beyond language however, the divisive impact strikes further. Going back to Senegal momentarily, while I cannot speak directly to what propelled this hostility- though one could imagine it was perpetuated by any hostility or competitiveness between the colonizers- there exists a tension between Gambian Wolof and Senegalese Wolof that ultimately pits the two sides against one another. Whether it was an effort to destabilize each others colonies, sprouted from an effort by the colonized to attain the status of “good” or “loyal”, or came from a place where being oppressed breeds oppressiveness in kind, the Senegalese maintain a feeling of distaste for the Gambians, whom they view as lower, and the Gambians speak about their feeling that the Senegalese are thieves and sanctimonious yes-men to their colonizers. People from the exact same tribe, who hold the exact same surnames- anglicized or made francophone depending on their colonial power-, are at once divided and identified by their colonizers rather than maintaining their communal history. They are made to suffer together or subsist apart.

In this example then, as in many others, the damage inflicted by the colonial system far outweighs the benefits once the colonizer has evacuated the premises. As soon as the colonizer decides they are done, have usurped all the resources they can, are willing to go, or are fought back into their place they leave the people in ruins. Not just economic ruins, but psychological ruins. Like in many abusive relationships the abused can be left feeling like they have somehow done wrong or are incapable of surviving without the abuser, they are left feeling worthless and isolated from those they once were connected to.

Anyway, I don’t know if this fully answers my feelings on post-colonialism. As a movement I think it speaks truthfully to the impact of colonialism on the once controlled people, I think that the impact of colonialism is deep and psychologically damaging, and I think that the responsibility of owning that and rebuilding the colonized at least in part lies with the colonizer.