The European colonization of much of the known world was deemed a civilizing mission aimed at taking the natives out of the state of wilderness in which they were thought to be living. Through their carefully constructed colonial discourses, the Western colonizers projected the natives as savages, barbaric, and immoral, as they had no idea of modern civilizational values.
Therefore, the colonizers exploited the colonial discourse created by the Western intellectuals and projected their oppressive endeavors as a project to take the colonized out of their self-imposed ignorance. They presented Western modernism as an example for the colonized to follow to reach the pinnacle of civilization. Thus, they successfully sold the idea that the people of the third world lived in 'civilizational nothingness,' and they needed the guidance of the enlightened Europeans not only to their domestic audience but also to the world at large.
The colonial discourse about the third world created a superior-inferior binary that saw the European civilization as superior to the native cultures. Since the colonizers acted as agents of development, progress, and transformation, each white subject in the colonies was supposed to work as an epitome of Western superiority and prestige.
The white colonizers were regarded as candles that had to bring light to the darkness engulfing these lands. These colonizers considered themselves a medium through which the principles and values of enlightenment and liberalism would spread in the colonies, taking the natives out of their wilderness and ignorance. Showing a total disregard for the native cultures, traditions, values, and ways of life, they were painted with the same brush that their current way of life is unsustainable.
Such carefully constructed discourses depended on
the myth of superior Western civilization remaining pure from the influences of
native cultures. As examples of European racial superiority, the white subjects were required to remain uninfluenced by the colonized socio-political and
cultural environments. If he were to mingle with the natives and be influenced
by their culture, the entire superior-inferior binary would fall flat on its
face.
Such colonial discourse created an illusion of
static and unchangeable culture. Advocating the idea of culture as changeless and
pure was needed at the time to maintain the superior-inferior binary as it
projected the exploitative enterprise of colonialism as an enlightening
mission. If, for example, the British culture were to be affected by the Indian
culture, the notion of British cultural superiority would not remain intact.
According to the white colonizers, the Eurasians had lost the right to
identify themselves with a superior civilization as they had committed the
grave sin of interracial marriages that led to mixed identities.
This notion of culture as a static entity was propagated by the Europeans and the nationalists in the colonies. For example, Indian nationalist leader M.K Gandhi saw the Indian culture as distinct and different from the British. In 'Hind Swara' published in 1909, he referred to the loss of Indian civilizational values because of British cultural imperialism.
He emphasized the differences that existed
between the two cultures. The two cultures cannot co-exist for him as he saw
the pure Indian culture as a remedy for the present ills. For him, the Indian
civilization was superior as it tended to elevate the moral being, while the
Western society and culture, according to him, spread immorality.
Contrary to the idea of fixity and static culture, Homi K. Bhabha proposed his famous theory of 'hybridity.' Bhabha is the leading postcolonial theorist who has tried to expose the inherent contradiction in the colonial discourse to bring to the fore the confusion of the colonizers concerning their position toward the colonized people. According to Bhabha, the colonizers devised sophisticated strategies to ensure their political, cultural, and economic dominance. Still, in the process, they also created problems for themselves as their ideological position was marked by numerous contradictions.
The British wanted to raise a class of people in
India that, in the words of Macaulay, would be "Indian in blood and color
but English in taste, in opinions, in morals and intellect." However, they
never wanted this class to catch up with their colonial masters as that would
have destroyed their narrative of cultural superiority, and the justification
for colonization would have ceased.
For Bhabha, culture is not a static entity. Culture
is fluid, perpetually in motion, a melting pot of elements regularly added and constantly transforming our cultural
identities. Bhabha sees culture not in its unchangeable essence but instead
characterized by change, flux, transformation, and, most importantly, mixedness, which he termed 'hybridity.' For Bhabha, unlike Gandhi, there is
no pure Indianness or Britishness.
The idea of culture as a static entity was constructed by Western intellectuals and anthropologists like Bronislaw Malinowski, who traveled to the islands of Papua New Guinea in the early 20th century to study the people of the region in their pure culture. Malinowski's writings suggest that these people have a distinct culture, which has remained uncontaminated for centuries from the influences of other cultures. However, his studies are contended by another anthropologist, James Clifford, in his essay Travelling Cultures.
Clifford believes that the idea of
pure, static, and uncontaminated culture is an illusion carefully constructed to
mark the isolation of these people. Once travel is possible to such remote
islands, the culture of these people no longer remains pure and uninfluenced
because they are now connected to the outer world.
Bhabha's concept of cultural hybridity takes us away
from nationalism to cosmopolitanism, which can be seen in the poetry of Derek
Walcott.
During the 16th and 17th centuries, the culture and language of the people living in the Caribbean Islands were driven to extinction by the Spanish colonizers. Later, people from diverse backgrounds became slaves and bonded laborers. These people brought with them different cultures and languages.
Derek Walcott used his poetry to create a
new, universally accepted cosmopolitan culture, an amalgamation of
different cultures that the people have brought with them. This culture would
not be pure but would be mixed. Thus, hybridity emerged as a challenge to the older ideas of
rootedness and fixity that saw culture as a static entity void of change
and dynamism.
This article is written by Asif Abbas, a member at the School of Literature.
