Henry Imler August 30th, 2006

In my Postcolonial Comparative Religion class we had to write a maximum two page response of our impressions of the book along with questions that arose durring the reading. I could seriously write ten fold about what I read in Postcolonialism, A very Short Introduction by R.J.C. Young. So that is shy this is so short and underdeveloped.

This week’s reading was my first taste of the postcolonial. As a westerner, on top of that, as a white male westerner, the issues brought up have not affected me. Since they don’t affect me, I have not thought on them. In reading the work a swirl of issues flooded around me. Many of them centered on basic assumptions about things, the others flowed from the outworking of those assumptions. Like the book suggests, they are hard to put in an eloquently structured form. Here are some of them.

The book centers on the conflict between the old west, the colonial powers, their offspring, the United States and Australia versus those peoples that were colonized. It tries to give form to the tatters that the colonial powers have left the third world. It does an excellent job at pointing out the need. The need for what, I am not exactly sure. The picture of the conflict is vibrant, but seems a bit romanticized. The book seems to gloss over very complicated issues, such as the fence in Israel; gives misleading figures, such as the land idleness ratios of Brazil, the fence in Israel, and the over-simplifies figures such as Gacey. In a book that is shortened version of a tome, things like this are expected and forgiven.

The greatest issue I found was that it does not postulate the rules of the conflict. It condemns practices found in the West against the oppressed, such as book burning. Young says that book burning is a terrible thing “when it consists of a nationalist attack on minority cultures” (Young 23). Yet it validates the very same practice from the oppressed to the oppressors. Young says just before that “book burning can be a gesture of liberation, or of powerlessness to make a statement by any other means” (Young 23). In the next paragraph he seems to OK the burning of the Satanic Verses because the same people who did complain about it did not complain about the burning Harry Potter. Yet, I do not know of a case where one group doing something that is wrong OK’s the same action under the same circumstances by others. Perhaps he is simply pointing out the contradiction in the Christian groups. Still, the reading of the text seems to give a moral allowance for the Satanic Verses burning, even going as far as saying that the author deserved it because he did not have the support of the common people. As much as he is concerned with contradictions elsewhere, it makes this one burn ever the brighter. This example highlights the lack of rules of engagement of the cultures. It is left unsaid how one culture should interact with others. Can they try to spread? Must they stay static? Is there a valid war of ideas? Another thing the book rails against is the objectification of other cultures. I think that this is somewhat built into our language. There is a subject/object relationship imbued in the very way we communicate. Every sentence has a subject and an object. When relating to the other, it is always presented in this format by necessity. In light of this necessity of objectification in order to commutate, is there something to the Orientalist mindset that simply needs to be scaled back?

Furthermore, what is the goal? I guess it is stated as the ending of oppression, but what I do not know is what that looks like. What type of world specifically are the oppressed peoples trying to forge? As a pragmatic person, I find a certain air of uselessness in the struggle if there is no plan, no goal of what one is struggling for. So far it just seems like all we know is what the struggle is against.

There is also questions raised about who is complicit in what. As a white male, participating in a western capitalistic culture, namely the American culture, am I complicit in the oppression of other people? If so, what can I do? Compare this with a) Christian women who are complicit in their seeming oppression in religion and family roles and b) Muslim women who are complicit in their seeming oppression in religion and family roles. If one was to ask people in those situations, some would respond that they embrace their roles. If they do, are they oppressed? Shooting off on a tangent, what about the cross oppression in the oppressed? Often there is a feeling of blaming the colonial powers exclusively to the point that there is no responsibility left to share with those outside of the west for the condition of the world.

I think there may be reasons for this lack of a coherent goal. It may be too early in the thought process for there to be a clear, agreed upon vision. How long did it take Europe to perfect the idea of limited government and personal liberty? Starting from the move of the Roman Empire:”(Fareed Zakaria in The Future of Freedom suggests that Constantine’s move east was the true beginning of liberty in the west.)”: east and thru the Christian reformation and continuing thru the French revolution it was a long and bloody journey. Perhaps then, for the development of the three continents into truly free peoples, there needs to be a similar amount of time. Because there is a lack of a plan, it is hard to judge any of the actions and really evaluate the postcolonial movements for self realization on an individual, cultural, and national scale.

• Ethics , Personal
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