Postcolonial Resistance

The collection of narratives, statements, and documents that were told from the perception of European colonizers towards the colonized nations is called a Colonial discourse. The Europeans often portrayed themselves as civilized, benevolent, and superior while representing others as lazy savages, this led to Binary opposition. These form a chain of signifiers that generated a certain perspective for individuals to visualize Europeans as advanced and others as barbaric. The colonialism period might have ended but the impacts still live on in the present day; thus, the postcolonial text has been studied to transform the effect of colonialism or to decolonize society. As a song by Bob Marley, War, has stated: “Until the color of a man’s skin is no longer significant than the color of his eyes, I say War”. As long as people still used their race to determine their superiority there will be no peace in this world which the postcolonial scholar is trying to decolonize and transform the legacies of colonialism. People had been resisting European colonizers in the past, various materials show the resistance of each nation or race which provided an agency, presence, and marginalization in their contexts. In this essay, I will be concentrating on the resistance of Africa and India using six texts to analyze.

The British Empire had ruled India for approximately 200 years, but that does not mean the citizens were being passive to their nation’s independence. There was resistance and the urge to fight back against the Europeans. Agency has been a crucial concern in the postcolonial study since it emerged as a discipline. It was a trace of resistance to dominant discourses and power structure. The concept of agency is to show that people took action and are active in the making of their life. In the Bollywood film, ‘Lagaan’ by Ashutosh Gowariker, 2001, Bhuvan accepts the deal with captain Russell to win the game of Cricket to rescue his people that suffered from taxation. The film shows that Indians have a voice and that they are being active as they are taking action in the making of their life. Furthermore, the fact that captain Russell had to negotiate with Bhuvan and that the colonizer had to learn Hindi to communicate with them, reveals that Europeans were ambivalent about their power associated with their race as in reality race does not establish supremacy. Provincialization is also another form of resistance in postcolonial study; scholars moved the West from the center to the margin and moved the ‘outsiders’ to the center. In ‘The Roman Image’ by R.K. Narayan, 1983, he decentered the West and gave the ‘presence’ to the Indian, as when the native was asked about Rome and Europe he had no idea what it was. The native lives his normal life unbothered by the nonexistence of the West, Europe has no power or any impact on the citizens’ daily life; thus, it reveals that in reality, they are not exclusive to the world. R.K. Narayan decentralized Europe and brought the Indians to the center and gave them a voice as in addition, the talkative man was the one who tells the story and we heard about the European professor through him.

Africa was perhaps the most suffered nation as a result of colonialism compared to India, even in today’s society they still encountered racism. They had been visualized as an animal, a different species, and livestock. The West invaded the black continent each hoping for new sources of raw materials and new positions of advantage against its rivals and this was called ‘The Scramble of Africa’. The West subdivided Africa into their possession without permission, saying they were there to help the lazy savages. In the ‘British Empire in color part 2’, the missionaries in Uganda, 1954, were there to ‘help’ the Africans. They said the natives have so little, and no opportunities, they taught them Christianity as they are ‘the lost soul’. The West wanted to make the world think in their way, to fit their concept of civilization when they took advantage of the natives and were the reason why the citizens lack livestock. They used extreme violence, seized all materials, and destroyed the lives of the Africans. The film ‘Amistad’ by Steven Spielberg, 1997, also highlights the fact that Africans were treated like an animal, they were there to serve as a slave for the West, they have no rights, and are being discriminated against. The film shows how Africans were being tortured on the ship, as they were being cargo like a commodity or an animal. Their lives have no meaning and are casually thrown overboard if they get sick. In ‘Things fall apart', a book by Chinua Achebe, 1958, Achebe writes a book to respond to the western perception of Africans as less than a human. Achebe challenges the European viewpoint like the book ‘Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad as a resistance. His resistance was to show how they are human and cultured like the whites by using the simplest thing to illustrate it. In chapter 2, Achebe writes about how different tribe has their own beliefs, and how they have a justice system; additionally, in chapter 5 he stated how the natives have sports like wrestling, which displays that Africa is a human as same as the West, they have a soul and they consisted of everything that would be considered a human. This eventually falls apart when the British missionaries arrive, implying that they dehumanize the Africans, and use their ethnicity and violence to take control over them. Okonkwo as the main character shows the audience how Africans are human just like others. Achebe contradicted the story that the Europeans portrayed, he centralized and provided the presence of the natives.

In conclusion, Colonial discourse tries to show that there are separate races of humans and there is a level of superiority associated with ethnicity, the postcolonial scholar tries to transform this idea in society. The Political colonialism era has ended but its impact on society and the economy still lives on. Postcolonialism gives ‘outsiders’ a chance or a stage to speak and enter the stage of humanity, they resist and respond to the colonial discourses to decolonize the society as an outcome of the tradition of thought, imagery, and vocabulary that has given it reality and presence in and for the West.