Post colonialism and Globalisation

In the last three decades post colonialism has emerged as a major critical theory and it has comfortably sealed its position within the academic realm throughout the world. Post colonialism, in its contemporary shape, appears to be stale and seems like a catch phrase because of its overuse and abuse by many so-called First World and Third world intellectuals. Post colonialism, as an academic and theoretical paradigm and critical canon, can be approached from two distinctly different perspectives-one is temporal and the other is thematic. The periodic approach to post colonialism implies the period after the end of the formal colonialization in the occupied territories and the thematic consideration would take into account the socio-political, historical and economic point of view or reconsideration and analysis of the erstwhile colonized countries. Edward W. Said’s seminal book titled Orientalism enabled a generation of researchers, critics, historians and readers by opening a new door to rethink the giant efforts of the orientalists anew. Said, a displaced intellectual from the Arab-world who lived in America and taught in Columbia University was influenced by the French Cultural historian Michael Foecault and argued in his book Orientalism that knowledge was never a disinterested endeavour for the orientalists and most of them were simply paid agents to strengthen the British Empire on which the sun never supposed set. Saids’s main contention in Orientlaism was to prove how knowledge became a discursive practice and his analysis became more sharp in his subsequent book Culture and Imperialism where he argued about the interesting link between our perceived notions of culture and the British imperial mission throughout the world that reached its peak during the Victorian period. Homi K. Bhabha is another major name in this field and his path-breaking books like The Location of Culture and Nation and Narration came up with a new angle of postcolonial theoreization and a few relevant and interesting coinages like ‘hybridity’, ‘liminality’ etc. GayetriChakravartySpivak, a seminal intellectual from India who became a professor in a first grade University of the so-called First World provided a mind-boggling mixture of post-structrualism and feminism, of which hercanonical essay “Can the subaltern speak”? remains a glaring example.
The Marxist intellectuals and sub-altern historians have always begged to differ with the postcolonial theorists on the ground that the latter group of thinkers ignore issues of class-conflict. Thinkers like Eijaj Ahmed, RanjitGuha, Partho Chatterjee, Shahid Amin and others have analysed Indian history from a sub-altern perspective and during the early 1980s they gave birth to a new genre of writings crucial to the growth of another intellectual discipline popular throughout the academic domain of the world, namely the sub-altern studies. Neo-colonialism is a monster that persists even after the demise of the formal colonialization all over the so-called Third World. Neo-colonialism refers to the subtle cultural domination of the so-called Third World countries by the so-called First World countries. Thinkers and writers like Chinua Achebee and NguiWa’Thiongo warned against the ill-effects of neo-colonialism long back and Wa’Thingo’s revolutionary rhetoric of doing away with English Departments from the African Universities and his plea for decoloniation were not merely novel concepts, but also practically viable ways to resist neo-colonialism. In the wake of globalization, neo-colonialism has gained more currency and the entire world is transformed into a potential and practical market by the U.S.A. Globalization is not merely a concept or an interdisciplinary paradigm, it is another monster that strengthens its claim on the daily basis to take away our liberties and make us economically and culturally dependent on the wish-making policies of a few and handful of people. Joseph Stiglitz, the Nobel Laureate in Economics argues about the catastrophic effects of globalization in his path-breaking book Gloablization and its Discontents. The twin efforts of neo-colonialism and globalization have given birth to the rise of popular culture and there is an attempt to homogenize cultures all across the world. The market is now seen anywhere and everywhere and in a so-called Third World Country like India, the market has now reached the villages but due to be inability of the villagers to avail that market, a disoriented, social psyche is born which is equally dangerous and harmful. In the euphoria of globalization and in the wake of cultural homogenization the grand-narrative of which Lyotard spoke of is returning again to subdue, submerge and swallow the hundreds of mini-narratives fighting against the death-knell of neo-imperialism and neo-colonialism. One must not accept globalization innocently and it is only by being aware of the subtle and multiple menaces of this phenomenon that one can both accept and resist it at the same time.
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