RP4: You Haven't Done Nothing

Mignolo talks about how difficult it is for societies that do not have adequate power or the finances to pass, maintain and spread their knowledge. He highlights the fact that knowledge is accumulated from everywhere but it is usually the knowledge of those that have the power and the money that are able to pass down their knowledge. Reading the words “what is dominant is not necessarily hegemonic,” (Mignolo, 116) takes me back to my grandparents' house. My grandfather often expressed distress at the fact that our education system discouraged children from speaking their native tongue (Shona). He told me that in colonial times, it was against the rules to speak Shona within the school grounds unless one was in an actual Shona lesson, and at the end of the year, they would give an English prize but never a Shona prize. They learned European history, read story books with British characters like Jane and William and sang Anglican, Methodist and Catholic hymns. In a country where the Shona were the dominant group, the British education system was hegemonic, because they had the money and the power, so they decided what was worth knowing and what was not. They made speaking one’s own language and singing traditional songs seem like inferior and banal pastimes that would not be beneficial in the “real world”. Paying homage to one’s ancestors, which was done to ask for rain, protection, good luck or to give thanks was put on the same level as demon worship. Even after colonial times, when I was born, I remember being asked if I could speak English, and being looked at differently because I spoke it so well.

Stevie Wonders, in many ways echoes Mignolo, as his song critiques modernity and the difference between interculturalidad and multicultural. He critiques that idea of hegemony when he sings “Though much concerned but not involved/ With decisions that are made by you.” He is highlighting the fact that although the decisions made by the powers that be affect every single person in America greatly, not every American has a say on this decision, only those with the power and the money to have their decisions passed. “The world is tired of pacifiers/ We want the truth and nothing else,” addresses the idea of the knowledge that it not hegemonic disappearing because it is not seen as relevant enough to be passed on, but also the concept of multicultural that allows indigenous societies’ knowledge to be spread only if it is in accordance with Western knowledge, thus discrediting any knowledge that is otherwise and acting as a pacifier. This is not the whole truth, but just the parts of the truth that are “safe” enough to be shared. I also interpreted pacifiers as “the things you say that you'll do” (Stevie Wonder), as the promises of change that the Western powers continually make to indigenous people, while, as Mignolo points out, only small changes are made in an attempt to keep things the same, so at the end of the day, “You Haven’t Done Nothing”.