Reading “The Americas, Christian Expansion, and the
Modern/Colonial Foundation of Racism” an excerpt from The Idea of Latin America written by Walter Mignolo, it helped me
get into more depth about colonialism and how its definition, or should I say,
its change and concealment of the word by renaming it through another word:
modernity. Modernity and what is now called democracy are the new terms that
are now more recently used and constantly referred to but some people that use
those terms are not familiar that they are actually using the definition of
coloniality.
Colonialism is based off of inventions that are covered up
as “discoveries” in order to make it seem that these colonists are superior to
any other people since they were able to “discover”, or should I say, invent
something that basically was already there. However, the only reason that they
were able to get away with that was because they did the most horrific solution
of destroying and reconstructing cultures and histories of those that they colonize.
Coloniality “enforces control, domination, and exploitation
disguised in the language of salvation, progress, modernization, and being good
for everyone.” (pg. 6) For me this definition is based on the similar concept
of democracy and how democracy is seen as the only solution that is able to
“save” everyone and able to make a country progress and develop further through
peace, but is that really the case when it is enforcing control and domination
disguised as modernization and salvation for the greater of everyone? How can a
country be trying to fight colonialism when they are still embedded in the idea
that the majority defines the future of everyone else? Democracy is the new
colonialism.
The U.S. government is based on colonialism, although they
fought against it in the American revolution, the colonialist mentality was
still in practice although the colonizers were not present, their ideas were
still deeply embedded into the political system of the government. The majority
is still in power and the people that are seen as inferior are still being oppressed
yet throughout the years the oppression has evolved. Just by looking back into
U.S. history will you find evidence on how colonialism is still in effect and
how the government makes excuses and lies and destroys only to escape the fact
that what they were doing wrong was actually to just benefit the people when
the contrary was in effect.
The word colonialism has evolved from modernity to democracy
only to just make people blind on how colonialism is still in effect by
disguising it through lies and excuses on how the decisions that are being made
will only benefit the people, not oppress them. Will we ever be able to end colonialism or is
it a never-ending factor of life that may never be escaped?
Moises, I like your statement of democracy being the new colonization. I agree that it all goes back to the American Revolution, even though the people were fighting for their freedom the ideas, theories and way of living was implemented on this people. Although, there was physical freedom there was no mental and idealistic freedom, modernity became the new way of colonization and from then on democracy became the puppet for the majority in this country. I believe that by ending colonialism, you would first have to decolonize yourself.
ReplyDeleteHey Moises!
ReplyDeleteI think your assessments on democracy would be a great smack in the face to most americans. We all tend to have the idea that however flawed our system is, it is still the best. Because of this we fail to question the deeper historical and continuing implications of our often oppressive system. I also like how you touched on the hypocrisy of our transformation from colonial victims to colonial enforcers. It seems so funny to me that we would turn the same oppressive powers that were used on us onto other people. Thanks for sharing your thoughts!
Will we ever be able to end colonialism or is it a never-ending factor of life that may never be escaped?
ReplyDeleteI have a similar question to Moses’s question: How would the conversation of ‘ending’ colonialism change if we consider that we are also products of colonialism? Can we begin to deconstruct, dismantle, breakdown with the language of the colonizers? Does it matter? Isn’t ‘scholarly’ work also considered ‘modern’ or appropriately progressive and acceptable?
When we begin to assess the itty gritty situation I think we can see a very big project at hand! However, I think if we take a multi-perspective or ‘multi-national’ scope to work with these questions the project is doable. Authors like Mignolo, Lowe, Hartman, Omi and Winant have contributed to a base of knowledge for my working scope of colonialism, modernity, racialized bodies, etc. I think that people can use the fact that they are products of colonialism to assert that their ‘post-colonial’ contributions are only a ‘normal’ response to these situations. Therefore, we can use the notions of ‘modernity’ or ‘progressiveness’ to move towards (insert whatever we’re moving towards here) in a way that is beneficial to the people. Use their own stick to hit them in the head! What do ya’ll think?