1.1 Why Postcolonialism?
It is difficult to say what postcolonialism exactly is. There is no ‘tradition’ per se as there is a philosophical tradition for deconstruction or psychoanalytical theory. In anti-colonial movements and postmodern critique of colonialism as a project of modernity one can find ideas that preceded postcolonial theory. The most important feature of postcolonialism is a shift in the dominant ways in which relations between Western and non-Western people and their worlds were viewed. It meant to look from the other side of the photograph (Young 2003). Edward Said’s Orientalism can be said to have founded one such possible tradition of postcolonialism. The divisions between west and ‘the rest’ were made absolute by the expansion …show more content…
It focuses on forces of oppression and coercive domination that operate in the contemporary world. Politics of colonialism, anti-colonialism, neo-colonialism, race, gender, nationalism, class and ethnicities define its terrain. It attempts to provide ‘indigenous solutions’ to colonial problems that are quite universal in nature. To elaborate further, postcolonialism is a dialectical concept that marks the broad historical facts of decolonization. It also deals with realities of nations and peoples emerging into new imperialistic context of domination and the economic, material and cultural conditions that determine the global system in which the postcolonial nation is required to operate. A transformed historical situation and the cultural formation that have risen in response to changed political circumstances in the former colonial powers is yet another aspect of postcolonialism (Young …show more content…
The word apartheid means “separateness” in the Afrikaans language and it described the rigid racial division between the governing white minority population and the nonwhite majority population. The National Party introduced apartheid as part of their campaign in the 1948 elections, and with the National Party victory, apartheid became the governing political policy for South Africa until the early 1990s. Although there is no longer a legal basis for apartheid, the social, economic, and political inequalities between white and black South Africans continue to
It is difficult to say what postcolonialism exactly is. There is no ‘tradition’ per se as there is a philosophical tradition for deconstruction or psychoanalytical theory. In anti-colonial movements and postmodern critique of colonialism as a project of modernity one can find ideas that preceded postcolonial theory. The most important feature of postcolonialism is a shift in the dominant ways in which relations between Western and non-Western people and their worlds were viewed. It meant to look from the other side of the photograph (Young 2003). Edward Said’s Orientalism can be said to have founded one such possible tradition of postcolonialism. The divisions between west and ‘the rest’ were made absolute by the expansion …show more content…
It focuses on forces of oppression and coercive domination that operate in the contemporary world. Politics of colonialism, anti-colonialism, neo-colonialism, race, gender, nationalism, class and ethnicities define its terrain. It attempts to provide ‘indigenous solutions’ to colonial problems that are quite universal in nature. To elaborate further, postcolonialism is a dialectical concept that marks the broad historical facts of decolonization. It also deals with realities of nations and peoples emerging into new imperialistic context of domination and the economic, material and cultural conditions that determine the global system in which the postcolonial nation is required to operate. A transformed historical situation and the cultural formation that have risen in response to changed political circumstances in the former colonial powers is yet another aspect of postcolonialism (Young …show more content…
The word apartheid means “separateness” in the Afrikaans language and it described the rigid racial division between the governing white minority population and the nonwhite majority population. The National Party introduced apartheid as part of their campaign in the 1948 elections, and with the National Party victory, apartheid became the governing political policy for South Africa until the early 1990s. Although there is no longer a legal basis for apartheid, the social, economic, and political inequalities between white and black South Africans continue to