10-7-2011
Last week, at one of the two places I work, I was asked if I would be interested to give a lecture on cultures and education. I hope it did work out well. I was asked for an autograph/signature by girls as soon as i finished lecturing lol am bragging here. But on a serious note, it was kinda cool.
I was off-tracked in the middle of my speech by one student who asked me what I think has the role of Western ways of thinking, has been on human progress and development. In my answer, i have quoted an Ethiopian Orthodox Priest who shared me his opinion on modern education vis a vis Western ways of thinking once. He described it in this phrase " it is a blinding devil". That was what i answered them- though not hundred percent, I opt to agree with the Priest. Education has made me/us sceptical, coward,confused and constrained.
One of the less nicer effects of education is seen in the case of postcolonial theory. I ain't a post colonialist in stand and academia. I rather find this theory a new form of intellectual despotism and ''divide and rule''. Our newly born neighbour, South Sudan is a result of postcolonialism theories in one way or the other.
What is postcolonial theory ?
According to the encyclopedia.com definition, Postcolonial theory, often said to begin with the work of Edward W. Said, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, and Homi K. Bhabha, looks at literature and society from two broad angles: how the writer, artist, cultural worker, and his or her context reflects a colonial past, and how they survive and carve out a new way of creating and understanding the world and/or as to Wikipedia is a specifically post-modern intellectual discourse that consists of reactions to, and analysis of, the cultural legacy ofcolonialism. Postcolonialism comprises a set of theories found amongst anthropology, architecture, philosophy, film, political science, human geography, sociology, feminism, religious and theological studies, and literature.
Postcolonial Theory - as epistemology, ethics, and politics - addresses matters of identity, gender, race, racism and ethnicity with the challenges of developing a post-colonial national identity, of how a colonised people's knowledge was used against them in service of the coloniser's interests, and of how knowledge about the world is generated under specific relations between the powerful and the powerless, circulated repetitively and finally legitimated in service to certain imperial interests.
In general, it is a thinking, movement and an academic endeavour that is anti,post colonial in nature and aims to achieve real independence and freedom from colonisation of both the mind, culture,identity,gender,race and nation.
Ethiopian postcolonial theorists ?
Broadly speaking Ethiopia doesn't expectedly have post colonial theorists. Why? because it has never been colonised.I don't know of any Ethiopian scholar or writer who has written with an anti-West or coloniser dynamism or genre.
But.... But there are post-colonial theorists who have never publicised themselves as postcolonial theorists so far but factually are.They were brainwashed,educated and manipulativly exploited by the postcolonial theory. They as the by products of postcolonial theories have established political parties led them so far and even attempted to realise their wish in practice. Oromo Liberation Front(OLF), Eritrean People's Liberation Front (EPLF) , Tigrean People's Liberation Front (TPLF) and Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF) are the very good cases.
These parties were all founded by Western or third level educated postcolonail theorists. Although they shoved the ideologies of different Western philosophers such as Marx and Lenin- they are all the by products of postcolonial theories.
Aregawi Berhe,Tecola Hagos,Jordan Gebre-Medhin,Hussien Sora,Elemo Quilixxu, Abdirahman Mahdi, Sheikh Ibrahim Abdalla Mohamed and many others I haven't named here were and are still postcolonial theorists who founded or advocated a political movement with modules of anti colonialism - the coloniser being the Abysianain or the undefinable ''Shewan Dynasty''.
Their core ideology is that the ethnic Oromo,Tigreans,Eriterains or Ogadenians were colonized by the "Amhara Highlanders'' , Shewa and they need to be liberated from that colonization. This is a typical example of post-colonial theory.
Edward W. Said, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, and Homi K. Bhabha haven't researched or came up with anything different from the above.
I would love to agree with the Moroccan scholar Bin 'Abd al-'Ali who argues that what is seen in contemporary Middle Eastern studies of postcolonial theories is 'a pathological obsession with ... identity'. Ethiopia suffers from identity politics and that is why change has been so slow. Our ''current leaders'' are well informed of postcolonial theories and are applying them well in their divisive rule. Our opinion leaders as well who make their life in the interperetaion and analysis of post colonial theories have affected the minds of the new generation.Postcolonial theories might work in the case of Orientalist Vs the West or the colonising West Vs the colonised rest in broad senses. But the deeper and particularistic postcolonail theories of Africa that have been questioning the centuries old peaceful coexistence of indigenous people as in the case of Ethiopia, Rwanda and Sudan,Bosnia and many other similar nations , have only brought us what you see,,,
2 comments:
interesting but how come you say post colonialism theory has caused these side effects while it is a collectivist , positivist and essentialist thought that has helped colonised nations.Take Franz Fanon for instance, he was able to articulate the issues of race, colour and colonization seriously. He hunted and attacked the old school colonial thought of superiority.
Dear affias...if you are around I would like to answer your query and deal with the issue in detail just hall at me...
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