Presentation Colonialism 6r5u4n

Presentation on Colonialism.

Fatima Javaid MPHIL English Literature Semester II

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olonialism The term colonialism is important in defining the specific form of cultural exploitation that developed with the expansion of Europe over the last 400 years. Although many earlier civilizations had colonies, and although they perceived their relations with them to be one of a central imperium in relation to colonialism A periphery of provincial, marginal and barbarian cultures, a number of crucial factors entered into the construction of the post-Renaissance practices of imperialism. Edward Said offers the following distinction: ‘“imperialism” means the practice, the theory, and the attitudes of a dominating metropolitan centre ruling a distant territory; “colonialism”, which is almost always a consequence of imperialism, is the implanting of settlements on distant territory’ (Said 1993: 8). The scale and variety of colonial settlements generated by the expansion of European society after the Renaissance shows why the term colonialism has been seen to be a distinctive form of the more general ideology of imperialism. Although Said’s formula, which uses ‘imperialism’ for the ideological force and ‘colonialism’ for the practice, is a generally useful distinction, European colonialism in the post-Renaissance world became a sufficiently specialized and historically specific form of imperial expansion to justify its current general usage as a distinctive kind of political ideology. It also meant that the relation between the colonizer and colonized was locked into a rigid hierarchy of difference deeply resistant to fair and equitable exchanges, whether economic, cultural or social. In colonies where the subject people were of a different race, or where minority indigenous peoples existed, the ideology of race was also a crucial part of the construction and naturalization of an unequal form of intercultural relations. Race itself, with its accompanying racism and racial prejudice, was largely a product of the same postRenaissance period, and a justification for the treatment of enslaved peoples after the development of the slave trade of the Atlantic Middle age from the late sixteenth century onwards. In such situations the idea of the colonial colonialism world became one of a people intrinsically inferior, not just outside history and civilization, but genetically pre-determined to inferiority. Their subjection was not just a matter of profit and convenience but also could be constructed as a natural state. In the case of the non-indigenous inhabitants of settler colonies, the idea of a cultural inferiority exceeded that of mere provincial gaucherie as race permeated even the construction of ‘white’ settlers. These were frequently characterized as having wholly degenerated (‘gone native’) from with other races, as in the case of white creoles in the West Indies (Brathwaite 1971), or, in the case of settler colonies such as Canada or Australia, as having developed specific limited colonial colonialism characteristics (physical

prowess, sporting ability) but not others (cultural and social sophistication). The same practice of characterizing ‘colonial’ peoples by signifiers of naivety, of social and cultural provinciality and of originary taint (e.g. ‘Irishness’ was imported from the internal discriminations of Britain in the Victorian period to its colonialist constructions of both America and Australia) was a feature of English texts even as late as the early twentieth century. This was so even for Americans, despite independence and the radical shift in their own power position in the world at large after American industrialization in the late nineteenth century (see, for example, the presentation of Americans in such late nineteenthcentury and early twentieth-century texts as Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories, or Shaw’s ‘Man and Superman’). Thus the negative construction of self was as important a feature of self-representation for settler colonies as for colonies of occupation where race and the idea of an alien or decayed civilization were a feature of colonial discrimination. Empire became the principal ideological unifier across class and other social divisions in Britain. It was to be the principal colonialism icon of national unity in the face of the widely perceived social threat of class unrest and revolution that had arisen in postindustrial British society. An other (the colonized) existed as a primary means of defining the colonizer and of creating a sense of unity beneath such differences as class and wealth and between the increasingly polarized life of the industrialized cities that developed the wealth and that of the traditional countryside to which its beneficiaries retreated or retired. The colonialist system permitted a notional idea of improvement for the colonized, via such metaphors as parent/child, tree/branch, etc., which in theory allowed that at some future time the inferior colonials might be raised to the status of the colonizer. But in practice this future was always endlessly deferred. It is significant that no society ever attained full freedom from the colonial system by the involuntary, active disengagement of the colonial power until it was provoked by a considerable internal struggle for self-determination or, most usually, by extended and active violent opposition by the colonized. It is one of the great myths of recent British colonial history in particular that the granting of independence to its colonies was the result of a proactive and deliberate policy of enlightenment on the part of the British people, a policy that distinguished British colonialism from the inferior and more rapacious European brands. Such readings are, of course, part of the construction of the ideology of late nineteenth-century imperialism in which literary representation played a vigorous part, whether actively as in the work of Kipling, or in a more ambivalent way in the works of Conrad. Despite the anti-imperial strain in some of his writing, Conrad continues to distinguish actively between the English model of colonialism, which has ‘an ideal at the back of it’, and the mere rapacity of the imperialism of ‘lesser breeds’ of imperialists. These 2

specious distinctions are projected back into the narratives of the rapacious Spanish conquistadores, though the British treatment of the Indians in Virginia differed from that of the Spanish only in quantity not in the degree of its brutality (Hulme 1986).

COLONIALISM IN ‘HEART OF DARKNESS’ The European colonization of Africa was intended to bring the light of civilization and European society to the darkness of an unknown and poorly understood continent. In Heart of Darkness Conrad shows, through fiction, that the lack of moral and judicial restraints in Africa allowed for the release of the darkness from the hearts of the colonists. Darkness, whatever other resonances it comes to have, is literally determined by the reference to cartography. But cartography is not the solution, but rather the problem, at least in its ideal epistemological form as social cognitive mapping on the global scale. The whole pretense behind the European colonists operations in Africa is to “bring the light of civilization.” Marlow compares the Roman and British empires in his description of the Thames river. Britain itself has “been one of the dark places of the world,” but since the “Romans first came here… light came out of the river since….” Herein Conrad provides an allusion to the Roman occupation of Britain, and a historical indication of Britain’s intentions and actions in Africa (Al-Dabbagh). Joseph Conrad shows that one of the purposes of colonialism is the suppression of the Native’s beliefs and traditional way of life. Conrad begins with a focus on what the Company overtly tells the public: They are going into the Congo to civilize the Natives. The Europeans, on face level, seek to convert the inhabitants of the Congo region to the European way of life. Marlow’s aunt believes as much when she states that he will participate in, “weaning those ignorant millions from their horrid ways” (Conrad 77). Marlow’s aunt sees the traditional ways of life of the Natives as “horrid.” She believes that the European system is the only system that should be followed. The Europeans enlist the help of the Natives in procuring ivory, and the Natives seeing a more lucrative opportunity, abandon 3

their villages to go to work for the Europeans and in the process, change their way of life. Specifically, Marlow states that he “ed through several abandoned villages” (Conrad 87) and that his foreman was a “boiler-maker by trade” (Conrad 99) showing that the Natives have given up on their former way of life to pursue a life that they assume will be better with the Europeans. As Marlow journeys up the river and hears the cries of the Natives coming from behind a wall of thick foliage, he was a “suspicion” that they are “inhuman” (Conrad 108). Kurtz also believes that the Natives are in need of being humanized, improved, and instructed in the European way of life. The Europeans believe that the Natives are beneath them and in need of being cultured. Despite the high and noble aspiration of civilizing the Natives, Conrad reveals that after the Natives have abandoned everything to follow the Europeans, the true face of colonialism is revealed. Joseph Conrad explains that colonialism is brutal and savage process. The Natives are lulled into a false sense of security and then become slaves of the European colonizers. To the Europeans, the Natives are valuable, if they are productive and supplying ivory and other goods to the Europeans. “Black shapes crouched, lay, sat between the trees, leaning against the trunks, clinging to the earth, half coming out, half effaced within the dim light, in all the attitudes of pain, abandonment, and despair. . . . The work was going on. The work! And this was the place where some of the helpers had withdrawn to die. They were dying slowly—it was very clear… black shadows of disease and starvation, lying confusedly in the greenish gloom. Brought from all the recesses of the coast in all the legality of time contracts, lost in uncongenial surroundings, fed on unfamiliar food, they sickened, became inefficient, and were then allowed to crawl away and rest” (Conrad 83). The Europeans do not care about the health and working conditions of the Natives as long as they are productive. This vivid observation by Marlow as he enters the grove of death illustrates just how cruel the colonizers are with respect to what happens when the Natives are no longer able to work. When a fire burns down a storehouse full of goods a Native is beaten because “They said he caused the fire in some way” (Conrad 92). Later, the Manager remarks that by punishing the Native, regardless of if he had anything to do with the fire was “the only way” to “prevent all conflagrations for the future” (Conrad 95). The Europeans who have traveled to Africa to humanize the Natives treat the natives severely and inhumanly. Through the actions of the Europeans, the Natives are made fearful and in order to protect their lives and the lives of their families they submit to the will of the foreigners. “What can you expect? …He came at them with thunder and lightning, you know—and they had never 4

seen anything like it—and very terrible” (Conrad 135). Here Kurtz had gone to the Natives with weapons and frightened them so much so that they worshipped him as a deity and brought him as much ivory as he desired. The pilgrims and other Europeans Marlow encounters always have their rifles in hand and at the ready and do not hesitate to pull the trigger if they believe that it will frighten the Natives. Even as Marlow enters Africa he observes that a French warship was firing into the dense jungle for no obvious reason except for frightening the natives and that the steamer upon which he is a enger stops at every port for “the sole purpose of landing soldiers” (Conrad 78). Conrad shows that colonialism operates primarily on a shock and awe mentality to get what they need. Finally, Conrad explores the true purpose of colonialism. Colonialism is really about obtaining all of the natural resources of the land for profit and in the process, lay waste to the country. The Europeans are far more interested in ivory that in civilizing the Natives. They would rather obtain the most ivory through whatever means necessary for their advancement within the company. The Europeans destroy the land so they can obtain every valuable object out of the ground. “Their talk, however, was the talk of sordid buccaneers: it was reckless without hardihood, greedy without audacity, and cruel without courage; there was not an atom of foresight or of serious intention in the whole batch of them, and they did not seem aware these things are wanted for the work of the world. To tear treasure out of the bowels of the land was their desire, with no more moral purpose at the back of it than there is in burglars breaking into a safe” (Conrad 107). Conrad reveals that colonialism is simply a brutal competition for dominance and control in a foreign land where the only thing that matters is getting to the top regardless of how many bodies have to be dumped by the wayside. Through Marlow’s journey up the Congo and into the heart of darkness, the horrifying tools of colonialism are laid bare and the true purpose of colonialism and the European capitalist approach is exposed.

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