Colonialism: It is related to the attacking and subjugating any country or any region and

making your own government is called colonialism. The world colonialism also symbolizes
making a colony; for example, the resent example is our subcontinent when England made
India its colony. Colonialism flourished during 17th, 18th, 19th century and 20th century was the
end of colonialism. The literature written against the colonialism is called post- colonialism.
We see that colonialism is a recurring phenomenon in the history of the world. For example,
Roman Empire, Romans conquered various lands and countries and establish their own
government and Rome become Roman Empire. Similarly, the Autumn Empire and European
empire do the same. During European colonization they approximately colonized 90 percent
of the world.

Columbus discovered America in 1492. Spain colonized South America. The people of North
America and South America were very good. They did not know about weapons and they were
very peaceful people. Spanish people found gold and silver in the land of South America.
Spanish started killing the people of South America and in few months they killed 2 lac people
then they colonized those people. This was the start of modern colonization. They were so
cruel that they killed everyone. They were only interested in looting and plundering. As a
result of this looting and plundering in 16th century Spain become one of the richest countries
of the world. Portugal colonized kanga and Africa and it also become one of the rich countries
of the world. Similar was the case with Dutch. East India Company colonized Malaysia and
Indonesia. They were known as Spice Islands. They were taken to the Europe and North
America was colonized by England. They scramble for Africa because Africa was a land that
was fixed with diamonds and gold.

Burma, Bangladesh, India, Pakistan was colonized by British. We become their colony and they
took everything from this part of the world.one of the largest diamond was kooh e noor and it
was taken by Britishers. It shows looting and plundering of colonized and that is the reason
that Alfred Lord Tennyson said that ‘the sun never sets on the British Empire’ it means that
British Empire was so large that it control ¼ part of the world. Whole of the world was
subjected by European powers. Australia and New Zealand were also the colonies of Britain.

Era of colonization: South America, North America, Asia, Africa, Australia all these continents
were colonized and Europe was the colonizer

And they committed so much torcher and cruelty and killed thousand and millions of people
who so ever stood in their way they were killed.

In South America people were massacred why? Because of gold and other resources
Europe becomes a continent of development, civilization, education and learning and many
great places and buildings and palaces are built in Europe but these all were at the cost of
colonization. And now look at the condition of those countries from where these all resources
were brought.

How Europe justified this colonization?

“White man’s burden” this poem justifies colonialism and it was written when America
defeated Spain in Philippine and they made Philippine its colony in 1898, and this poem
justifies colonialism in the basis that the people living in Africa and Asia and other parts of the
world they are uneducated and barbarians they are uncivilized and west is civilized and it is
educated. It is cultured so west is colonizing people in order to enlighten them educating them
and make them civilized. So this poem also supports this view that these people are burden on
the white people. In the whole poem except Europe and British and west the whole world is
portrayed as uneducated. Kipling says that educating these people is the duty of the world and
it is the burden of the west. On the surface it is the mission to educate the people but if you
look at it in deep, you will come to know that it was only a face saving and a mask to show
them good but the real aim behind the colonialism was to loot and plunder.

West since 19th century looted and plunders Asia and Africa. They took away gold and
diamond, spice and everything that was there in previous century. In history of the world Asia
always remain the center of the trade and it was rich in resources. It had all the resources and
that is why Europeans and western they have utilized these parts so this was colonialism.

Post colonialism: In literature post colonialism is a reaction against the colonialism and its aim
is to unmask the reality behind the colonialism that whatever they said that they are here to
make them civilize and educate them and west came as the “barrier of torch” but in reality
their purpose was not that was presented behind the surface. There is a book written by
Edward Said which focuses on this aspect and he tells us about various aspects of colonialism
and their motive behind controlling. He unmasks and reveals the hidden agenda behind the
colonialism.

Look at the subcontinent. How British and French fought for influence for subcontinent and
ultimately British won and they controlled. Then they promoted their own culture and ruled
the people. They ruled people with cruelty with the direct laws and took away everything to
England. Kooh e noor: basically it was in the custody of Mughal emperors but during
colonization it was taken to Britain.
So when they invaded the subcontinent and they tried to introduce their own culture to the
subcontinent. At the beginning they were unable to control the people of the subcontinent so
they sent a mission under Lord Macaulay to look at the condition of the subcontinent and to
recommend that how they will be subjugated? How they will be dominated? How they will
become slave to British? So Lord Macaulay visited and he submitted his report to the House of
Commons. In this report he said that Indian culture is so rich that you cannot subjugate them
through force. You can only subjugate them by keeping them away from their culture and
customs. So they introduce British education system in the subcontinent and those who were
interested in English education they were given scholarships, money and all kinds of facilities
and it came to be known as civilizing mission.

Why they choose education for all these process?

Because education works on mind the mind of a person. When they will educate their mind
they will think like them and ultimately they will accept these values and tradition and culture
that England and other powers wanted them. Education is a tool through which we willingly
subjugate. Although there were also good elements in this education as well but their main
purpose was make them slave through their mind.

It resulted in the production of brown sahibs

Some key terms of post colonialism a post-colonial theory:

From the prospective of self and other: In post-colonial theory holds an important place and
the post-colonial writers and critics like Edward Said and others they are of the opinion that
the colonizers divided the population into two categories two sections; one was self and the
next was other. Self was related to the colonizers the whites and as we have already discussed
in Hegelian philosophy that self always considers itself to be important educated civilized and
other is always considered negative uneducated uncivilized and barbarians as we have already
discussed “ white men burden” it also shows this binary of self and other that colonizers and
white men considered themselves to be educated and superior and positive and you can
interpret this poem from post-colonial perspective. In this poem one point of view is of the
writer that we are colonizing people because we want to educate and civilize society and the
second is post-colonial perspective that in this population and humanity is divided into two
parts, self-consider itself as good and other is considered as bad they are inferior and dark and
other characteristics are associated with this so this debate of self and other is there in the
post-colonial literature and theory. We can apply this in today’s world in those parts of the
world which were colonized by British and other took powers so you will come to know that
colonizer considered themselves as very important and they associate all the positive qualities
with them and they considered colonized to be inferior; For example, look at the condition of
the sub-continent these people were considered inferior a British are considered superior
their culture their ways of thinking their behaviors their way of living everything was superior
they were considered to be role model while the people of the subcontinent were not
imitated so population was divided into self and the other

Condition of Africa: how African people were massacred. There was a king of Belgium
Leopold; he killed millions of Africans why?

Because he wanted to loot and plunder he wanted ivory (very precious jewelry) he was the
represented of the self, when we make someone other we are bent upon eliminating you see
that target killing was started in d I khan.

America was colonized in 15th and 16th century, Spain colonized South America and British
colonized North America. And French mostly colonized central America .when Spanish people
went to south America ,south American people brought food and sweet dishes and everything
they had for them and when they brought these things they were massacred they were killed
this is symbolic of self and other . They brought gold, there was a land that was called inka it
was full of silver it was called land of silver so Spain killed and massacred of the population of
the America and in 16th century Spain become one of the richest country in the world.

And post colonialism un masked this aspect of colonialism that they divided population into
self another and then killed them. You can see in kango novel “heart of darkness”. Skulls were
built in kango

Slave trade: Slaves were brought from Africa who use to work in their industries their fields
and slaves were bought and sold like commodities.it was the effect of colonization that slaves
were considered others. They deprived them of their humanity of their humanness. Now west
become the spoke person of the human rights and human violation but they violated the
human rights to the extent that you can’t imagine self was minority and they conquered whole
of the world Leo Tolstoy his novel “war and peace” in one of his letters he talks about India
that a small company enslaved a nation of 20 million people (east India company)

Mimicry: when you copy someone

It is the important element of post colonialism key term

Their culture was considered as standard. Mimicry is mostly found in monkeys. It resulted in a
different type of identity Poet Derek Walcott says: “ to change your language is to change
your life” so it led to post-colonial identity .for example what was our identity before the
arrival of British in the subcontinent and what is our identity after the departure of Britain
from sub-continent.

Post-colonial identity:

Identity holds a very important place in literature whether it is individual identity whether it is
collective whether it is racial or religious identity or political identity ,it holds a very important
place however in post-colonial literature we look at the identity of the colonizers and the
colonized first of all we look at the identity of the colonized

Identity of the colonized: before and after colonization and this thing is mostly discussed in
post-colonialism that how colonized are effected by the colonizers and the second thing that is
least discussed is this that the colonizers are also effected by the colonized because we change
our identity due to interaction with others and we see that both the colonizer and the
colonized they are interacting with each other it shows that if colonizers have influence us
they are also influence by us as well so we will be looking at the identity of colonies first

How colonized is effected at first by the customs values language and literature of the
colonizers?

Our own subcontinent , that before the arrival of the Britishers the people of the sub-
continent had their own culture their own tradition values norms and believes but when
colonizers left Britain the identity of the people was also influenced or changed it was
effective by British customs and norms and culture and there are certain dramas that deals
with identity

How colonization affected the identity of the people: novel summary “things fall apart”

It is written by Chinua Achebe. In this novel the writers shows that before the arrival of the
colonizers the people living in Africa they have their own culture an in this novel the writer
describes every aspect of the culture and identity of the people and at the end of the novel
everything changes people change their identity is change their culture and everything that
was related to it. Their individual identity is change and their collective identity is change as
well and there is another term on the basis of this identity known as hybridity

Hybridity means people that have mixed identity that some elements are of their identity are
related to their own culture and the other are borrowed from the colonizers
So our identity is also hybrid because some qualities of us are indigenous. When we associate
our self from few aspects of our own culture and we take several aspect from some other
culture (colonizers) it leads to a hydride identity that a person who belongs to a certain
country he have the characteristic of his own country countries culture and we see this aspect
in every colonized society so this is ambivalence

Ambivalence: when you hate and follow them at the same time. You will find both these
characteristic in a poem Derek Walcott “a far cry from Africa” in this we will see how his
identity is changed due to interaction with the colonizers.

Race: colonizer mostly considers them as dominant and superior race

The concept of language and hegemony

First of all what role language plays in colonialism and what is the place of language in
colonialism: If you look at history the language compiles if you look at the history of those
states that has empires their empire, their government their colonization was maintained
through language as well language is another tool of domination. When you want to dominate
you introduce your language and when you introduce your language people think according to
that language. Then our thinking and ideas are shaped according to that language. And
language brought culture with itself. Our psyche and identity is shaped by our language.

So post-colonial writers are of the opinion that when the colonizer came the brought their
language with them as well and they introduce their language in those parts of the world that
was colonized by the colonizers for example: as we see that still in Pakistan we are reading
their literature we have English departments and English is our official language as well and
look at Africa and other parts of the world even at first America was colonized by England and
Spain they adopted their language so language and empire they move together.

What the point of view is of colonized about that language and how they deal with it?

There are two ways, colonized deals with it through two ways,

(1). Abrogation: when colonized reject the language of the colonizers and they prefer their
own language because they think that this language is a tool of colonization. And they are
already colonized and when they will learn the language of the colonizer this colonization will
be naturalized because they will say we are superior and we are here to civilized you, we are
her to educate you. When they will read the literature of the colonizers they will think that
colonizers are justified in colonizing them in killing them. That is why they abrogate. Thy don’t
use their language

i. First they don’t want to use their language and

ii. If they use it, they don’t use it in a standard way rightly and correctly

In Hana and other different countries they stated abolition of the English department research
paper “the abolition of the English department” they are abolishing English department in
Africa because they are of the opinion that they don’t want to be the slaves the Britishers and
they don’t want to learn and teach their language, they are of the opinion that they will learn
their own language they will study their own culture whatever is written by their own people.

(2). Appropriation: this is related to the acceptance of the language that when colonized
accept the language of the colonizer and they express themselves in that language

Their point of view: if they are expressing them in their own language they will not be
understood by the words they will not be having a large number of readers so their message
will not go through out of the world so they are of the opinion that we must use colonizers
language to speak against them to unveil their hypocrisy, cruelty and other characteristics that
are not visible to the world colonizer are showing them. They are not educating and civilizing
them but they are massacring them killing them

“Jaliyan wala bagh” this is an event in Indo Pak history during Indian independence India .so
colonized thought that they can highlight the cruelty and torchers of the colonized in their
language so they adopt their language they spoke against them. So their own language
becomes a tool that was used against them. We see many post-colonial authors they wrote in
English and their works became famous and then the reality of the colonizers became crystal
clear for the world and most of the time it lead to de colonization.

Decolonization: when colonizers move to their own country and they gave independence to
the colonized part of the world for example as British left continent and it resulted in the
establishment of the two countries Pakistan and India.

When a country is decolonized it means that colonialism is ended: when decolonization

occurred British and other colonizers like Portugal and America and Belgium and France and
Germany and Russia and other colonizers they left those places and gave independence to the
colonized countries and nations but we see after that emerged a new form of colonization
which is known as neo colonialism

Neo colonialism: is a new way of colonizing the people. It is different from the colonization in
a way that colonialism was a direct control and neo colonialism is an indirect control. America
and other they have make different institutions for example, IMF (International monetary
fund), World Bank, WTO (World trade organization), in politics, education. World powers are
controlling the countries through economy for example Pakistan. Whenever we need money
from IMF, they have some demands and we fulfill them. For example electricity expensive
becomes high, subsidies are removed from most of the things and they close the social welfare
works. Free education free medicine is eliminated because all of them cost the government.

Although they are not controlling us in the direct way now they are controlling us through
different means, and this thing is named as globalization. It means that this world has become
a global village where we can connect with people easily and everything has become common

Now our culture is the mixture of our own norms and values and western as well. Now it has
become a common culture .people think in the same way doing business in the same way. In
this mostly things are western and third world countries are not a part of this.