Young - Intro and Part I

More of my opinions, this time on Young...

Young – part I

Has the postcolonialism truly been associated mostly with transnational migration, diaspora, and internationalism, and anti-colonialism too exclusively with a provincial nationalism? Young seems to think so. Unlike Fieldhouse, Young does not want to use the term Third World and instead opts to utilize ‘three continents’ or ‘tricontinental’ throughout the book. Thus, within the first few pages he lays out the basic premise of the postcolonial, or tricontinental, critique which claims that the process of European expansion between 1492 and 1945 was “specific and problematic” (p. 5). Its source is the “revolutionary activism of the past” (p. 10). It ascribes the feelings of superiority to the west by means of technological advancements, which in turn imposed cultural superiority and common economic path to countries lumped together on a path that might not have been theirs if not for the involvement and superimposition of the west.
Young also writes that the liberation movements fighting the colonial powers worked in solidarity with the European working class. He also claims this international solidarity between the workers against capitalist forces continues even today. Unless he considers protests outside different G20 meeting venues as an example of solidarity, there is little overt evidence of this actually happening. Solidarity of workers is mostly contained within state boundaries, at most within similar ethnic regions, and it almost invariably takes the form of strikes or general strikes.
The author’s main argument is that “postcolonial critique… is the product of resistance to colonialism and imperialism” (p. 15). In his chapter on colonialism he differentiates between colonialism (British, French) and imperialism (Roman, Ottoman). The former was driven by the economic aims from the metropolitan center while the latter was the policy of the state driven by the desire for power. Young mentions some of the most prominent theoreticians of postcolonial theory, such as Said, Sartre, and Fanon. Some of the important historic dates he mentions, such as the Berlin conference of 1884-85 which carved up Africa and the islands of the Pacific, and WWI after which at Versailles the victors divided up the colonial spoils, demarcate some of the crucial key moments in world history. Since colonial powers were not original in their strategy of ‘conquest and domination,’ Young even finds the way to mock them by calling them the “mimic men” (as in mimicking the Roman Empire’s model).
Neocolonialism is simply a continuation of colonialism through economic hegemony by which the former masters continue to create dependence of former colonized states, and especially through WTO, the World Bank, or the IMF. Even though Ghanian leader Nkrumah hoped in his book that neocolonialism is the last gasp of imperialism, we cannot be too optimistic as the economic chains are heavy and binding. It is also possible, as the anthropologist Gupta argues, that the underdevelopment has become an identity for the LDCs.
Young’s chapter on Postcolonialism looks awfully similar to Berger’s article. Where Young’s arguments part with Berger’s is in the idea of ‘brief colonization’ and ‘prolonged colonization.’ Young claims that in those countries where the colonial period was relatively brief (he does not define what brief means and what countries fall into this category), it would be “ridiculous to suggest that the colonial era somehow constituted the defining feature of their histories” (p. 60). What is truly ridiculous about Young’s argument is that any interruption of the normal functioning of the state and its people must be considered an impact which somehow affects the trajectory of indigenous development, and it could be considered one of the defining features of local history. Postcolonialism to Young means revolutionary Marxism, liberation movements, freedom struggles, and internationalism (whatever the last term means as he does not define it). What is interesting is that the author sees the irony about the location of the postcolonial critique – universities of USA and Great Britain, contemporary and past imperial powers respectively. Young sees the noble cause of postcolonial theory of undoing the ideological heritage in the decolonized countries and the west itself. What is problematic about this idea is that the west is interpreting what deemed as ideological wrongs while the economic bonds with the west still hold strong in most of the LDCs.