Indigenous Culture in Australia - Literature review Example

What is the difference between colonialism and postcolonialism? Why is the notion of postcolonialism so heavily contested in countries like Australia? Introduction The days of blatant expansionism and colonisation seemed to have become a distant memory as globalisation ushers in bringing free trade and blurred boundaries. The era of colonialism has been ended with decolonisation, but colonial discourse is far from over. Colonialism remains a very important topic that is perpetuated by the so-called postcolonialism discourse. Postcolonialism is not a new type of perspective that substituted colonialism, but is in fact rooted in it. In fact, it has made colonialism a much relevant topic by focusing on its effects, influences and legacies. The postcolonialism discourse embraces not only countries that were under colonial rule, but extends to the global world because of the extensive influence of modern colonisation. However, the topic is more problematic in some countries than others because the vestiges of colonialism are more tangible and overt in such countries. Countries like Australia and Canada, among others, which are settlement colonies did not go through a decolonisation process of repatriation because the settlers have ultimately become the majority and the natives the minority. In these countries, postcolonialism discourse is comparatively more tension-filled. Colonialism and Postcolonialism In his book Colonialism: A Theoretical Overview, Jürgen Osterhammel defined colonialism as a relationship between two groups where the dominant group called the colonisers makes the decision on the life of the other called the colonists. Colonialism is characterised by the cultural foreigness and the alleged cultural superiority of the colonists (cited Leonard 2013). Colonisation is often used to refer to that period in history when European countries expanded their powers outside of their jurisdiction beginning in the late 15th century and early 16th centuries and ending at the end of World War II in what was called the process of decolonisation (Leonard 2013). Colonisation had different forms. One was the establishment of colonies of dominion. This form of colonisation often results as offshoots of military conquests, which is why the colonisers were soldiers, merchants and civil administrators. They ruled over the colonies directly. This form of colonisation was best exemplified by British India, French Indochina, British Egypt and American Philippines. Another type of colonisation is settlement colonisation where a substantial number of persons from the colonising group established settlement in the colonies displacing the colonists in their own jurisdiction. Examples of this type are North America, Algeria, South Africa and Australia. The last type of colonisation may involve merchant companies usually establishing coastal foothold in a foreign country. These base colonies attract other merchants from other countries. This type of colonisation is exemplified by Malacca, Batavia, Singapore, Hongkong and Aden (Leonard 2013). Colonialism, thus, may be political or economic in nature, or a combination of both. Butt (2013) described colonialism as primarily characterised by domination, cultural imposition and exploitation. Postcolonialism, on the other hand, is a descendant of colonialism in the sense that colonialism is a sine qua non for the existence of the former. Postcolonialism is necessarily an offshoot of colonialism. Postcolonialism is a critical perspective of contemporary realities taking into consideration the effects, influences and legacies of the colonial past. Dirlik (1994) narrowed down three uses of the term. The first is associated with the actual depiction of former colonies and colonial societies. The second use of the term encompasses the global front and the effect of the colonial period on it, whilst the third use is a reference to the discourse used in the first and second instances of its use. The first use is concrete as opposed to the abstract use in the second, whilst the third is a combination of the concrete and the abstract approaches. Nonetheless, in all three uses, postcolonialism perspective is still dependent on the individual views of writers and scholars engaged in postcolonial discourse. The abstract use of the term postcolonialism also implies that most of the world can be embraced in the postcolonisation discourse and also because of the far-reaching influence of modern colonial era. Nonetheless, postcolonialism does not have the same meaning to different people nor have identical effect on them (Runesson 2010). Postcolonialism as a heavily contested notion Postcolonialism is a much contested concept in Australia, and in similarly situated countries, where the tension continues to exist between the supposed settlers, forming the majority, and the indigenous, which originally occupied the land, but eventually became the minority. For other colonies, the end of the colonisation period was marked by decolonisation. The term was first employed in the first half of the 19th century only to see revival in the interwar period and became a common word after the end of World War II. Decolonisation entailed the setting free of many states that were once under foreign dominion. The term is particularly applied to the former colonies of Western European nations conquered since the 16th century. Strict colonisation took effect only after WWII. It entailed the departure of some 3 to 4 million European colonists from Asia and Africa, where they represented only 1% of the population and were, therefore, minorities. In such cases, decolonisation was dictated by the practical consideration of insufficient settlement (Etemad 2007). The scenario described above is not the same as the Australian case, and in other former settler colonies, such as Canada, New Zealand and South Africa. Australia was a settler colony – one where the foreign elements did not come to invade, but to permanently resettle in the new area from their place of origin. According to Ashcroft et al (2000), the main difference between invaded colonies and settler colonies is that in the former the indigenous people remained in the majority although the colonists took over the administration of their country, whilst in the latter, the new settlers population eventually overwhelmed that of the natives (cited in Polak 2005). Australian history showed that the first settlers in Australia were British convicts shipped away by the British government in the 1840s. However, the attractions of the land persuaded even freemen to come to Australia and settle in the place for good. Australia, along with other British settlement colonies, were granted dominion status in the 1850s, which meant that the settlers were given the authority to rule for themselves subject to the condition that they remain part of the British Empire. White European settlers continued to pour into Australia in the late 19th and 20th centuries as well as into New Zealand, South Africa and Canada, peaking between 1900 and 1914 (Collier and Marriott 2002). In the Australian context, therefore, displacement is the crucial factor that underpins postcolonial discourse, necessarily resulting in postcolonial tension. According to Harris (2003), the process of colonisation has always embraced the relegation or elimination of the indigenous people from the landscape. Although there have been efforts in the recent past to bridge the gap between white Australians and the indigenous people as can be evidenced from the creation of the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation and the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission. These efforts, however, cannot negate the fact that the Indigenous Australians find difficulty in living within the predominantly white Australian society under laws and rules imposed by white Australian norms of behaviour and culture. It does not come, therefore, as a surprise that in countries like Australia postcolonialism as a notion is problematic. Settlement colonies were not placed under less violent conditions than colonies of occupation. In fact, extreme violence often accompanied the displacement of natives by the settlers and the violence was spread over a hundred of years. British settlers wrested control of Australia from Indigenous people under the doctrine of terra nullius and deny native people their right to contest possession. In 1824, for example, The Sydney Gazette echoed the consensus among settlers that the Indigenous people were merely “inhabitants, but not proprietors of the land” because they had no concept or system of property ownership (Bignall 2010). In Canada, the natives invoked the principle of ‘First Nation’ to contest white settlers from Western Europe, but in the United States settlers fought not only the native Indians, but also the British Empire to gain their independence (Nayar 2008). In former settlement colonies, such as Australia, Canada, New Zealand and South Africa, tension continues to exist between settlers and indigenous people. Both are still faced with the problem of co-existence, with the majority forcing the natives to assimilate to the western culture. In such places, the natives continue to struggle to assert their place and right to cultural freedom against the predominantly white community. However, postcolonialism tension in these countries is not only confined to physical struggle for space and cultural ascendancy, but embraces a host of other areas, such as literature, arts, the legal system, education, religion, and morality. In Australia, for example, local governments have been passing by-laws that prohibit drinking alcohol in certain areas. These by-laws are made mostly applicable to areas where the Aboriginals often meet and socialise. Thus, the concept of public use space being held by the Aboriginals comes directly in conflict with the concept of public order held under western legal traditions (Harris 2003). The notion of postcolonialism itself is not spared from the tension generated by settler-indigenous conflict. Thomas King, a native Canadian author, claimed that although postcolonialism is supposed to interpret indigenous literature from the point-of-view of the struggle between the colonists as the oppressors and the colonised as the oppressed, such an interpretation is deficient and not reflective of the entire history of the colonised. This is because such interpretation necessarily implied that the reference point must start with the invasion or settlement of the colonisers, thus, neglecting the events that happened before that. To King, therefore, postcolonialism discourse does not guarantee a neutral context that guarantees against discrimination of local or indigenous literature (Polak 2005). Conclusion The difference between colonialism and postcolonialism is that the former was a movement whilst the latter is a perspective. Colonialism refers to the expansion by militarily and economically superior nations to lands overseas where they dominated, exploited and imposed their culture on weaker territories, through invasion or settlement. Postcolonialism on the other hand, is a critical perspective or discourse that emerged after the end of colonisation analysing and observing the legacies, influences and vestiges of colonialism. Some countries find postcolonialism more problematic than others because in these countries the settlers, who have become the majority population, continue to co-exist with the native or indigenous population and the latter, continues to assert their rights to their lands. References Bignall, S 2010, Postcolonial agency: Critique and constructivism, Edinburgh University Press. Butt, D 2013, ‘Colonialism and Postcolonialism,’ in H LaFollette (ed.), The International Encyclopedia of Ethics, Wiley-Blackwell. Collier, M and Marriott, B 2002, Colonisation and conflict 1750-1990, Heinemann. Dirlik, A 1994, ‘The postcolonial aura: Third world criticism in the age of global capitalism,’ Critical Inquiry, vol. 20, no. 2 (Winter, 1994), pp. 328-356. Etemad, B 2007, Possessing the world: Taking the measurements of colonisation from the eighteenth to the twentieth century, Berghahn Books. Harris, M 2003, ‘Mapping Australian postcolonial landscapes: From resistance to reconciliation?’ Law Text Culture, vol. 7, no. 1, pp. 71-97. Leonard, T 2013, Encyclopedia of the developing world, Routledge. Nayar P 2008, Postcolonial literature: An introduction, Pearson Education India. Polak, 2005, ‘Postcolonial imagination and postcolonial theory: Indigenous Canadian and Australian literature fighting for (postcolonial) space,’ Theory and Practice in English Studies 4 (2005): Proceedings from the Eighth Conference of British, American and Canadian Studies. Runesson, A 2010, ‘Exegesis in the making: Postcolonialism and New Testament studies,’ BRILL. Read More