Haase_UZ_x007E_DTh (2).pdf - South African Theological Seminary

action. During the colonial period, it was assumed: “the key to power is knowledge, and
true power is held with the conviction that the ruler knows better than the ruled, and must
convince the ruled that whatever the colonial master does is for the benefit of the ruled”
(Sugirtharajah, 2002:15).
While the postmodern movement is frustrated with modernity, post-colonialism
focuses its energies on deconstructing the former hegemony of the colonizers, which was
done as much through literature and education, as through physical force. The colonizers
intentionally worked to place themselves at the centre of the world, which accorded with
the overall Western sense of cultural superiority at the time. Prior to the Enlightenment,
colonization was practiced by Westerners (e.g., Portugal, Spain) as a means of extending
the Kingdom of God on earth. Following the Enlightenment, however, the practice
became an extension of [supposed] Western cultural superiority. Colonization in general,
of course, has routinely practiced political and economic subjugation of other nations and
peoples, which required an on-going program of cultural conditioning to support and
maintain the hegemony. Ngugi wa Thiong’o states in The Cultural Factor in the Neocolonial
Era:
Economic and political control inevitably leads
to cultural dominance and this in turn deepens
that control. The maintenance, management,
manipulation, and mobilization of the entire
system of education, language and language
use, literature, religion, the media, have
always ensured for the oppressor nation power
over the transmission of a certain ideology, set
of values, outlook, attitudes, feelings, etc., and
hence power over the whole area of
consciousness. This in turn leads to the
control of the individual and collective selfimage
of the dominated nation and classes as
well as their image of the dominated nations
and classes (Ngugi Wa Thiong’o, 1989).
Many contend that former colonial powers continue to extend their influence over
other nations, both overtly and tacitly. Indeed, the whole ‘neo-colonialism’ issue is still
hotly debated, with good reason. Some postcolonial literature is an attempt to alert others
of the manner in which they are still being manipulated by the former colonial powers.
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University of Zululand, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa