Introduction.
Decoloniality, a post-colonial struggle. For more than four hundred years Europeans succeeded to subject the African continent with its people in conditions of oppression, exploitation, dehumanisation, and enslavement through the white supremacy (Stewart 2020:72). Normally, after the four centuries of European supremacy and imperialism over the South, certain conditions that were passed down from one generation to another can finally be internalised and become considered natural. Without a thorough analysis of how imperialism has affected the oppressed people, it will be difficult to embark in a real process of fundamental changes. Hence, decoloniality has emerged as a critical theory with some kye arguments levelled against the issue of coloniality and how it affects people of Global South, as discussed in this essay. Some of the key arguments discussed throughout this essay are the decoloniality of power, decoloniality of race, decoloniality of knowledge and decoloniality of symbols. After a discussion has been provided on these key arguments, the last section of the essay will provide a way forward away from coloniality, which in this case is “the resistance”.
Decoloniality of power.
One of the important arguments advanced by most of decoloniality theorists is around power. Being the essence of life without which the South may not regain the true sense of freedom and set the course of its own destiny. Power is nothing more than the ability to do; in this context, the power is the ability for Africans to create their own future independently of aliens’ power and influences. This ideal of decoloniality of power is beautifully articulated by Ndlovu (2914:4) as “to take note of these processes is important because only a free people politically, socially, economically, ideologically, and epistemologically are more able to create their own futures and take charge of their destiny”. From the above statement we can say that the one who desires freedom should equally be longing for power, because is the power that enables people to use their resources and produce what they need; is the power that enables people to educate and protect themselves against their enemies. For example, when considering the African continent there are sufficient resources, but it is the power to use the available resources for its own development that is needed most. However, this ideal for power cannot be achieved while Africans are still operating under the hegemony of foreign power that have destroyed them; stated differently, it is difficult for Africa to emerge as powerbase while Africans are dealing with circumstances they cannot control, as those are created by external powers (Ndlovu 2014:3). Therefore, there is a need to deconstruct the current power structure which is characterised by domination and oppression of the colonised people. Mignolo (in Stewart 2020:76) argues that the world is still ruled by the same colonial power structure of yesterday, but today it is being expressed in modern language of salvation and progress. The progress and salvation rhetoric are advanced when strong and powerful nations exploit weak and poor nations, which in the context of dependency theory can be considered as the exploitation of periphery by the centre (Stewart 2020:7). Also, the need to deconstruct the colonial power structure aims to tackle the roots of the colonial structure itself which is the Berlin Conference (Ndlovu 2014:4). The Berlin Conference was a spectacular demonstration of the coloniality of power, in a sense that European nations gathered and balkanised Africa and its content into small groups that could be easily controlled and dominated. Against this project is the decoloniality of power that should be aiming at destroying the colonial structures (e.g., artificial borders created by white society in Africa) altogether with their symbols such as languages and education system. Essentially, Africans cannot decolonise themselves from European power until they begin to redefine their own reality, because power defines realities. With this approach, we need to ask some fundamental questions about how we see ourselves among other people in the world, and the first question is, who defined us as Nigerians, Ghanaians, South Africans etc, was it ourselves or our oppressors? Therefore, when we begin to realise that we have been defined by foreign power which incidentally happen to be oppressive power, it is our responsibility to redefine ourselves in anyway suitable to common aspirations and dreams we have. Essentially, decoloniality of power is the struggle of the present Africa against the coloniality of power, but it is also the desire to rebuild the African powerbase for Africans’ own future.
Decoloniality of race.
Another argument levelled against the coloniality is the decoloniality of race. A race is, scientifically speaking defined as social and cultural constructs (Maree & Ditmars 2017:44). From this definition, people who want to structure and organise life around race will do so from their own cultural and social perceptions and biasness, and the outcome of these misconceptions can produce crimes and barbarism to the level that Africa has experienced. Because the concept of race is related to the concept of culture, the decoloniality of race is centred on deconstructing the cultural biasness Africa is subjected to from Eurocentric worldviews. One of these biased conceptions is the hierarchical way most Europeans have used to structure the world and human society, as Qujano (in Stewart 2014:77) beautifully called it the racist distribution. The racist distribution consists of associating a high value with whiteness and a low value or no value at all with other races considered inferior; it is the distribution of labour according to the colour of skin; higher position is given to the white skin and exploitative labour associated with darker skin. Maldonado (2012:2) calls this “the naturalisation of hierarchies”. This hierarchy when embraced by some members of the society, can probably leads people to overlook at the effort of other races considered inferior, because people are not evaluated based on merits, but on the colour of their skin. One of the Western famous theorists is Abraham Maslow with his hierarchy of needs, from this theory we can noticed that the highest order of need is the need for self-actualisation, and the lowest order being the physiological needs of survival (Erasmus, Rudansky & Strydom 2019:387). By critically analysing the hierarchy it can be argued that it is the physiological needs that are most important because, one can survive without esteem and self-actualisation, but no one can survive without water and food, therefore the physiological needs should be the highest order. In other words, the coloniality of race has made a way to a social structure sustained by inequality, in a sense that those who work too much in producing what is needed have less value than those controlling the system of exploitation. It is easy to see in the naturalisation of race (Maldonado 2012:2) that people who work harder cannot fully enjoy the result of their work, because they are being exploited, on the other hand there is a category of people who do little work and enjoy everything produced by others, because they have exploited them. These are the notions we have to tackle within the decoloniality of race.
Decoloniality of knowledge
The decoloniality of knowledge is an important argument which deserves to be discussed. There are two concepts (ethnocentrism and cultural relativism) in anthropology that deserve to be mentioned for the sake of this discussion. While ethnocentrism is a higher consideration people have for themselves and their own knowledge, culture, religion and tradition as superior; cultural relativism suggests that each people have the knowledge, values and tradition that have to be considered (Maree & Ditmars 2017:22). The decoloniality of knowledge is in essence a desire to deconstruct the views resulting from European ethnocentrism, in other words, it is the work that aims to stop the European imposition of their own knowledge to the rest of the world as the only truth and accuracy. This imposition of knowledge and understanding is according to Stewart (2020:78) disastrous, as it has destroyed other people’s worldviews, and the destruction of other worldviews led the foundation for colonialism and enslavement. The Westerns had to impose their own religion, language, names, science, and understanding of the world to the rest of people, all these were important elements in the advancement of imperialism (Stewart 2020:78). For example, the imposition of Christianity as religion after the demonisation of indigenous belief system was important, because from the moment people begin to pray to a God that looks like their oppressors, they might probably show sympathy and loyalty towards the oppressors, because maybe it is the will of God. Also, the imposition of western languages and names was important because the new foreign languages and names have become the standard by which people measure the level of intellectualism as we have often noticed that among African communities. When the foreign languages and names have been made standard of intellectualism there will be probably no need for people to keep and protect their indigenous languages, cultures and names. In other words, by paraphrasing Ndlovu (2014:5) we can say that the imposition of the colonial mindset on the psych of Africans has generated an autonomous functioning of Africans in compliance with European knowledge, even if it is no longer Europeans who are in control of education institutions in Africa.
Decoloniality of symbols
another key aspect of decoloniality can be considered on symbols. This is a struggle that is aiming to rid of all the symbols associated with oppression of the colonised people. the symbols can play an important role in the way people behave toward each other in the society, even if the situation the symbols represent has passed. For example, the #RhodesMustFall movement in South Africa had engaged in the struggle of getting black students access into institutions that were exclusively reserved for white students during apartheid, it means that even though apartheid was long abolished, some institutions of the apartheid era were still symbolically functioning (Stewart 2020:74). Regardless, the discourse of symbols associated with oppression and imperialism is being taken seriously by more people, whites, and blacks. For example, we have seen through the unrest that followed George Floyd murder in America that many people around the world were involved in taking down all the statues of peopled who were involved in slavery in the past. One must ask why a capital city of South Africa that fought against slavery still called Pretoria-a name of the former enslaver. Also, one must ask why a black nation that claims to be independent should carry a name such as Congo Brazzaville; Brazza being a name of its former oppressor. Essentially, these symbols either in names or statues should be destroyed psychologically and physically so that a new Africa can be given birth, an Africa that is not symbolising oppression and backwardness.
The way forward
The way forward away from coloniality is by struggle and struggle, especially by those who are colonised. Just as Mamdani (in Ndlovu, Ndlovu, Makhubeldu, Sentime, Maphosa, Mazibuka, Du Plessis & Zulu 2017:62) beautifully articulated it, “without the experience of sickness, there can be no idea of health. And without the fact of oppression, there can be no practice of resistance and no notion of rights.” The continual resistance is the way forward for the oppressed people, the resistance can be organised culturally, academically, economically and scientifically. The cultural resistance should aim at promoting indigenous cultures and local knowledge, academic resistance should be aiming to create a worldview related to people’s own culture and reality. For example, the western has succeeded in destroying the true sense of education by a certain conceptualisation and presentation of the human history and knowledge that was based on some events that took place in Europe (Ndlovu 2014:8). In reaction, the oppressed people must come up with their own education and history that resist the ones brought by imperialists.
The idea of resistance should mean a refusal to adapt to oppressive conditions imposed by the western imperialism. This refusal to adapt to certain conditions is being highlighted by Ndlovu (2014:5) in his remarks on the attitude of some African scholars who encourage adaptation to globalisation and neoliberalism rather than resistance. The attitude of resistance is necessary, because every project that is aiming at reducing the impact of imperialism will be faced with disciplinary reactions from the West, sometimes violent disciplines (Ndlovu 2014:7). These violent reactions in response to projects or leaders who were aiming to develop Africa have been remarkable, the two examples of Kwame Nkrumah from Ghana and Patrice Emery Lumumba from the Congo can be enough, but resistance over adaptation should be the way forward.
There should be a continual resistance against the real imperialism and the remaining symbols of what can be considered as the past imperialism. For instance, when we consider symbols of imperialism, we may look at them as institutions, or statue, just like the statue of Rhodes targeted by the “fallist” movement in Cape Town (Stewart 2020:72), but there is also a need to look at symbols in two dimensions; meaning the symbols of power associated with the oppressors and symbols of shame associated with the oppressed. All these forms of symbols must be faced with resistance and destroyed. For example, there are still places in South Africa where even poor whites cannot settle for, because these places are the remaining symbols of oppressed and inferior people, while we are living in a socially integrated nation.
Conclusion
This essay tackled some of the kye arguments advanced by the decoloniality theorists. Decoloniality of power was discussed as being the desire for the colonised people in general and Africa in particular to construct its own power by firstly deconstructing the current imperial power structure. After that the decoloniality of race was discussed, race being a socio-cultural construct, the hierarchical perspective in which the West conceives its notions of life was discussed. Followed that was the decoloniality of knowledge, here the discussion considered the way the West has imposed its own knowledge and worldviews on other people by destroying their own knowledge. The next discussion approached the decoloniality of symbols, the main emphasis was made to show that, the condition can pass but the remaining symbols of the past condition can still have important effects in people, hence there is a need to decolonising symbols. Finally, the discussion ended by providing a way forward away from coloniality, and the resistance should be the way out for those subjected by imperialist hegemony. Sometimes people who resist will be punished, but it is through continual resistance that they will be able to achieve the objective of decoloniality.
List of references
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