When we talked about postcolonial feminism in class, we used Chandra Mohanty's definition of colonialism as being “a relation of structural domination and a suppression—often violent—of the heterogeneity of the subject(s) in question.” I love this definition and I think it really hits upon the two main elements of colonial practice, both in historical and neocolonial terms.
I've been thinking about the ways we suppress the heterogeneity of subjects--about the ways we insist upon hearing just one story and making it into Truth. I've been thinking about this TED talk by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, where she talks about the danger of the single story and says, "The single story creates stereotypes, and the problem with stereotypes is not that they are untrue, but that they are incomplete. They make one story become the only story." In other words, they colonize.
I really want people to watch this talk. And also, if you're looking for some good fiction, pick up her short story collection The Thing Around Your Neck or her novel Half of a Yellow Sun. (I haven't read her first novel, Purple Hibiscus, but I'm sure it is wonderful too.)
I wrote 20 pages of notes and questions for our discussion on postcolonial feminism, and we only got to a few of them. They have been on my mind again today as I've been following the conversation about Invisible Children's newest social media campaign, Kony 2012, which has been exploding all over facebook and twitter. This is what I posted about the campaign on my facebook wall:
"Thanks to everybody who is posting the #KONY2012 video and sparking conversation about interconnected conflicts in Central Africa! Let's keep the spotlight on the region; let's keep talking about it; but let's also take the opportunity to deepen our understanding of these conflicts. My 2cents on the video is that it is doing a marvelous job at sparking conversations, but that it provides inadequate context to understand the regional security vacuum in which Kony operates and what kinds of global political/economic structures are connected to the propagation of armed conflict in the region. I also think that the solution (of increased US military involvement in the region) advocated in the video is problematic on a lot of levels.
And one other thing that I want us to talk about more, here on facebook or in person. How do we as Americans understand and conceptualize ourselves in a global context? In order for us to understand ourselves as liberated, empowered agents, do we have to first construct an Other that is imprisoned, powerless and always acted upon? Is this why we rely so heavily on the victim/perpetrator dichotomy (when in real life, that dichotomy is very often broken down)? And what are the real-world implications of constructing our conversations in this way?
My take on this is that we tend to crave narratives in which we as Americans are both guiltless and powerful. We like narratives that don't connect our lifestyles or consumption patterns to global inequality, but that do "empower" us to believe that we have the verve and voice to change the world for the better. I don't think this is the best way to construct a narrative, and I don't think it's the truest way. Let's talk more about truer narratives.
So in addition to the factual errors, I'm also really concerned about the oversimplified narrative that this campaign rests upon. Partly because oversimplified narratives result in bad policy. And also because the oversimplified good guy-bad guy narrative, the victim-perpetrator dichotomy, is linked to the formulation of Western identity. It allows us to ignore our own complicity in the creation of global inequalities even as we nurture our savior complexes.
On the other hand, this campaign has sparked an internet conversation about Central Africa on a level I haven't seen in a while. So that is a good thing. Let's keep talking and keep evaluating how we are situated in this.
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