Influence of Colonialist Idea on Contemporary World - Essay Example

?Influence of Colonialist Idea on Contemporary World Introduction Image The colonial period The expansion of Europeans evolved from sixteenth century colonialism driven by mercantilism to the nineteenth century imperialism. Both had different forces enforcing them, and different countries participated in colonialism with largely similar motive. Between sixteenth century and nineteenth century several European countries colonialized by exertion and established their political entity over another political entity in different geographical location. Portugal, Spain, England and France and Holland were the primary “exerters of control” while America and its neighboring island were the “exerted upon”. Africa is the country which has suffered most from colonization and this could be due to its vast natural resources and cheap labor. White men have colonized many parts of the world and have lived there more than a century. Colonization means losing sovereignty from the indigenous people to the foreigners. They dominate the cultural, social, spiritual, economic, political and psychological ways of indigenous people. Violence and enforcement has always been a part of colonization. These colonized people lived in different countries like India, African continent, America, Spain, Philippines and Portugal. This gives chance for lot of amalgamation of culture. Since the colonized Europeans live in these regions for a longer period the indigenous people are highly influenced by the lifestyle of the colonized. According to Sanders(2009,pg.1-51)“Of the great colonial powers of Western Europe – Britain, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Portugal and Spain – only Britain left this legacy to its colonies”. The culture, politics, government, education and language changes largely due to colonization. We can see that Europeans left large legacies behind in almost all the countries they have colonized. The colonialist ideas have made many countries what I see today and we can see it in many aspects of our lifestyle like fashion, literature or education system. The Colonization and English Colonization has been influencing people in different countries on different level. Mostly English men have ruled many African countries and South Asian countries. The British men have lived for more than a century in many African regions and they have influenced the people in many ways. However, if we contemplate our contemporary world is influenced by colonialist ideas in many spheres of our life. Actually we are living in symbolic skeletal remains of colonial infrastructure until now. What we see in newspapers, television and magazines are a face lift life from previous era. We have had a social reformation but still we have traces of colonialism in our everyday life. The traces of colonialism are evident in cultural economy and popular culture. We can see the biggest influence of colonization is the language the whole world is speaking. We can see that as the British ruled many parts of the world for centuries they established their Mother tongue as a universal language. If we look at our contemporary world, we can see that English is the communication medium for all people around the world .All the countries teaches English language in schools. In most countries, English is the primary language and then comes their mother tongue. The English language now cannot be considers as the language of British but it is language spoken by all people in the world. This can be first and most evident colonist influence on contemporary world. The Colonist and Fashion Image 2 – A colonial costume We can see that before colonial period, the clothing of people in different countries varied to a great extent. If one look at African culture, we can see that men and women wore less of clothing as they had humid weather. They wore cotton fabrics which are heavy with dark color motifs. In the same manner, South Asian people wore less of upper clothing and mostly had a cotton or linen clothing for their lower body. Most of the colonized regions were humid as the Europeans were in search of Natural resources which were abundant in South Asian and African countries. If the colonization never happened then we could have seen many unique kind of clothing all around world. In the colonization period, European men wore coat, cravat, cloak, great coat, hat, shirt shoes and caps. In the same way women wore long gowns with hat and shoes. As per Page (2003,pg.120)“A basic man's outfit in colonial times included breeches, a shirt, a coat and stockings. A cravat tied around the neck and a three-cornered hat completed the outfit”. Now we can see that coat and jackets are common wear for men and this had definitely influenced by colonial fashion. The cloak worn by the colonial people is what the people wear as long coats in winter. We can see that hat is also part of men in many parts of the world still today. Shirts definitely are the main attire of men and this definitely evolved from colonial period. Shoes are another fashion trend originated from colonial people. Same way the long gowns and short frocks are influenced by colonial times along with hats and shoes. The Colonialist and politics The biggest characteristic of Colonialist was the imperialism projected by them. Imperialism basically means the invasion by a strong nation of a weaker nation. It has been many centuries since colonialism ended but we can see it shadow still with the political system o f the world. World is still in the clutches of stronger nations and countries like America and England still encroach into others geographical territories. America has a strong military and war statistics which make them hunt for other resources from other countries. We can see this was the same motive which made Europeans cross seas and colonize in foreign lands. We can see that America has led war with Japan, Vietnam, Sudan, Afghanistan and Iraq without many evident reasons. This savaging nature of America definitely gives glimpses of Colonist of 18th and 19th century. The U. S has war machines places all over the world and every part of the globe is under their monitoring. America like colonialist have the materialistic motivation behind attacking countries they want to be the leader of the world and hardly would let any other country to grow beyond them. The colonialist and Literature Image 3 – Colonialist writer As the colonist contributed the most powerful language of English to the world, so did they influence the modern literature? In the early 18th century, European cultural began to expand too many continents of the world. The 19th century was the most literary period as novels, short stories and magazine articles along with opera and theatre entertainment began to flourish. In those times, fiction writing became popular so we can give the credit for fiction novel tradition to the colonization period. During this period there was also a rise in poetry writing. The period of romantic writing originated towards this time. We can see that poetry is a prominent part of the literature of contemporary world. As per McRae (2009, pg. 859-863) “The unprecedented expansion of the British Empire between 1870 and 1910 coincided with the nascence of the literary experiment that became modernism”. Today novels, poetry and literary works are famous and all these had origin in colonial period. The famous poets and essayists all lived during the 18th and 19th century so we can definitely trace our literature to the old colonial times. The writing of drama was also famous during this period and the famous writer and poet Shakespeare lived during this era who has contributed enormously to the literature world. Basically, most of the books and literary works written are influenced by colonial period as they have been originated in that era. During the colonial period many literary works started to be published and many writers like Jane Austen, Percy Shelley, and Robert Browning gave us examples of great literary work which has undoubtedly set standards for the modern writers. The Colonialist and Film Film is a big part of the contemporary world and indeed we can see the influence of colonialist ideas in films. One of the ideas of colonialist period was racism. This can be seen in many pictures of today as people show blacks as inferior and whites as superior. There are many movies which shows this racism which is definitely influenced by the colonist thoughts. The racism and slavery are the concepts brought out by colonial people. Before colonialism everyone lived in their respective region in peace and harmony. Enslaving black and Asian people and terming them inferior has been a legacy of colonialism. We can see many pictures which show black as less intelligent and animalistic and this is a theme adopted from colonial people. Also adventure movie can be a theme of colonial period. Many Hollywood movies which have a story where the heroes set journey to African and Asian lands are taken from the life of colonial people. All of the colonist travelled from West to East and captured the lands which are shown in many movies as adventure. Many English and foreign movies have colonial imperialism and racism as its themes. The Hollywood movies have made many films which are based on colonization of English men in Native American land. The struggle of indigenous people has been a theme in many Hollywood movies. As per As per Martinez (2010)“Beginning in the 1960s, intellectuals in the former colonies began rewriting the cinematic history of their countries from the point of view of the colonized”. The Colonialist and Social Values Image 4 – Slave Auction The most striking feature of colonial period was racism and slavery. So we can attribute racism in today’s’ society as a colonialist idea. This social value has originated from the colonial period when the White people discovered Africans and started discriminating them on the basis of skin color. “The disappearance of whiteness is too easy a “solution” to problem of racism”. We can see that racism which is evident today in many western countries is borrowed from the social value of Colonialist period. Blacks are always seen as inferior and animalistic by colonial people and their influence is high in our society today. They also had the feeling of superiority to all other races due to their fair skin. We can still see that Englishmen and Germans are highly racist and all Asians and Africans are considered inferior and less eligible than them. The racist attitude and stereotyping people are colonialist social values. Also they have imbibed social concepts of atheism where they disregarded religious values of people of Asian countries. We can see than many people all around the world have atheism has their social value due to the colonialist introducing it to world. Conclusion Colonialism has been a thing of past and a vent of period between 17th and 19th century. However due the colonialism period having lasted for many centuries its effect on the world has been tremendous. We can see the legacy of colonialist in every part of the world. When we visit many Asian and African countries we can see many building and infrastructure which is contributed by the colonialist to the society. However, living in this world the best contribution of Colonialist is the language of English which is spoken worldwide by people. The colonialist has been a great influence for the fashion which we follow today. The shirt, trousers, coat, jacket, hat and shoes all are influenced by colonial costume pattern. The colonial people are also influenced the film world as many imperialistic and racist ideas are the concept of films of Hollywood and other national movies. The influence of colonial people is the political ideology of imperialism of governments of various countries in the world. A big example is America, which has been waging war against poorer countries for materialistic motives. We can see that there is lot of influence on the modern literature due to colonial people. The short stories, fiction novels, poetry, drama and theatre writings are all borrowed from colonial period. We can also see we have carried forward their social values like racism still now and hence the influence of colonialist idea is enormous on this contemporary world. Bibliography Martinez, R, 2010. On Race and Racism in America: Confessions in Philosophy. 1st ed. Pennsylvania: Penn State Press. Mcrae, S.2009. Modernism and Colonialism: British and Irish Literature, 1899–1939 (review). Project Muse, 55/4, 859-863. Mezensky,C. 2013. Clothes in Colonial Times. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.ehow.com/info_8243203_clothes-colonial-times.html. [Accessed 27 November 13]. Page, M.E, 2003. Colonalism. 1st ed. California: ABC- CLIO Inc. Sanders, D.E, 2009. 377 and the Unnatural Afterlife of British Colonialism in Asia. Asian Journal of Comparative Law, 4/1, 1-51. Image List Image 1 - Harvard College, (2004), Images of Colonalism Collection [ONLINE]. Available at: http://via.lib.harvard.edu/via/deliver/fullRecordDisplay?_collection=via&inoID=18706&recordNumber=7&fullgridwidth=5&method=view&recordViewFormat=grid [Accessed 26 November 13]. Image 2 -Lugy Crespo, (2013), Colonial Costumes for Men [ONLINE]. Available at: http://flycatcher.squidoo.com/colonial-america-men-costumes [Accessed 26 November 13]. Image 3 - All Free Download, (2012), Shakespeare Poet Writer [ONLINE]. Available at: http://all-free-download.com/free-photos/shakespeare_poet_writer_219103.html [Accessed 26 November 13]. Image 4 - Neil Frankel, (2007), Slavery Image Collection [ONLINE]. Available at: http://www.harvardgenerator.com/references/online-image [Accessed 26 November 13]. Read More