Opinion

Power Shift: The Rise of the Colonized
By Dr. Ghulam M. Haniff
St. Cloud, Minnesota

When the newly independent nations began to appear on the horizon it was widely believed that the days of colonialism were gone forever. The liberated colonial people rejoiced at their freedom. There was euphoria both in Pakistan and India, and in other former colonies, at having broken the shackles of colonial control.
No one had any inkling that colonialism would be resurrected under some other guise, such as the illusion of spreading “democracy.” This new subterfuge has emerged as the current vehicle for the subjugation of the natives and the looting of their resources.
Using precisely the logic of bringing superior values the United States invaded Iraq only to run into fierce resistance. The natives did not take kindly to the attempted re-colonization of their land. After three years of fighting, with deaths in the thousands, the occupation forces are still at it spreading chaos and anarchy.
The American people are clearly disenchanted with the costly war and want the troops withdrawn. That sentiment was expressed in the mid-term election, and several opinion polls, though the President defiantly is raising the stakes by sending in additional forces. He wants a clear-cut victory.
In a prime time speech President Bush announced a “surge” in troops “for a new way forward.” One day later, Zbigniew Brzezinski, appearing on the PBS News Hour argued that “we cannot win this war because we are waging a colonial war in a postcolonial period. Colonial war is out of sync with historical times.”
Colonialism is an idea derided in the Washington halls of power. Decades ago, a noted diplomat, George Ball, advised Lyndon Johnson not to get involved in a colonial war in Vietnam. He was abruptly sidelined and totally ignored. Many policy wonks inside the beltway regard the term “colonialism” a part of the rhetoric of the left-wing troublemakers around the world.
Most leaders of formerly colonized nations who stand up for the poor and downtrodden are viewed with suspicion. Everyone who attended the celebrated Bandung Conference in 1955 was excoriated in the Western media. Those were such national champions of their lands as Chou En-Lai, Jawaharlal Nehru, Gamal Abdel Nasser, Ahmed Sukarno and many others. Despite their heroic struggle for self-determination they were considered to be leftists, communists or terrorists, because they dared to be critical of the West.
Colonialism has been a monumental historical experience responsible for shaping the world as it is today, divided into racially superior and inferior, haves and have-nots, rulers and ruled. Using ‘Guns, Steel and Germs’ the “white man” began to dominate the world writes author Jared Diamond. The white race was defined to be superior with their physical features the norm for acceptability. All of their creativity including culture, civilization, values and religion were to be disseminated for everyone to emulate.
These were to become the standards for the world. Thus, millions of dollars began to be spent to straighten hair, to lighten skin, to put on lipstick and to wear sexually suggestive clothes. Only the Islamic peoples rejected and continue to reject the norms imposed.
Those not whites became the “Other,” inferior, backward and generally embodying undesirable attributes. The most common adjectives used to refer to them included the terms “natives” but also coloreds, dark-skinned natives, people of color, nonwhites and most recently, the Third World peoples. In colloquial expressions they were pejoratively known as “niggers,” “coolies” or “darkies” and other disparaging labels too numerous to list.
Rudyard Kipling, a British imperialist writer, serving in India saw in the native “half savage and half child” clearly in need of direction. The natives all over were to become the “white man’s burden” to civilize and humanize. It was a responsibility for the whites to undertake.
That responsibility was taken up centuries earlier when Columbus and his successors started to subjugate the “Other” in an orgy of bloodshed and mayhem. The colonial conquest of the sixteenth century is now the model for George Bush “for a new way forward” in Iraq to bring the natives under civilized control. Perhaps a similar agenda awaits the rest of the Middle East.
The assumption of the white man’s superiority became the dominant social thought among the Europeans for several centuries. Formulated into a powerful ideology it was used as a cudgel for the subjugation of the colored races. Racism transformed three-quarters of the world into colonial territories to be controlled by a handful of whites.
Despite de-colonization most Third World nations remain “free” at the mercy of the former colonial powers. They see the control of the “Other” to be necessary for the world order they created and to keep the natives in their place. The fact that Palestinians are resisting occupation is very upsetting as is the resistance in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The former colonizers demand compliance with the status quo by threatening military strikes or economic sanctions or by demonizing targeted nations. Only the truly monstrous countries, China, India and Brazil, can escape victimization owing to their sheer size.
Fully 80 percent of the world’s people are the former colonial subjects. Their status has not changed much from that of the hewers of wood and the drawers of water just a generation or two ago. The colonial experience has left an indelible imprint on their bodies and in their psyche.
The whites who constitute only 20 percent of the world’s population are still the masters dominating and controlling the world. Racism flourishes wherever the whites are present. Vulgar stereotypes of the nonwhites embellish the mass media globally even in the countries of the nonwhites.
The dark skinned natives remain the Gunga Dins of the world. Though projected as wily, timid and conniving natives their rejection of the master has rapidly gained momentum. The natives are standing up to the whites face to face.
Having lost the fear of the white man they no longer tremble in front of the “sahib” as did their grandfathers just a generation ago. When the natives picked up AK-47s to liberate themselves in Indonesia, Algeria, Vietnam and Kenya they had crossed the Rubicon.
Though still ridiculed as apes, vultures, or rats; called monkeys to their face and given plethora of roles as idiots and terrorists in Hollywood films the people of color are slowly moving ahead. They are no longer afraid to assert themselves in the middle of Europe when their religious personalities are insulted as was Prophet Muhammad recently.
Clear thinking observers, such as Senator Chuck Hagel (R-NB) finds the current age “one of the most transformative periods in history.” Unlike him most power wielders among the political elite have no clue about the revolutionary global change underway.
The Third World nations are beginning to rise up with China, India and Brazil leading the pack. Some countries still face obstacles put in their way by the West. A case in point is Iran whose technological advancement is particularly galling to America, which has now inherited the mantle of colonialism from Europe.
The recent successful shooting down of a satellite in the outer space by China was reported in the media as alarming to the US. Nonwhites are not supposed to have that kind of skills, abilities or knowledge. The production of large numbers of engineers in China and India has also frightened the West.
The fundamental reality in global affairs at the moment is that the pendulum of power is starting to swing back to the other end. It is moving from the direction of the colonizer to the colonized. The people of color are beginning to stir, to break the shackles of bondage and to throw off the yoke of domination.
The natives are on the rise!

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