“Post-Colonial Theory” in film
This reflection paper captures week one of Postcolonialism ranging from the theory from Robert Young, our in-class discussion and real-life examples and the films we viewed in class. All readings and materials used are on D2L.
This week we focused on the idea of Robert Young’s theory on views on Postcolonialism. Giving out more of a cold and short-handed answer. That the world is imbalanced and perspectives change how we see things. That there are winners (first-world countries) and losers (third-world countries). Capturing different perspectives from western views and non-western views of knowledge, needs, and development. Focusing on how different people’s views are in their setting. An example he used was the refugee story used in Chapter 1 and the options you can be in the story. Is it being the hero helping people, understanding people’s experiences or not being a representation and being silent? Showing perspectives of struggle, politics and philosophy of activism towards anti-colonial struggles from the past.
In class, we discussed a topic we were familiar with, Canada and the First Nations. How Canada’s case of Postcolonialism is already an issue affecting Canada’s relationship with the indigenous people. But Canada is not like other countries like Peru, Congo, and Malaysia whose native populations were abused for political, economic and cultural purposes. Canada instead was more of a transformation from a “colony to a nation” without a war like their neighbours below. The problem was towards the aboriginal population and the loss of culture and history. As aboriginal children were forced to convert at residential schools, they lost land, treaties and territories. Since we got the problem the new question would be how to solve it. Well Justin Trudeau in 2017, I remember Trudeau making an apology to residential school survivors on television (damn I feel old for watching television). Was it sufficient? The answer is no but is it progress sort of (a sorry is better than nothing)? This captures that the government of Canada does realize the issue at hand but hasn’t taken the necessary steps or actions to solve this issue. But how do we solve this? Changing the constitution act of 1982 or reverting everything we did during Canadian history? I’m not sure.
Looking forward to the idea of perspective we watched the film Afrique 50 by René Vautier and a Ted Talk The danger of a single story by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. With the purpose of how different a perspective can be when looking at the other side of the photograph. With one being more of a documentary style of how villages in Africa were affected by colonialism and the other of a story of her adventures of how she found her cultural voice. Starting the film showed how life was before colonialism. How everything was peaceful but after colonialism, the village was suffering from abuse and death. But was this its intended goal? To show the violence that big colonial companies caused to the native population and bring change to end the abuse? Yes to bring change and have what is deserved by the African population.
Meanwhile, Adichie tells her experience of meeting other African writers and learning about miscommunication from a single story. For example, she talks about how she writes a British story based on a book she read. Going in-depth into power and how it can affect history/story.
Overall this week on Post-Colonial Theory is Realizing that when western people in the non-western world, see an often more of a mirror image of themselves according to Young but diving in through perspectives and applying it to the current state of the world. There’s a lot to reflect on.
