Post Colonialism and Art
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In order to understand what post-colonialism means, we have to understand the
definition of colonialism. According to the Oxford Dictionaries colonialism is the policy or practice of acquiring full or partial political control over another country, occupying it with settlers, and exploiting it economically. The definition of Post-colonialism according to Oxford Dictionaries is the
political or cultural condition of a former colony. That means a literal meaning of the situation of a territory after colonization. One of the most confusing definitions is to distinguish between imperialism and colonialism, as both concepts are treated as synonyms (Kohn, Reddy, 2017). The etymology of the two terms shows a different meaning based on their original Latin word. The
Latin word of colonus means a farmer, where people go to a new territory and live there permanently according to the agriculture. On the other hand, the Latin word imperium means to command. Which means a country exercises power over another whether through settlement, sovereignty or any other way of control (Kohn, Reddy, 2017). It is important to distinguish between the meaning of terms that people may use, and probably unaware of the differences. It is so significant to understand Post-colonialism as academic studies of colonies after the colonization.
Philosophers within the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries had debates about the legitimacy of colonialism. mainly the enlightenment thinkers like Smith, Diderot and Kant were critical of the barbarity of colonialism. They challenged the idea of Europeans have the obligation to civilize the world and considered it as combination of slavery, quasi-feudal, forced labor and expropriation of property. And this contradicts the enlightenment principles and they think that each individual is
capable of self- government. (Kohn, Reddy, 2017). Diderot was against the idea that European colonization is good to civilize the indigenous people. He argued that European colonists are the uncivilized ones (Kohn, Reddy, 2017). Speaking of philosophers, it is important to mention about the evolution of decolonization and the decrease of discrimination and racism. Emmanuel Kant the
enlightenment pioneer philosopher, wrote a very racist remark and very contradicting to his enlightening approach. In 1774 he wrote in his book Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and Sublime “The Negros of Africa have by nature no feeling that rises above the ridiculous” (Jaeggi, Blumenfeld, 2014). On the other hand, The cubists like Picasso and Braque in early twentieth century, admired African figures and used it on their way. That led to “Negro Art” that earned a rising market value in ethnological and arthrological museums. (Jaeggi, Blumenfeld, 2014). Decolonizing Art is happening slowly as it goes away in parallel with discrimination and racism as they are aligned with the superiority of white male cultures that was inherited by European colonists. As the Pakistani artist Rasheed Araeen described his experience in London where he faced discrimination and racism, his art is a combination of his inspiration by minimalism and his education as a civil engineer that
reflected the geometric abstraction of Islamic art, it is all centered around issues of identity, racial discrimination and cultural conflicts (Khare-Ghose, 2019 ). Rasheed mentioned that discrimination is fading away slowly, but still exists. He thinks that Britain continues to be an imperial power, however camouflaged by using rhetoric of the post-colonial liberated global, Museums encourages a
category of non-white functionaries to manage efficiently what had now turn out to be a multiracial society. He thinks that non-white people themselves desired to be part of the system to fulfill the ambition of their parents who had migrated to Britain and worked hard to teach their kids, to don’t suffer as their parents did (Khare-Ghose, 2019 ).
Another angle to look at postcolonialism if you imagine that you live in a refugee camp
where there is a shortage of water, power and food. Imagine that you live under a constant bombing by tanks or Apache helicopters or F-16 fighters. Imagine that you live in a condition that you need a permit to go from one city to another city. Imagine that you live in a village where an occupation force demolished your house and destroyed your farm to build their apartheid wall. Imagine that you are imprisoned for your political viewpoint. Imagine that you are unsettled and uprooted, your links with your land is destroyed. You have been forcibly moved off, or you have fled war or famine. Your life has been fractured; your family fragmented. (Young, 2003,11). Imagine that your beloved ones are killed.
In my recent visit to Europe in the summer of 2019, I met various people from the
Middle East, who are widely speak Arabic language. And heard their stories and their experience in their original countries and their journeys of suffering to flee their countries to find a better life. They are ready to be in a dangerous situation to be able to arrive to Europe hoping to start a new life in Europe. With the help of human traffickers, they use small boats as transportation to cross the Mediterranean Sea to arrive to Greece islands and ask for Asylum in Belgium or Sweden or Norway. Some of the people in this region use a different route and go to Canada or Australia or The United States. The countries in The Middle East are colonies were occupied by Britain, such as Egypt, Palestine and Jordan. France occupied Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, Lebanon, Syria, and most Africa. Italy occupied Libya and the United States occupied Iraq. The current situation of these countries is totally a great example of postcolonialism. You can witness the corrupt Arabic leaders that they work for the West to be supported to keep governing their people with fake democracy. The West benefits
from keeping the situation unstable and promote terrorist groups and extreme religious parties. They create sectarian strife in order to keep weapons industries profiting from selling their products to the cults that they are fighting. This is apparent in Iraq between Shia and Sunni. If any leader of these
countries shows any type of resistance, they face punishment especially from the United States. The cases of Afghanistan, Cuba, Venezuela, Iran and Iraq. It is clear that any country that has the nerve to resist its former imperial masters does so at its peril. All governments of these countries that have
positioned themselves politically against Western control have suffered military intervention by the West. (Young, 2003, 3). The winning of independence from colonial rule remains an extraordinary achievement (Young, 2003,3).
One of the greatest examples of the effect of postcolonialism and how the politicians market their agenda is the mainstream media and the type of journalism they use to keep themselves dominant called war journalism, which focuses on violence, that prevails in war, propaganda, lies, and cover-ups. It focuses only on the effects of violence such as killing, wounding, and escalated conflict. This method concentrates on elite voices, victories, treaties, institutions, and controlling society (McGoldrick, Lynch, 2006, 29).
I have been interested in a new academic research about peace journalism to be a
counter theory of war journalism and decolonizing the media. I have been in contact with one of peace journalism pioneers, Dr. Jake Lynch of the University of Sydney. And I’m investigating to use comics as an art form to be a branch of peace journalism. According to Jake Lynch, peace journalism is when editors and reporters make choices of what stories to report and how to report them, that
then create opportunities for society at large to consider and value non-violent responses to conflict (Lynch, 2008). Lynch explains the advantages of peace journalism as follows; this method explores the backgrounds and contexts of conflict formation and gives voices to non-elite voices, offers creative ideas for conflict resolution and peacemaking, exposes lies and cover up attempts on all sides, and pays attention to peace stories and post war developments (Lynch, 2008). The model of peace journalism is important because it differentiates the way how traditional news or a report could be presented and determine if that could make peace and what could ignite conflict.
Comics journalism as an art form could be considered as peace journalism where comics
writers or comics artists address conflict without the pitfalls of war journalism. Similarly, comics journalism tends to be counterculture or subcultural media, which confronts Western media machines that adopt war journalism, which fan the flames of conflicts. Comic journalists should consider the ethical part and play a role as a cultural anthropologist who operate under a series of ethical guidelines and has an obligation to do no harm to the people who grant access (Smith, Duncan, 2012, 170). The majority of comics artists or comics writers who use a journalistic approach focus on pursuing the truth to rebel against the mainstream media. Comics journalists beholden to an abstract notion of truth defined by gathering facts as a regular journalist (Smith, Duncan, 2012, 170). They usually interview regular people, non-elite voices, and shed light on the effect of postcolonialism such as poverty, conflict zones and how much non-elite people suffer from war machines, capitalism, terrorism, occupations and fundamentalism. Moreover, they would beholden to the people they follow as a cultural anthropologist (Smith, Duncan, 2012, 170). They depict everyday life stories to show the humanitarian sides and try to provide a creative and peaceful solution in order at least to
decrease violence. They make the public aware of the other side of the story other than the propaganda that is dominating the mainstream media.
An example of comics journalism as an art form that I can argue it could be peace journalism and anti-postcolonialism, Joe Sacco’s work on Palestine. He shows how to do peace comics journalism. He enacts peace journalism successfully by traveling to warzones, interviewing people, taking pictures, thumbnailing comics pages, sketching, and taking notes. This shows that journalistic methods that are the key element in his approach. Additionally, he concentrates on the remnants of colonialism by focusing on poverty and political situation that touches regular people’s lives and the conflict aside with its historical context. That shows the effect of colonialism and postcolonialism in direct and indirect ways. Joe Sacco’s work usually delivers a close look at people affected by war and social upheaval, and to find the truth, he travels into war zones such as Bosnia, Iraq and Gaza Strip (Duncan, Taylor, Stoddard, 2015, 60).
He points to the Palestinian rights movement, by reflecting everyday life in his work to show what is happening in war zones and countercultural media. Sacco specifically addressed and mentioned several important topics that are neglected by the Western media as part of postcolonialist media such as United Nation resolutions. These resolutions according The United Nation website that
are related to Palestine including resolution 242 which states withdrawal of Israeli armed forces from territories occupied in 1967 war and resolution 338 that emphasizes to implement resolution 242. In addition, resolution 194 is about the Palestinian refugees and addresses the return to their homes and living at peace with compensation for loss or damage to their properties. Moreover, he talked about the 4th Geneva convention that addresses the protection of civilians during wars. Additionally, he mentioned Israeli prisons and their violations of human rights, first Intifada and fundamentalism. Rights movements are a part of everyday life in Palestine, and their suffering under the Israeli occupation. and Sacco’s work talks about The United Nation resolutions tend to be less well-covered in Western media, and the audience for Sacco’s work is less likely to be familiar with them. Sacco
increases peoples’ awareness and show them the Palestinian side of related conflict. These topics are important to tackle as they focus on civilians, they are neglected by media machines such as CNN, Fox News, BBC and Aljazeera where they concentrate on politicians and what ignites wars. When wars cause civilian deaths, dominant media consider deaths as numbers with no consideration of individual humanity or finding a solution to prevent their deaths. Mainstream journalists focus on what escalates conflicts and make viewers feel hopeless and depressed by concluding that peace is impossible. Joe Sacco also invoked the concept of orientalism where postcolonialism works hand in hand with orientalism. According to Edward Said, orientalism is a manner of regularized or orientalized writing, vision, and study dominated by imperatives, perspectives and ideological biases ostensibly suited to the orient (Said, Sut, 2002). Said argues that orientalism can be found in current Western depictions of so-called "Arab" cultures. The depictions of "the Arab" portray this
figure as irrational, menacing, barbaric, untrustworthy, anti-Western, dishonest, and perhaps most importantly prototypical (Said, Sut, 2002). Presenting people in a certain way based on the Western culture as a part of the colonial goal would definitely cause tension and hate between nations and
may ignite wars. In attempting to complicate stereotypes.
It is clear that comics journalism that focus on the countries were occupied by the Western colonization approaches peace journalism and could be a tool against the dominating war journalism-oriented colonial media machines that decrease the chance of peace in the whole world. This is particular true on the Palestinian issue where there is no hope in the horizon due to the continued tension between Israel and Palestine including wars and siege on Gaza since 2007, in addition to the empty negotiations for decades without any solution. It is certain that colonial war media have contributed in perpetuating tensions and conflict because majority of news channels and newspapers have political agenda to favor a particular party. The Western governments and Western media are obviously bias towards Israel neglecting the Palestinians rights.
Bibliography
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Kohn, Margaret, and Reddy Kavita. “Colonialism” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, August 29, 2017. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/colonialism/.
Jaeggi, U., and J. Blumenfeld. “Here and There: Reflections on Postcolonial Art and Society.” Social Research 81, no. 3: 541–54. Accessed October 5, 2019. doi:10.1353/sor.2014.0038.
KHARE-GHOSE, ARCHANA. 2019. “Rasheed Araeen: Art, Activism and Cultural Conflict.” Modern Painters 31 (5): 54. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspxdirect=true&db=f5h&AN=136110037&site=eds-live.
Toung, Robert J. C. Postcolonialism. A Very Short Introduction. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2003.
McGoldrick, Annabel, and Jake Lynch. "PeaceJournalism." Sri Lanka Muslim Media Forum, 2006.
Lynch, Jake “What Is Peace Journalism?” Transcend Media Service, 2008. https://www.transcend.org/tms/about-peace-journalism/1-what-is-peace-journalism/.
Said, Edward W., and Sut Jhally. "Edward Said on Orientalism.” Journal Title, Vol. 40. Northampton, Massachusetts: Media Education Foundation,
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Smith, Matthew J., and Randy Duncan, eds. Critical approaches to comics: Theories and
methods. Routledge, 2012.
Taylor, Michael Ray, Randy Duncan, and David Stoddard. Creating Comics as Journalism, Memoir and Nonfiction. Routledge, 2015.