Post: colonialism and globalization

Abstract

Post-colonialism to colonialism is what post-modernism to modernism and post-structuralism to structuralism. Though colonialism is dead and gone, it has emerged in a different form, that is globalization. It is an avatar of Colonialism, which subsumes matters of identity, gender, race, racism, ethnicity, slavery, etc. It has submerged all other cultures and languages and made American and European cultures as the standards to which all other cultures are negatively compared. One outcome is digital technology. ELT is another aspect of cultural Imperialism. A new metaphysics of indefinite uncertainty and flux has emerged in the wake of Post-Colonialism attacking God, fixity, certainty, transcendental thought. Epistemologically it is an argument against imagination, intuition and verbal authority. Another baneful aspect is the domination of English language over other languages, due to which several hundreds of languages have been marginalized or declared as most endangered and on the way towards extinction. World literature can be an amazing tool for analysing globalisation. But there is a danger that extrapolating western notions into other cultures effectively perpetuate strategies of cultural Imperialism. The world has been politically liberated. But, cultural self-determination is not happening. It is this form of imperialism or colonialism that needs to be seriously addressed.