Postcolonialism, Post-colonialism and the Migrant Crisis

Using the term ‘Postcolonialism’ instead of ‘Post-colonialism’ couldn’t be more vital when looking at the ‘migrant crisis’. With so much of conflict and instability in so many parts of the once colonized world, that single dash is the only difference between the assumption that the age of colonization is over and its ideological motivators erased, and the acknowledgement of the patterns of cultural control which have continued despite the formal end of colonization.

A link refuses to be made between the destabilizing effects of colonial activities and the endless conflicts of the 21^st century, and most of all how many millions have been killed and forced to flee from their homes to places which represent safety and prosperity. In this way, centuries of Eurocentrism have become, in the view of our politicians, mildly problematic; the West doesn’t quite see the benefits of this discourse now that millions are arriving at the doorstep. Suddenly it’s ‘us’ who are the victims because, to paraphrase politicians, ‘we don’t know what to do with these people.’ The media has amplified this discourse into a not-so-silent plea:

“Why can’t you go back to where you came from?”

With my dark sense of humour, the irony of this is beyond measure; the answer is obvious; if ‘we’, the colonizers, had gone back to where we came from (as we were politely and not so politely asked) would this current crisis be dominating the media and further perpetuating the ‘us’ and ‘them’ mentality that colonization has given us?

The media’s response to the migrant crisis it is not only a sign of the continuing power imbalance, but also a clear threat to Western superiority. The sad truth is that nobody wants to acknowledge the long-lasting damage that colonization has done; whilst the ‘settler’ colonized countries such as New Zealand, Australia, Canada and the United States have made apologies over recent years in regard to the treatment of the indigenous people, have we seen any apologies for the many issues caused by generations of so-called ‘dependency’’ colonies? How Europe’s imperial powers have responsibility for the ever-lasting Israel-Palestine conflict? How Belgium’s enforcement of racial divisions in Rwanda caused a genocide which killed almost 1 million people?  How the lines slapped on the map which divided India and Pakistan have caused countless deaths and tensions, all because of a lack of care given to the ethnic and cultural differences of these areas? Nope.

The crisis is indeed a sign that the residual effects of colonization no longer benefit the West. This intensified flow of people into Europe and to a lesser extent other Western countries like the US and Canada is quite simply the reaping of what centuries of colonial discourse as sown; as a result of these conceptualizations of ‘short history’ which are no less minimized today, we are finally seeing the results of the long-running colonial amnesia which has totally minimized the violence, conflict and oppression of colonized countries. It is only now that the world has been forced to reflect on WHY these areas as the way they are. Aside from a few enlightened commentators the responses are classical of this historical amnesia:

“These places have always been violent.”

“Democracy just doesn’t work there.”

Or even:

“If colonialism had carried on, the world would be more stable.”

You only have to look at news coverage to know that this is the case; the threatening portrayal in the media of the ‘others’ has become increasingly marked. As the world becomes more and more globalized, the countries and cultures which have been traditionally side-lined are edging away from the periphery. One cannot look at the constant images of overloaded boats arriving on the shores of Greece without seeing the symbolic representation of the Western panic of a ‘reverse colonization’. ‘They’ are the unknown, the foreign, the strange, arriving at our shores without invitation to live among us.

Oh, the irony.

What the migrant crisis has created is a mirror which is allowing the West to look back on itself and its past actions, and it’s clear that many don’t like the reflection. I don’t deny that Germany’s enthusiastic welcoming of refugees is an example of the goodness humanity is capable of, but at the same time I refuse to believe that there is no notion of guilt within this; maybe I am too cynical, but it seems impossible that such a decision was not borne in part from a wanting to make amends for the past. Yet this is a better response that simply turning our backs; Britain has made it clear that it won’t participate in the EU refugee quotas. Thus the very label ‘migrant’ can be read as a subverted form of strategic essentialism; every individual on those boats has their own story, their own identity and culture which they have been forced to leave behind, but the media forces on this label as an umbrella to crowd everyone underneath in the mission to form an inherently negative unity. These people are refugees fleeing persecution, but this protection is stripped from them by their homogenization into needy, opportunistic people who will take jobs from ‘us’.

The bottom line is that despite the remains of colonial discourse in media representation and the actions of world leaders, the migrant crisis shows that the lines drawn between the colonizer and the colonized are no longer so clean cut in practice; colonialism has blurred this divide and created what Homi Bhabka stresses as ‘interdependence’ – this fixed separation is no longer possible as people move across the globe, whether as refugees or genuine migrants. This ‘hybrid’ identity is something which the media refuses to acknowledge in its perpetuation of the Saidian binary. No matter how much the media’s visual and linguistic imagery expresses this desire, we cannot return to such a strict separation where the two will never ideologically meet. Clearly this is a huge source of postcolonial anxiety because the authority of the colonizer can no longer be assumed; the gaze in no longer upon the actions of the colonized, but on the actions of the colonists. Under this gaze, the essentialism of the West as the invisible authority is under question. The real question is: where will we go from here?

Sources:

https://www.jstor.org/stable/41273996?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents

http://www.coldwarstudies.com/2013/01/11/history-of-colonization-in-the-middle-east-and-north-africa-mena-precursor-to-cold-war-conflict/

http://www.businessinsider.com/afp-pm-cameron-confirms-uk-staying-out-of-eu-refugee-quotas-2015-9/?r=AU&IR=T