Analysis #7 - Post-Colonial Theory and Said

Post-colonial theory's main trademark is discovering identity. Post-colonial theory arose from countries that once were colonies and received their freedom or in fact still remain under the rule of another country. It deals with national identity, and attempting to rediscover or uncover that which was lost as the result of being ruled by an outside government.

This theory effects many countries all over the world  that have attempted or are attempting to make themselves unique from the government that one occupied them and ruled over them. One example could be South Africa. For many years the white people of the country ruled over the blacks and kept firm control over almost every aspect of life, what was on television, in the papers, what was taught in schools, what books and films were read and shown. It took but a few to stand up, say 'no' and attempt to change this brutal rule.

Many people outside the country knew little of what it was like to live in this small country. In an attempt to change the view of the country, many risked their lives to change it. Though these changes were not always for the better, the country experiencing what is sometimes referred to as "brain drain", referring to the high crime rate of various kinds, both violent and deadly, including making the country second in line by the United Nations for murder, and first for rapes and assaults per capita from 1998-2000 following a compiled survey.

Even gaining freedom from being colonized and tyrant like rule didn't bring peace to this small nation.

The country though it became a democracy to rejoin the United Nations after getting kicked out, fell into chaos. Even attempting to reestablished cultural and national identity from before British rule, the country still has a lot of work to do.

Edward W. Said saw that imperialism wasn't necessarily a way to bring the world about to the British way of thinking as he states in Culture and Imperialism, dealing with post-colonialism or post-imperialism:
"No, cultural forms like the novel or the opera do not cause people to go out and imperialize--Carlyle did not drive Rhodes directly, and he certainly cannot be "blamed" for the problems in today's southern Africa--but it is genuinely troubling to see how little Britain's great humanistic ideas, institutions, and monuments, which we still celebrate having the power ahistorically to command our approval, how little they stand in the way of the accelerating imperial process. We are entitled to ask how this body of humanistic ideas co-existed so comfortably with imperialism, and why--until the resistance to imperialism in the domain, among Africans, Asians, Latin Americans, developed--there was little significant opposition or deterrence to empire at home" (p 1889, Said).
Britain, at the start, had the idea of simply growing their power, but instead, caused civil unrest, and slowly destroyed cultures and societies in their quest to gain as much land as possible. Even when colonies were decolonized, not all those places  entirely recovered. Many fell to pieces and are trying to pick up the pieces as they try to move towards the future.

Works Cited
Leitch, Vincent B. The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism. New York: Norton, 2001. Print.