Institutor
A review of various cultural aspects in the postcolonial age projects cultural conflict between elements instituted by the colonialist and traditions of the respective colony. From a distance, one can observe that the colonialist instigated cultural conflict. As observed by a number of critics, the colonialist instituted their own culture and forced the colony to accept the same (Blue, Bunton and Croizer 213). The administrative system of the colonialist, for example, became part of the practices exhibited by the former colonies. Interestingly, not all the colonized assimilated the culture of the colonialist. As evident through cultural conflicts in the postcolonial era, some people are ignorant of colonial practices. The consequence of such ignorance creates the platform of conflict between the cultural structures instituted by the colonialists and their traditional ones.
Although the colonial era ended, the colonized still experience neo-colonialism. A case in point is the subscription to the colonialist administrative ideology. The political machineries have continued to peddle the colonialist culture several decades after the independence. Interestingly, the society seems to subscribe to these ideals. For example, Kenyan authority (police) bit a man that had failed to stand up while the police were raising the national flag (Mbembe 9). The police could not listen to the plight of a man’s wife who could not withstand to see the brutal attack against her husband. Elsewhere, in Cameroon politicians, in the postcolonial era, seems to embrace a corrupt culture in which serving a political term means a politician’s term to eat his portion. This culture has sunk in the minds of many. The society has embraced repellant mechanism for persons that seem to reject the unscrupulous culture brought by the colonialist. Arguably, the society has become man eat man society. Accession to a political office is an opportunity to deprive the society of its goodies.
Mbembe believes that confrontations occur whenever a member of the society has failed to subscribe to the attributes of the post colony (Mbembe 12). Some critics seem to refute the notion that the locals are unable to subscribe to the demands of post colony; instead they harbor the view that post colony is pluralistic with some many practices that complicate the choices that subject would make. The problem is an attempt to rewrite mythologies of power. The rulers and the ruled are inconstant conflict because the later seems to reject some of the attributes that the former considers being acceptable. (Dube and Banerjee-Dube 182). Arguably, the rulers tend to devise a mechanism of clinging to power. In actualizing such ambitions, the rulers must limit the freedom of the of society use brute force to instill fear and their own ideas, as well create the so-called national philosophy. The national philosophies are evident in architecture and monuments placed in major roads within the cities. These monuments are to remind the society about what the rules expect of them. Largely, a considerable number of persons that have gone against the seed of common grain have met the brute force of the government. One may summarize the socio-political nature of post colony as a world full of hostility, continence, fragility, and sobriety. This world is fragile in the sense that the sober or those that seems to look at the world with a different trajectory are likely to engage in conflicts. On the other hand, post colony is hostile in the sense that leaders are reluctant to embrace socio-political features that would unclothe their powers.
References
Blue, Gregory Bunton, P. Martin and Croizer, C. Ralph. Colonialism and the Modern World: Selected Studies. London: M.E. Sharpe, 2002. Print.
Dube, Saurabh and Banerjee-Dube, Ishita. Unbecoming Modern: Colonialism, Modernity, Colonial Modernities. New York: Berghahn Books, 2006. Print.
Mbembe, Achille. Provisional Notes on the Postcolony. Journal of the International African Institute, Vol. 62, No. 1 (1992), pp. 3-37.
