Critical Reflection on Post-Colonial theories

Post-Colonial Theorists are more enlightening than the Western critical theories. This is a personal opinion that can be regarded as an Asian perspective. The ideas of Post-Colonial theory are more related to the Filipinos like us. I mostly agree with what Post-Colonialists say, but when I reflect on the people that think about these ideas I realized that they also came from the very races that have racists’ attitude. For an example, Edward Said is known to be a Palestianian-American. Edward Said was very much concerned about the image that the Americans and the West conjure about it. I guess Edward Said should have also considered what image the Middle East projects, especially the Islamic fanatics. Speaking about Middle East, one should be immersed in the history, the unnecessary wars and atrocities in the region. Yes, the West did its part of savagery, but Arabs did too. It is my belief that Arabs are not barbaric but some Arabs exude over religious zealousness that they become the source of cultural oppression. For instance, Jewish ancestral cemeteries are desecrated. Tombs of significant religious patriarchs of the Jews are being taken over by the Arabs. Various sites that are spread all over the territory of Israel, West Bank, and believe it or not Iran are being demolished or taken over and stripped of Jewish significance. Basically, what they are doing is an attempt to root out the trace Jewish presence to evict them from the region and from its territory. UNESCO, now dominated by the Arabs and Islamic member countries, has become the instrument of the Arabs and Islamic countries to attempt eradicating the significant markers and traces of the Jewish history in the region. I wonder what would be Edward Said’s reaction on these developments in the Middle East. The main point being thrust here is that Orientals like the Middles Eastern countries though oppressed are also oppressors in one way or another.

Critical Reflection on the theories of the West

I’m glad that Marx’s theory and call for revolution to overthrow capitalism and its ideals triumphed within a short period of time but failed miserably in the long run. Marx’s ideal world is hard to achieve because the possession of wealth and information always conjures power relations. If the workers around the world succeeded in overthrowing the ruling capitalist, the vacuum of power would be filled by those who are triumphant. Perhaps in that reality, the working class would be the center of power and wealth concentration and thus power would just transfer from one class to the other without really diffusing it as envisioned by Marx. Being happy about the failure of Marxism to set up a world system of equality does not mean that I accept the idea of Capitalism in its totality. Capitalism is not a perfect ideology and the consequences brought about by its ideas were a mixture of cost and benefits.

Capitalism is obviously the victor in the contest against Marxism. However, the supremacy of Capitalism is not yet certain because a new challenger has come to light. The new challenger is brought about by the consequence of Capitalist Imperialism or colonization. Capitalism became the tool for the powerful to manipulate the culture and consciousness of the colonized and subjugated. The unwanted consequence of Capitalism gave birth to something that threatens its continual survival. I think this is what the western cultural theorists realized in their observation. The attempt of man to fully put fellow men and nature into his or her subordination through reason and logic prospered only to fail in the latter end. I think this is because human logic and reason, no matter how advanced it is, is still is far from fully comprehending everything the world has to offer.

Most of the discussion about culture being a commodity sounds so true to me. Basically the first thought that came into mind when speaking of commodified culture is tourism. However, culture as explained is not just something sought after from place to place, but it has become export oriented commodity. There is no doubt that culture has this property since culture is an idea. Writing this blog has made me remember about the film ‘Inception’ by Christopher Nolan. Like the main idea of the film, culture can be like an idea in the process of ‘inception’. There is a strong sense of belief that the film fully demonstrated the expression of the idea being addressed here. Ideas can be planted in the depths of our mind, and bet we Filipinos are the best example of such.

Maybe someday I’ll write a blog an analogy in some of the narrative elements in ‘Inception’ to the anatomy of commodified culture in the Philippines.