The Postcolonial Imagination

Despite some differences, the two metropolitan accounts—one by Winston Churchill, and the other by Hardt and Negri (2000)— which inaugurate this chapter, share something in common at a deep level: what the two metropolitan accounts may be seen to share is an absolute acceptance of the genocidal consequences of “civilization” as the price that “the wretched of the earth” must willingly pay for achieving Europe’s1 idea of the Kingdom of God on Earth. It is accounts of this nature, as well as relatively more subtle expressions of Europe’s will to power, that postcolonialism seeks to “dislodge,” rupture, and “set askew.” Accordingly, postcolonial theory’s engagement with colonialism and its continuing aftermath may be seen as representing an ethico-political project aimed at developing a uniquely radical and comprehensive critique of three monumental and mutually overlapping phenomena of great relevance to us today, namely, Western colonialism and neocolonialism, European modernity, and modern capitalism. As postcolonial critics have noted, these phenomena are overdetermined, with each serving as one of the conditions of possibility, as well as the effects, of the others. These phenomena are also extremely complex as a result of, among other things, their long and variegated history, wide spectrum of constitutive practices, and far-reaching implications whether cultural, political, economic, psychological, philosophical, epistemological, ideological, ethico-moral, aesthetic, or something else.