Hello friends, this is a blog about the summary of two articles: globalization and postcolonialism by Ania Loomba.
Ania Loomba is an Indian literary scholar. She is the author of Colonialism/Postcolonialism and works as a literature professor at the University of Pennsylvania. There are several major critics who observes globalization and postcolonialism and make argues for that. So let's have look on it.
1.Globalization and the Future of Postcolonial Studies :-
If we think about the article: Globalization and the Future of Postcolonial Studies, we often think about how globalization and postcolonial studies are connected with each other. Globalization changes India in a way the whole world. Yes there are positive changes also, but we can not ignore it's negative changes that are harmful for our country as well as for the whole world. There is always hegemony or dominance of something over someone. In the past the three pivotal events happened and these events changed India a lot. And this is LPG,
Entire society becomes money / material centered. Globalization was for liberalism, equal opportunity, equity and for freedom of choice. But it was work for rich people. In this first article, from the very beginning the writer pointed out one major event and that was the 9/11 September, 2001 terror attack on the US. The September 11 attacks, often referred to as 9/11, were a series of four coordinated terrorist attacks by the Wahhabi Islamist terrorist group al-Qaeda against the United States on the morning of Tuesday, September 11, 2001. It was an attack on the Collapsed section of the Pentagon. This event is considered a game-changer in the discussion on Globalization in the 21st Century. For reading the full article click here.
Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri's "Empire" argues that the contemporary global order has produced a new form of sovereignty which should be called 'Empire' but which is best understood in contrast to European empires.
In contrast to imperialism, Empire establishes no territorial center of power and does not rely on fixed boundaries or barriers. It is a decentered and deterritorializing apparatus of rule that progressively incorporates the entire global realm within it's open, expanding frontiers. Empire manages hybrid identities, flexible hierarchies, and plural exchanges through modulating networks of command. The distinct national colors of the imperial map of the world have merged and blended in the imperial global rainbow.
Hardt and Negri
We see that the Empire argues, whereas the old imperial world was marked by competition between different European powers. Hardt and Negri suggest that the new Empire is better compared to the Roman Empire rather than to European colonialism, since imperial Rome also loosely incorporated it's subject states rather than controlling them directly. Here we can also see the argument that global mobility of capital, industry, workers, goods and consumers dissolves earlier hierarchies and inequities, democratises nations and the relations between nations, and creates new opportunities which percolate down in some form or another to every section of society.
One of the other important critic Arjun Appadurai also claims about this globalization. In his work "Modernity at Large", catalogues of 'multiple locations' and new hybridities, new forms of communication, new foods, new clothes and new patterns of consumption are offered as evidence for both the newness and the benefits of globalization.
Here Klaus Schwab observes that,
"Globalization 4.0 has only just begun, but we are already vastly under - prepared for it".
We have to note the point here: globalization has both positive and negative effects. Critics of globalization do not deny the fact or the transformatory powers of the phenomenon, or the many ways in which it indeed marks a departure from the old world order. There is no doubt that globalization has made information and technology more widely available, and has brought economic prosperity to certain new sections of the world. Everybody is only consumers in the Market. Here P. Sainath (Palagummi Sainath) observes, far from fostering ideological openness, has resulted in it's own fundamentalism.
Market fundamentalism destroys more human lives than any other simply because it cuts across all national, cultural, geographic, religious and other boundaries. It's as much at home in Moscow as in Mumbai or Minnesota. A South Africa - whose advances in the early 1990s thrilled the world - moved swiftly from apartheid to neo-liberalism. It sits as easily in Hindu, Islamic or Christian societies. And it contributes angry, despairing recruits to the armies of all religious fundamentalism. Based on the premise that the market is the solution to all the problem of the human race, it has its own Gospel : The Gospel of St. Growth, of St. Choice…
P. Sainath
If the earlier period of colonial globalization simultaneously integrated the world into a single economic system, and divided it more sharply into the haves and the have nots. So the new empire both facilitates global connections and creates new opportunities, and entrenches disparities and new divisions.
Here is another report from 'The New York Times' (Friday October 17, 2003) speaking of huge demonstration in La Paz which defied military barricades to protest a plan to export natural gas to the United States :
'Globalization is just another name for submission and domination' NICANOR APAZA, 46, an unemployed miner, said at a demonstration this week in which Indian women… carried banners denouncing the International Monetary Fund and demanding the president's resignation. `We've had to live with that here for 500 years, and now we want to be our own masters.'
Joseph E. Stiglitz, Nobel laureate and once Chief Economist at the world Bank, also uses the phrase 'market fundamentalism' in his critique of globalization as it has been imposed upon the world by institutions like the World Bank and the IMF (International Monetary Fund) :
The international financial institutions have pushed a particular ideology - market fundamentalism - that is both bad economics and bad politics; it is based on promises concerning how markets work that do not hold even for developed countries, much less for developing countries. The IMF has pushed these economics policies without a broader vision of society or the role of economics within society. And it has pushed these policies in ways that have undermined emerging democracies. More generally, globalization itself has been governed in ways that are undemocratic and have been disadvantageous to developing countries, especially the poor within those countries.
Joseph E. Stiglitz
Examples :-
From that context we can take the example of the movie "The Reluctant Fundamentalist". The Reluctant Fundamentalist is a 2012 political thriller drama film directed by Mira Nair. It is based on the 2007 novel of the same name (The Reluctant Fundamentalist) by Mohsin Hamid. The film is a post-9/11 story about the impact of the terrorist attacks on one Pakistani man and his treatment by Americans in reaction to them. Mohsin Hamid's novel, The Reluctant Fundamentalist, shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize in 2007, engages with the complex issues of Islam and the West, fundamentalism and America's War on Terror. As a “counterhistory” to post-9/11 Islamophobia, the novel contests common notions of terror as an unreasonable ideology of retribution and redemption by exposing the trajectories of imperialism. Analyzing The Reluctant Fundamentalist from the political perspective of a 9/11 novel, we can rethinking on the Clash of Civilizations theory and to elucidate the linkages between new American imperialism, fundamentalism, globalization and terrorism. Here is the trailer of the film :-
It is a film about how we for some particular person or their community. But also the character of Changez Khan (Riz Ahmed) portrayed as a very good man. Who had a very bad experience in America after the 9/11 attack. But he is not a person who believes in taking revenge. He believes in non - violence. We can also see how American armies and citizens, all Pakistani, are terrorists. Even Changez Khan doubtable for the terrorism at the airport. In short the film portrayed market fundamentalism and globalization.
In the movie we can see the effect of globalization. It is a 2016 Indian action drama film written and directed by Sunny Deol. It is a direct sequel to the 1990 film Ghayal. It is directed, written and headlined by Sunny Deol who again plays Ajay Mehra. Here you can watch the movie :-
Four teenagers accidentally record a murder involving a famous personality and fall into trouble as a result. Ajay, a journalist, decides to help them in their quest to defeat the murderers.
This is a film about privatization. Sonali, who runs an Internet providing agency in Mumbai, gives her all to save her business when a large corporation, Shining Broadband, tries to maintain its monopoly in the city. Here is the trailer of the movie,
This is what happens around us ! The privatization is now going to harm small businesses. If everything will become private our life is not going to be easy. In India we are seeing that government is selling airports, companies to private companies. So they can easily flee from thier responsibilities. Then can easily reply to the people that this or that is not our job now. So the question is, if privatization is creating problems for people, then the government should take responsibility for serving the people. The government should think about it. Privatization is good for some places but privatization should happen in an area with basic needs. Like in
Security system
Health care
Education
These are our basic needs. If country wants to make nation strong, they should make storng that things first. Then and then nation become strong. If we talk about the recent example of privatization, we come to know that our finance minister Nirmala sitaraman announced National Monetisation Pipeline. The government on Monday unveiled a four-year National Monetisation Pipeline (NMP) worth an estimated Rs 6 lakh crore. It aims to unlock value in brownfield projects by engaging the private sector, transferring to them revenue rights and not ownership in the projects, and using the funds so generated for infrastructure creation across the country. To read full article click here.
Again this is a very interesting film to see in the context of globalization. It is a 2016 Indian social thriller film directed by Nishikant Kamat. It is produced by Shailesh R Singh, Madan Paliwal, Sutapa Sikdar, and Shailja Kejriwal and co-produced by Nishant Pitti from Easemytrip. Here you can see the movie :-
Nirmal, a man who lost his son due to the negligence of the government, seeks revenge and kidnaps the ten-year-old son of the home minister, forcing the administration to meet his demands. The last scene of the film is very much interesting. There is someone behind any action. When corruption happens the whole political party, their members, some government officers all are equally responsible for that. This movie explains it very well.
We can see the film with the context of Postcolonial Studies. How our minds are treated to see everything. We all have some kind of pre-review for anything and it comes out when we observe someone or something.
The film New York directed by Kabir Khan. In the movie we can see Three friends lead a happy existence in New York. But their lives are adversely affected due to the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center on 9/11. The same thing we see in the movie The 'Reluctant Fundamentalist'.
If we look for real events that happened in India in the context of globalization and postcolonial studies we see the example of Honey adulteration with sugar syrup. Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) claims that Honey sold by several major brands in the country has been found adulterated with sugar syrup.
Banned on Apps
There are several issues with banned apps. Like, Twitter and What's App, because of their private policies. We all have some private information in our apps. If the government wants any information from that app, the app has to change the private policies. But the right of privacy is a fundamental right according to the Constitution. So that was the issue about that. The point is Twitter was not banned at all. But it shows the control of particular authority over someone.
2. The Future of Postcolonial Studies :-
When we talk about postcolonialism, we think that there is no need to ponder upon or study postcolonialism now. Because we are not in control of colonial peoples now. But this is not so. We are in great need of studying postcolonialism. When we talk about anti - colonialism, it is part of colonialism but postcolonialism goes beyond anti - colonialism. When someone says, Britishers have gone then what is the need of studying postcolonialism ? So we gate answer that they are gone physically, their impact is still alive. Their thoughts are still in our mind, which controls our thinking. We are still colonised by these things. Our minds are controlled by the colonies which ruled over our country.
For some postcolonialist, both within and outside literary studies, such rethinking has been prompted by their engagement with new challenges, such as those posed by environmental studies. Thus Dipesh Chakrabarty finds,
Reading in theories of globalization, Marxist analysis of capital, subaltern studies, and postcolonial criticism over the last twenty-five years have not prepared him for the task of analysing the planetary crisis of climate change.
Dipesh Chakrabarty
For decades now, the environment activist Vandana Shiva has exposed the connection between colonialism and the destruction of environmental diversity. She argues,
The growth of capitalism, and now of trans-national corporation, exacerbated the dynamic begun under colonialism which has destroyed sustainable local / cultures; these cultures were also more women - friendly, partly because women's work was so crucially tied to producing food and fodder. Other feminist environmentalist are more sceptical of such an assessment of pre - colonial cultures, which, they points out, were also stratified and patriarchal; however, they agree that question of ecology and human culture are intricately linked. Especially in the so-called third world, they state, one cannot talk about saving the environment while ignoring the needs of human lives and communities.
Chittaroopa Palit, one of the leaders of the NBA, says that she and her comrades ‘learnt a lot about the structures and processes of globalization through these struggles’. Especially valuable was the lesson that,
"Though international political factors, such as the character of the governments involved, the existence of able support groups in the North that play an important part, they cannot supplant the role of a mass movement struggling on the ground. Soon after the SPD government in Berlin refused a guarantee to Siemens, the German multinational, for building the dam in Maheshwar, it agreed to underwrite the company’s involvement in the Tehri dam in the Himalayas and the catastrophic Three Gorges Dam in China—both just as destructive as the Narmada project; but in neither instance were there strong mass struggles on the ground."
Examples :-
If we look at globalization and postcolonialism through various examples we can recall many examples in the form of advertisements, films, documentaries, literature, and news.
There are several films which describe the changes of globalization, privatization, and postcolonial criticism. Like,
Kerala restricts Pepsi
One another very important example of environmentalism and postcolonial studies we can see the accident of Kerala restricts Pepsi from over using ground water. Kerala to restrict use of groundwater by Pepsico; traders may stop sale of Pepsi, Coke. Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan welcomed the move of traders and said the government would extend support to the initiative to check the threat to exploitation of water, pollution and lifestyle diseases. With Kerala in the grip of a severe drought, the government today said it will further restrict the use of groundwater by soft drink major Pepsico at Palakkad even as traders have planned to stop the sale of Pepsi and Coca Cola in the state. For further reading click here
Nestle's Maggie ban in India
I think I'm in 10th standard. And Maggie was banned in India. I'm surprised by why it happened . People spread a lot of wrong information like, Maggie is using cow meat ! Even my parents don't allow me to buy Maggie's packets ! It was in 2014 when food safety regulators from the Barabanki district of Uttar Pradesh reported that samples of Maggi Noodles had high levels of monosodium glutamate (MSG) apart from high lead content above the permissible level. So we see the concern of globalization and postcolonial studies.
Ban on Pepsi & Coke in India
It happened in India. We can read it with concern of globalization and postcolonial studies.
India banned Pepsi & Coke owing to pesticide issues. A court in southern India on Sept. 22 lifted a ban on the manufacture and sale of soft drinks by US giants Coca-Cola and Pepsi, amid claims that their beverages contained pesticides. The government in Kerala state had imposed the ban on August 11 after claims by a New Delhi-based environmental group, but the Kerala High Court ruled that the state government did not have the authority to do so. "The ban order issued by the state government was not within the legal powers that rest with the government. Thus we set aside the government order," chief justice V.K. Bali and justice M. Ramachandran said in their ruling. To read the full article click here.
Human beings are becoming more and more selfish. We are cutting trees to make roads and buildings, but we forget to think about animals and other insects.
In this movie we see nature and man fight against a forest officer as she and her team of locals and trackers attempt to capture a disturbed tigress. If we cut trees and disturb the way of animals it is obvious that they come into the village !
This video can clear the concept in our mind.
If we talk about the reasons behind cutting down trees we can see the government's mega projects. One of them is the Chardham Yatra Project.
They destroyed lots of things. Cutting down trees, destroying houses, and the land of farmers was gone for that.
When the Sardar Sarovar Dam was built on Narmada river, some environmentalists carried the Narmada Bacho Aandolan. If we look at contemporary literature written in that time, there is even no reference of this event in Dhruv Bhatt's work "Tatvamasi". The novel remains completely aloof from the agitation in the village and around Narmada Dam by social activists.
So this way we can understand both articles. If we don't find the solutions not only India but the whole world can be in trouble. So we have to try to save the environment as well as our government should try to control privatization.
