UNLEASHING THE TROJAN HORSE: Parallelisms, Colonialism and Globalization

Critical Studies on Global Fragmentation. PART ONE

In the last half century, the human condition has gone through many changes. For some, it was wonderful, educative, pleasurable, and for others it was absurd, surprising, illogical, heinous, self-serving and sometimes brutal. In all these severe changes in global socioeconomic conditions, it remains, however to say that society has not neared in anyway or addressed means to finally eliminate that permanent ivory ghost, race, which is the determining factor of global decision making world wide, from the minds of 21st century homo sapiens. In fact, if it were to be the likes of pirates such as Christopher Columbus, Cordoba, Cortés, Pizarro, Cook, and racist theorists such as David Hume, Kant, Darwin, chamberlain, etc., who still hold high this dirty notion of European superiority, one can argue that they are unchanging in character and thought. However, we are not living in the “dark ages” between the 15th and earth 20th century, but rather in the 21st century and those mentioned above are dead and rotten. If they are dead and rotten, why does the present western generation in academia, work places, and other social fields, hold tight on such notions of race? Why do they behave in similar and subtle ways to preserve and apply those historical conditions, treatments, discourses, and mannerisms of power and control visited on non-European cultures to enslave and drag them into the so-called modernism for capital gains in their current contact with non-Western peoples?

Briefly, let us take Hume and Kant as substantive cases. In his 1742 essay Of National Characters, Hume argues that "negroes" and "all other species of men" are naturally inferior to white people, and that there has never been any degree of civilization, no "ingenious manufactures", "arts" or "sciences", to be found outside white nations. As he sternly believed, even the most "rude and barbarous of the whites" still demonstrate some degree of civilization. In his 1764 essay Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and Sublime, Immanuel Kant argues that, in comparison to all other peoples, "the negroes of Africa have, by nature, no feeling that rises above the trifling." These western perceptions of non-western territories is ever evident, now, today, considering all those phony laws, trade deals and political placements of the west’s favorite dictators in countries to implement economic and political programs according to western desires.

With race, everything was established, and once again, with race a new global geographical chart is being drawn both rhetorically and socio-politically. From maritime travels to chart and annex non-European territories to colonialism and now globalization, policies are constructed according to race. Let us look at the pace global economies are changing, and how groups with monopoly of resources and markets meant to dominate the world. Which geographical territories are considered for forceful extraction or resources? Resources and markets do not need to be in one’s own backyard, but could be geographically dispersed, located anywhere, and yet, through imperial, western sanctions and gunboat policies they can be annexed and easily brought under western control. Seemingly, many critical people in emerging economies notice with which easiness western politicians and “their” local ‘elite’ proxies speak uncritically and highly about globalization. Even more so, is it with many economic scientist who have made globalization their focused in the effort to disseminate complex and ‘appealing’ definitions that ignore its prerequisite of militarism, aggression, over-consumption, pulling up of physical boundaries between north and south, and the one-way transfer of technology among industrialized nations, while poor economies are excluded.


This blog discusses in simpler form the economic, power and cultural destructive machinations and negative world system principles of unilateral control of made-poor countries and oppression of non-market forces by industrialized and hype-capitalist west and their new eastern allies for world domination. The essay describes the theoretical development of colonization and globalization to provide basic and yet deeper insight of the consequences of these neo-liberal theorems. The theories on colonialism and globalization are dealt with in the essay and it will prove to be very useful for undergraduate and postgraduate students as well as those still hampering about its motives. Beginning with the basic concepts of colonialism and globalization, the essay provides a comprehensive in depth understanding of the systems, models, analysis, and application within the context of race for accurate insight.

As Robert W. McChesney wrote clearly in the introduction of Noam Chomsky’ Profit Over People: neoliberalism and global order (1999), aside from few intellectuals and the business community, the masses unfortunately have been less informed about globalization and its neo-liberal tendencies. Perceived as and sold by the conservative media as “free market”, private ownerships parallel with widespread entrepreneurial success, and its economic consequences remain the same. He stated, “ The economic consequences of these policies have been the same just about everywhere, and exactly what one would expect: a massive increase in social and economic inequality, a marked increase in severe deprivation for the poorest nations and peoples of the world, a disastrous global environment, an unstable global economy and an unprecedented bonanza for the wealthy. Confronted with these facts, defenders of the neo-liberal order claim that the spoils of the good life will invariably spread to the broad masses of the population—as long as the neo-liberal policies that exacerbated these problems are not interfered with!”(8). In fact, neo-liberals do not offer solutions for their own failed economic policies, but rather draw “upon nineteenth century theories that have little connection to the actual world” (8).

Nineteenth century theories of domination and exploitation as we know were theories of colonization and racial superiority. Feeding on the apathy and cynicism they have created among “depoliticized citizenry,” the path is set for global exploitation. In Empire Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri Hardt argue that the information revolution is changing the boundaries and structures of nation states to replaced by global sovereignty or “Empire.” This consists of “a series of national and supranational organisms united under a single logic of rule,” with no clear international hierarchy (p. xii) and without a Wallersteinian notion of periphery and center. “Imperialism,” therefore, they claim was not part of globalization because, imperialism “was really an extension of the sovereignty of the European nation-states beyond their own boundaries” (p. xii), and that was not the case with globalization. For them, not only is imperialism or colonialism is dead, but also the current economic domination and exploitation of raw material providing nations by industrialized nations powers without direct political control, because there exist “no differences of nature” but “only differences of degree” between the nations.

Are not these reasons to approach globalization with skeptics and bring it in relation to foreign western dominance of non-western economies? Although it is quite easy and efficient, mostly for western nations to ignore many drawbacks, it is more probable for others to track what globalization means and whether it has a darker side that would come to bare after it has been uncritically accepted. Is globalization the new colonization of the world to create a feudal majority that work just for big companies, trans-nationals and NGO’s to help the west keep its strangle hold on the rest of the world? It is clear that no new ideology has escaped processes of critic, in particular, at times when it was very important to objective if one wants to achieve significant understanding and improvements in society. Moreover, the need of creative-involvement provides enough acumen to resist what is likely to be economic bondage of the poor. The relative speed globalization is spreading its ‚ideals’ and its use of the charm of freedom, democracy and disappearing national boundaries to lull the masses have raised thoughtful and poignant questions of its basic principles.

Essentially, as this essay will show, globalization is a Trojan horse even more so it is anchored in colonialism, seemingly poised to override national autonomies for objectives unconceivable other than global economic and military domination. That this assertion remains hidden from the minds of those strongly in favor of globalization, have to be credited to academic and political lobbyists, if not media discursiveness. Is globalization inherently about positive human development and free-markets? To address these issues one has to understand the economic alliances of the west and for that matter industrialized nations, or to call by name, the United States, European Union, Russia and Japan’s modern day dictatorial agendas under the guise of G8. As many argue, G8 and international institutions force less powerful nations to agree to inhumane economic and cultural policies disregarding human rights, civil liberties, privacy and movement of its population within the contest of that cultural busting terminology, "war on terror." Globalization is thus, a platform on which western nations confer under the guise of international forums to accelerate economic and political policies without the consent of their citizens because they will never be approved under regular domestic political process. Thus is a technologically fast-pace world, where even the privacy of one’s home is an open secret, the media in collaboration with powerful western nations are limiting civil liberties of less powerful nations and peoples. Success of globalization is perfect when the west has its favorite boy sitting at the realms of an emerging economy where human rights are an illusion.

Globalization, as it is being disseminated by the press, neo-conservative and neo-liberals politicians and academicians, is an event that would bring economic global justice and equality to non-western cultures when they open up and allow free flow of goods and western styled democracy in their markets and culture. In reality, as history shows, such expansionism had always being destructive, exploitative and entailed condescending functionabilities. Virgil’s Aeneid narrating the story of troy, famously made Laocoön expressed these words -

“equo ne credite, Teucri. Quidquid id est, timeo Danaos et dona ferentes” (Do not trust the horse, Trojans! Whatever it is, I fear the Greeks, even bringing gifts).

Laocoon, the Trojan priest of Poseidon warned Trojans about the wooden horse sent as a present by the Greeks to their city. In his view it “Somewhat [was] sure designed, by fraud or force: Trust not their presents, nor admit the horse,” Laocoon’s plea felt on deaf ears because for many, the wooden horse was a present, which will not only help improve relationships between two aggressive states but also bring development. It was to be otherwise as Greek mythology shows us. In the bowels of the supposedly “present”, was the poison that will destroy the lives of the Trojans.

Globalization is today’s Trojan horse, today’s subtle means of colonizing the globe, a system of thought that is disempowering, will create modern slavery and feudal societies on the soils of emerging economies. What drives globalization and how does it overrides the autonomy of countries outside the west? When I say, globalization, I talk about ideological groups and allied groups of the west with broader interests of world domination through western planned policies legalized through partial intent of their population.

Thus, Colonization and globalization, as I will discuss in this essay show striking similarity with the unleashing of European cultural principles unto annexed colonial territories, alienation of colonized people from their cultures, extraction of raw materials, identity and discourse to create self-destructive dependency. Are there similarities in ways of understanding these concepts in terms of what they proclaim or in terms of their consequences? Those who do not the definitions of colonialism, could believe the neo-liberal proposition that globalization is the absolute path to free market and equality. Who decides dictates these concepts of free market and equality? Finding answers to these questions have ample meaning to this book, because explanation of their meaning will foster confidence to engage those popular views that maintain the structures of power and oppression. In which case, our main concern is to critique globalization by arguing that its impact, theory and practice are grounded in colonialism and entails similar fallibilities of thought that dominated the globe the last six hundred hears and obviously still having enormous impact on human nature, society, and the notion of them and us. Critics might say it is simplistic to address both theories in such terms. However, as I will argue, my argumentative and comparable approach will bring enough understanding and enticing debate on the condition to the contemporary world, a world in which your neighbour becomes a terrorist when he disagrees with you on political issues, a world in which scholarship is imprisoned by or become just like the uncritical mainstream media. Serious scholarship some time ago was driven by the desire for knowledge, and finding solutions to problems.

This essay, therefore, investigates the view that globalization is the subtle form of colonization which is shaped in large part according to western design to emphatically control the globe. What does seem increasingly clear, however, is that, these two theories, teasing, when one talks about bringing civilization and development to far and dark corners of the world, though complex and still fascinating, have an evil nature – to make the masses dependent and under the control of giant corporations. Thus, contrary to the common notion of free market, globalization invites multinational companies, powerful nations, supported by their military to abuse and deconstruct economical and political systems to create power structures that to promote a new world order, obviously vague in definition and appealing to emotionality rather than to its clear rational of hype-commercialism. Its purpose is expansion and destruction, consequently to lead to a monopoly over world resources so that the west and new emerging Asian economies could harness control over foreign territories, its peoples, and market. Like the Trojan horse, expansionism comes with military power. Moreover, if one looks critically at the new structuring of world territories, it becomes feasible that military bases, swimming military airports, and gunboats have become the mainstay of obtaining a monopoly of the globe’s natural resources.

This is just a sneak preview of mass cultural of denial and lack of debate about twenty-first century western empire and its notion of superior race and technology. Expansion, not only on the globe, but also in space is the West's means of achieving security. It is also imperative to know that this new nature of colonialism, in other words, globalization, is also being pushed forward in conjunction with the corrupt favorite boys and house slaves of western empire. One of its effects is to generate control by western standards and modes of production. For example, somewhere in many parts of Africa, there is a rice farmer managing to plant and produce rice. The consequence is the frightening high level of imported rice attached to the institution of open markets that allow western and Asian produces of rice to flood local markets with cheap rice to destroy the local rice economy. Not being in the position of compete against subsidized foreign rice, it ends up with the rice farmer and his employees moving to cities that have become the centers of outsourced jobs. Literally, the local rice producer and his employees become the product of the state sector and western private enterprises for profit that have no or less benefit to the local economy. In that respect, globalization is an illusion that many people believe is a profitable venture, yes profitable for the west, and their favorite boys they have put in power who will secure through brutalizing their own people, profits for their western accomplices, but not for the locals.

Now, if nations refused to be exploited, western media is authorized to disseminate false news about “dictators” who are starving their own people, although it is clear to any reasonable human being, that these so-called dictators have only refused to hand over their economies to the modern colonialists and consequently are punished with sanction. Thus, globalization has a framework that is based on extremely skewed and narrow doctrinal symbolisms that project notions of equal economic developments and human rights, but with principles, that favors the west. If one looks at the coverage, globalization corresponds very much to colonialism. That is, many unethical and supposedly politicians of poorer states, mostly in Africa and Asia, are deeply involved, untiringly collaborating with the powerful west to single-handedly handout their resources for minor gains such as scholarships and visas for their children in Europe and America, and enclaves to hide from resisting forces in their countries. How can a country, to take any country in Africa as a substantive case, compete with any western nation, when its budget is a third of what McDonald makes in a year, if you will, in Germany. How can such a country compete with western state-subsidized and protected private power investors that tyrannize foreign countries, violate all economic principles on the world market, and protected through western gunboat diplomacy? Yet, the jargonized social sciences, literary criticisms especially in postcolonial, political and cultural studies remain adamant of this development.

Indeed, globalization have reached a stage where it may be defined as a fashionable field of making a living through excessive phraseology that is evasive of the essence of globalization, that is supposedly to improve the lives of “barbarians” who cannot solve their own affairs. Five hundred years ago, the same was said in Europe about the peoples of Africa and the Americas. That was the colonial era. If the same is been said about globalization, is then globalization the same as colonization? This is the core of this book. Further, at this critical intellectual diversion from memory and knowledge to downgrade the ghastly sides of colonialism, it is time to recount and face the painful theoretical truth about this part of human history, which laid down the foundation of the contemporary build up of attitudes, reason, perception and geography of the globe. Indeed memory, within the context of colonialism is continuously overlooked, let alone that in many former territories under European control, let us consider most of Africa, some parts of the Caribbean and south America, where any retrieval of colonial conditions remain impossible. The imperial of space, new high tech weapons, atomic energy, and markets are well accepted by a notorious ignorant sanctioned population starved by imperial-like arranged unifications of nations with similar biological and political agendas – to gain control of the world resources at the expense of the mostly brainwashed masses. Critics want to convince many that ahistoricism is the starting point when it comes to analyzing issues directly relating to former European colonies, and very much not the case when it comes to analyzing developments in the so-called industrialized nations. Postcolonial studies, as it is therefore contemporarily marketed are equated with progress. This development is self-deceiving and comes as no surprise in a period when one notices a rekindling of fundamentalist western perceptions in cultural studies; that is most current investigations into colonialism and post colonialism are less interested in the reality of colonialism than in enormous efforts in abstractising colonial realities.

Consequently, postcolonial, interdisciplinary and cultural studies have been reduced to discourses in the raw. Are the new interpretations of post colonialism politically motivated, or are they attempts to accommodate perspectives that elevate western cultural imperialism? Talking about and perceiving globalization as free market and worldwide economic development module, many complex issues and questions on who dictates globalization and who benefits most are ignored. If one wants to hear it or not, even those so-called western liberal politicians and media are in denial of its dark sides for fear of shattering the status quo. However to understand these complex questions one must once again critically examine the theories of colonialism. Globalization is not simplistically about free markets, but rather it is about complex structures, diversities and biological entities that are denounce freedom. Thus, it is of importance to address globalization within the contest of colonialism to highlight in a profound way, its potential dark sides and challenges it bring to the table of the developing world. Understanding what is hidden behind globalization will provide insights and mechanisms to resist and developed other economic measures that will level the playing fields whilst facilitating fundamentals structures of economies in developing countries without exploitations.

In a section of his book, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa (1982) Walter Rodney illustrates this ideological conflict. He stresses that such celebrations owe much to the western colonial and postcolonial discursive trajectories and its continuous defense of established conventions. He argues: "Faced with the evidence of European exploitation of Africa, many bourgeois writers would concede at least partially that colonialism was a system, which functioned well in the interests of the metropoles. However, they would the urge that another issue to be resolved is how much Europeans did for Africans, and that it is necessary to draw up a balance sheet of colonialism. On that balance sheet, they place both the credits and the debits, and quite often conclude that the good outweighed the bad (205)."

Rodney does not deny the “credits” of colonization whose typical manifestation -- changes in the structures of culture and body politics -- are applauded by “many bourgeois writers.” He realizes there is a problem for social scientists to focus on multiple aspects of colonialism by ascribing its operation to other paradigms. Such overt understanding of colonialism, as Rodney argues, validates the idea of structures for its audiences and subsequently leaves behind actualities of the colonial experiences dear to the postcolonial school with particular emphasis on the internal logic of colonialism. According to Rodney, these rhetorical strategies miss out situations in which the missionary’s character was no longer congruent with the principles of ethics. When Rodney’s observation opposes the modernist argument, it was not only aimed at questioning contemporary consciousness. It was a thrust to instigate adequate investigation about the monolithic control of the west and its insistence that civilization and salvation can be achieved only through their culture. In a world of increased reliance on cultural constructions of race, class and gender, the west becomes the blueprint of identity akin to a philosophy that “imposes his own values upon” others or exclude them. [2] If west as Rodney stated, had a mechanized attitude towards the colonized, then they cannot continue to dwell in the historical context of the 19th century, but be confronted with other issues which heightened tensions in the colonial space.

There are moments in the development of concepts that deserve skeptical blinks, because not all concepts lead to enrichment or a better understanding of the past and present. What remains is for the critical mind to seek the niche that goes against this academic editing. Being open about globalization is difficult, because the sheer influences of academic conservatives outweigh and push new criticisms to the fringes to protect with dramatized their hierarchy through a complexity of discourses. Given these ahistorical interpretive strategies, that is writing globalization as progress and hybridization many forget what Frantz Fanon once wrote “[…] colonialism is not a thinking machine, nor a body endowed with reasoning faculties. It is violence in its natural state, and it will only yield when confronted with greater violence.”[ii] Though it is fascinating to see how words are compiled to make up arguments, trendy arguments, it is the more terrifying to see how many fall prey to this modernist trap: post colonial culture evolved only through its concept of the common good. Looking and living in such an academic culture, the current generation of cultural studies academics are bound in singularity of thought destined to uphold a failing mentality, which despite its shortcomings is an avenue of employment, and making a living. Academics are ready to defer to postcolonial and colonial theories when the opinion is to rewrite imperial imaginations and lash out critics. Nevertheless, whatever the larger interests are, questions are being asked about the widening conception of post colonialism. In the words of the Comaroffs (1991), writing about Christianity, consciousness and colonialism, there is a “general neglect of colonialism – indeed, of history itself – by a discipline mainly interested until very recently in ‘traditional’ […] society and culture”[iii] because of its direct criticism of the conservative academic status quo. If there is a consensus in how to envisage post colonialism, then it is by throwing in into the field abstract concepts.

This essay discusses globalization by looking at some theories of colonialism and their diverse meanings, misconceptions and ideological conflicts to show how it has morphosed into a politically motivated conception characterized by power, race, and exploitation that should sustain western economic and military dominance at the expense on non-European. It takes particular interest in the works of Karl Marx, Immanuel Wallerstein, Hobson, and Lenin, colonial conception of otherness, and political imagination power.



PART TWO


Colonialism, Imperialism and Globalization

a. Colonialism.

“The social effects of colonialism are more insidious than the political and economic. This is because they go deep into the minds of the people and therefore take longer to eradicate. The Europeans relegated us to the position of inferiors in every aspect of our everyday life. Many of our people came to accept the view that we were an inferior people.” Kwame Nkrumah. Africa Must Unite. 1985, p. 32.

Much of the critical work on modern colonialism consider it as a social phenomena of the 19th and 20th centuries that enabled European states to settle and expand their control over foreign territory, peoples, and cultures (Marx 1978; Lenin 1939; Loth 1963). These writers sought to consider economic exploitation, dehumanization, Missionshandelsgeschäfte , the extermination of whole nations, and the partition of non-European territories as indispensable in defining colonialism. With the onset of Japanese and American adventures, colonialism also came to refer to the direct exploitation of labor and trade and the construction of a formal system of political dependency of foreign territories on “Western” nations (Wallerstein 1976; Rodney 1982).

Osterhammel in Colonialism (1997) recognizes the expansion of this concept as being increasingly falsified leaving it with no uniform self-definition. “These days, cultural critics and political polemicists often refer to a ‘colonization’ of human life by bureaucracy and technology or a ‘colonization’ of society by political parties. They typically associate this term with manipulations, usurpation and illegitimate appropriation, terms that betray a negative assessment of everything related to ‘colonialism’ (3). He continues by saying that “colonialism must be seen from all these angles, with a central focus on both perpetrators and victims” (4).

Colonialism in its origin, Osterhammel argues, remains “a relationship of domination between an indigenous (forcibly imported) majority and a minority of foreign invaders. The fundamental decisions affecting the lives of the colonized people are made and implemented by the colonial rulers in pursuit of interests that are often defined in a distant metropolis. Rejecting cultural compromises with the colonized population, the colonizers are convinced of their own superiority and of their ordained mandate to rule” (16-7). Underlying the colonial ambition was a worldview of Europeans that claimed that “racial” and cultural differences were in a sense, the means of measuring of human superiority. In particular, Osterhammel’s criticism challenges the widely held notion that colonialism is an “European ‘universal mission’ … [and]… ‘mandate to civilize’ the ‘barbarians or savages’ …[and]… a ‘white man’s burden’ that he is privilege to carry…”(16). In his view, colonialism has yet to come under scathing critique from investigative studies since much “criticisms” on colonialism turn out to be denials and reformulation of the whole treacherous enterprise. Osterhammel notes that colonialism’s lack of self-understanding is essentially an ideological movement of modernity thinkers who do not consider the broader implications of the notion of colonialism. For the moment, this blog considers further definitions and ambiguities, which have risen from a lack of clear definition of colonialism.

As early as the mid-nineteenth century, Marx described the working of colonialism in Capital (1959) . Marx argued that the overseas expansion of Europe was basically a means of primitive capital accumulation. In capitalistic economies, the crucial component for the drive to expand is the capacity to enlarge the scale of capital. Marx ably explores the relationship between the dynamics of pre-industrial Europe and its consequential consumerism that demanded overseas raw materials and investments. He places the colonial system at the forefront as an important factor in the rise of the bourgeoisie, and more importantly, the establishing of the material base for exploitation, class conflicts and finally the world revolution of the proletariat and the triumph of communism (751). Implicit in such conception is the view that the horrors of colonialism are necessary in eliminating capitalism, because these horrors raise the self-consciousness of the colonized and inspire them to shed their backwardness. Since Marx, there is a strong tendency to treat colonialism as the vehicle of mercantilism and exploitation.

TO BE CONTINUED