Could Post-colonialism Be More “post-colonial” Than It Actually Is?

Abstract

The burgeoning discourse of postcolonialism in Africa, Asia and Latin American is not without criticism. More recent theorists such as San Juan and Arif Dirlik have indefatigably attempted to redefine what it means to be postcolonial either in fiction or non-fiction. Their argument is that postcolonial theory, as currently practised (irrespective of Mongia Padmini’s interesting distinction between postcolonialism as a psychological condition and postcolonialism as a historical phenomenon) is « less postcolonial than it should be ». However, my contention that, without suggesting that an age of post-postcolonialism has to begin, the major focus should not be on « Re’s » but on « P’s ». That is to say, the African writers ‘literary production is not just responding to the West’s hegemonic thought, revalorising the cultures, rehabilitating the past, re-assessing the colonial history, revisiting the Orientalists’ assumption, reviving the tradition, reconsidering the colonial legacies. Rather, the postcolonial discourse has to be postcolonial, political, pragmatic and propulsive to action (of course the classical form, as it were, of postcolonialism is not apolitical). It has so far been stated that the actual writings, however postcolonial they claim to be, are complicit with the imperialist thought that they presumably attack. We shall see see in this paper that neither position is fully justified and that a fruitful redefinition of postcolonial thought must consider the “nervous condition” engendered by globalisation both as an ideology and as a historical necessity, so to speak.