Hello,
Welcome to the first issue of The Zing! This is where we interrogate some pressing themes related to decoloniszation through poetry, literature, music, art, and films.
For our first issue we will be looking at the idea of decoloniszation itself:
“Decolonization is the process of deconstructing colonial ideologies of the superiority and privilege of Western thought and approaches. On the one hand, decolonization involves dismantling structures that perpetuate the status quo and addressing unbalanced power dynamics. On the other hand, decolonization involves valuing and revitalizing Indigenous knowledge and approaches and weeding out settler biases or assumptions that have impacted Indigenous ways of being. For non-Indigenous people, decolonization is the process of examining your beliefs about Indigenous Peoples and culture by learning about yourself in relationship to the communities where you live and the people with whom you interact.”
Decoloniszation is mostly an attempt at diversifying the common mode of address and learning to speak more adequately for ourselves. At its best, the movement has allowed people to break away from their oppressors and enabled us to revisit, remember, and interrogate our colonial past and its effects in contemporary times. At its worst, it has proven to be an excuse to promote jingoism (aggressive and violent nationalism). And in no way is it a thing of the past. Even today, many communities live through violent colonial and imperial economic exploitation. As for states exited by occupiers, power structures haven’t witnessed complete erasure and continue to marginalise the people in various ways, in a disproportionate manner.
How do we navigate through the multitude of these narratives? How do we dismantle these systems without falling into the trap of ethnonationalism? Is there even a way out?
These questions beg long and nuanced conversations with democratic participation. We hope this newsletter gives you a starting point to these discourses straight from the people analysing or affected by these systems.
Hale, Woodruff.
Settlement and Development
. 1949.
The Mural Conservancy of Los Angeles, Los Angeles
, https://www.muralconservancy.org/murals/settlement-and-development.
Before we begin, here is a glossary of our first issue:
Capitalism: An economic system characterised by private or corporate ownership of capital goods, by investments that are determined by private decision, and by prices, production, and the distribution of goods that are determined mainly by competition in a free market. (6) To understand it better, here is Rosa Luxemburg explaining capitalism with the help of spoons!
Classism: Class discrimination, also known as classism, is prejudice or discrimination based on social class. It includes individual attitudes, behaviours, systems of policies, and practices that are set up to benefit the "upper class" at the expense of the oppressed class. (6)
Imperialism: Imperialism is a policy or ideology of extending the rule or authority of a country over other countries and people, often by military force or by gaining political and economic control. (6)
Colonialism: The imperialist expansion of a nation (e.g.: Europe, Japan) into other regions in which a dominant imperium or centre carries on a relationship of control and influence over its margins or colonies. Such a system carried within its inherent notions of racial inferiority and exotic otherness. (6)
Settler Colonialism: Settler colonialism is a distinct type of colonialism that functions through the replacement of indigenous populations with an invasive settler society that, over time, develops a distinctive identity and sovereignty. (1)
Epistemology: Epistemology, a branch of philosophy, is the study of knowledge. Epistemologists primarily try to understand what knowledge is and isn’t, and what the extent of human knowledge can be. (8)
Rashid, Umar “
Frohawk Two Feathers
”.
Map of Hispaniola 1794
. 2012.
Morgan Lehmen Gallery
, http://www.morganlehmangallery.com/artists/umar-rashid-frohawk-two-feathers/biography.
What we’re watching
Camp de Thiaroye (1988)
Directed by Ousmane Sembène, Thierno Faty Sow: A Senegalese platoon of soldiers from the French Free Army are returned from combat in France and held for a temporary time in a military encampment with barbed wire fences and guard towers in the desert. Among their numbers is Sergeant Diatta, the charismatic leader of the troop who was educated in Paris, has a French wife and child, and Pays, a Senegalese soldier left in a state of shock from the war and concentration camps and who can only speak in guttural screams and grunts. (available on YouTube)
West Indies (1979)
Directed by Med Hondo: A single-set colour musical tracing the history of the West Indies through several centuries of French oppression. It juggles the colonial, post-colonial, and neocolonialist eras while heavily satirizing French imperialism. (available on YouTube)
Five Broken Cameras (2011)
Directed by Emad Burnat, Guy Davidi: Embedded in the bullet-ridden remains of digital technology is the story of Emad Burnat, a farmer from the Palestinian village of Bil’in, which famously chose nonviolent resistance when the Israeli army encroached upon its land to make room for Jewish colonists. Emad buys his first camera in 2005 to document the birth of his fourth son, Gibreel. Throughout the documentary, he becomes the peaceful archivist of an escalating struggle as olive trees are bulldozed, lives are lost, and a wall is built to segregate burgeoning Israeli settlements. (You can request a screening here)
Merata: How Mum Decolonised the Screen (2018)
Directed by Heperi Mita: An intimate tribute from a son about his mother that delves into the life of the first woman from an Indigenous Nation to solely direct a film anywhere in the world. Known as the grandmother of Indigenous cinema, Merata’s independent political documentaries of the ‘70s and ‘80s highlighted injustices for Māori people and often divided the country. (You can request a screening here.)
A Idade da Terra (1980)
Directed by Glauber Rocha: Four Third-World Christs try to stop the American industrialist John Brahms in Glauber Rocha’s experimental film inspired by Pier Paolo Pasolini’s murder. (Available on Youtube)
You can view the entire watchlist on Letterboxd.
Descriptions sourced from Letterboxd.
Our Mixtape
Minata Waraba
By Oumou Sangare: The artist is known for challenging oppression in traditional Islamic societies and championing for women’s rights in Africa.
Timtarin
By Tamikrest: Tamikrest means junction/connection in the Tamashek language, and their music is a tribute to the Touareg tribal identity.
Apathie Mortelle
By Bokante: Their music draws nuanced pictures of the struggles we face in our world today- racism, the refugee crisis, a dying planet, apathy towards human suffering.
El Derecho de Vivir en Paz
By Victor Jara: This song became a Chilean tool of resistance against the Pinochet regime that ultimately imprisoned and killed Jara.
1947 Se AK-47 Tak
By Deepakpeace: '1947 Se AK47 Tak" plays on how politics influences our personal lives and connects us back to the politics of the world at large.
You can also listen to the complete playlist on YouTube.
Fresh off the Shelf
Books
Images sourced from Barnes & Noble.
DMZ Colony
by Don Mee Choi: A collection of docupoetics, collage, and translation that bears witness to unheard voices from the Korean War and holds history accountable to present resistance against the empire.
Decolonising the Mind: The Politics of Language in African Literature
by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o: An introduction to linguistic decolonisation through a collection of essays about language and its constructive role in national culture, history and identity.
Islands of Decolonial Love: Stories & Songs
by Leanne Batasamosake Simpson: A vivid and poetic exploration of the lives of contemporary Indigenous peoples and communities, especially those of the Nishnaabeg nation, as they resist colonial oppression through decolonial love.
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
by Rebecca Skloot: The true story of Henrietta Lacks raises important questions of informed consent and ethics within science, shedding light onto the exploitation of marginalized communities, and advocates for the decolonisation of the sciences.
Feminism without Borders: Decolonizing Theory, Practicing Solidarity
by Chandra Talpade Mohanty: This collection of writings talks about the need to decolonisze and democratise feminist practices, offers a critique of Western feminism, and leads the way towards a feminism that is fully engaged with the realities of a transnational world.
Instead of buying from Amazon or other corporations, we would encourage you to support local bookstores and independent publishers. A lot of these stores ship abroad too!
If you are based in India, you can buy these titles from Earthcare Books, Seagull Books, The Bookshop, Jor Bagh Market, and Champaca Bookstore. For folks based in North America, you can use libro.fm and bookshop.org to find the closest independent bookstore near you.
A Recommendation from the dob Community!
“Things Fall Apart displays the attempt on Achebe’s part to understand the origin of the ‘culture crisis’ that was a consequence of colonialism. In his book Morning Yet on Creation Days (1975), Achebe asserts the need to “look back and try and find out what went wrong, where the rain started to beat us”. Located at the point of transition between indigenous culture to capitalist colonialism, the text foregrounds the Igbo community at the threshold of socio-political and cultural reconstructions.”
Read the complete review on our Medium blog!
Widely known as the ‘Father of African Literature’, Chinua Achebe’s contributions go beyond his literary works but also for popularizing and establishing an indigenous African perspective and for giving it a voice in a eurocentric hegemonized world. Mahima Sharma’s review of Achebe’s masterpiece ‘Things Fall Apart’ analyzes that voice (here, the Igbo tribe’s leader Okonkwo) as it clashes with the colonial rule that did not just exploit the African continent economically and politically but socially and psychologically as well.
Essays/ Articles
The History of Indigenous Peoples and Tourism: Tourism is just a harmless way of visiting foreign and exotic lands, and having fun, right? Well... not quite, tourism as an industry is rooted in colonial practices and continues to harm indigenous communities all around the world. (via Cultural Survival Quarterly Magazine)
What is Orientalism, and how it is also racism: What do the ‘fox eyes makeup’ trend, Sacha Baron Cohen in the Dictator and Raj Koothrappali have in common? And why is it a problem? (via Reappropriate)
Kashmir and the rise of settler colonialism: Drawing parallels between Palestine and Kashmir, Maknoon Wani looks at Indian State's efforts at settler colonialism and demographic change. She analyzes the last 7 decades of Indian coloniszation through the models presented by historian Patrick Wolfe. (via Himal Mag)
Decolonizing Science Writing in South Africa: When the word 'dinosaur' has no equivalent translation in his native language, how does a science journalist report the discovery of a new species of dinosaur? Sibusiso Biyela writes about South Africa's language divide and his efforts to decolonisze science for the average Zulu newsreader. (via The Open Notebook)
The deadly politics of colonial borders under COVID-19: The Radcliffe line - dividing India and Pakistan, was drawn on a map by a British lawyer who had in his entire life never seen the places he was going to partition, much less imagine the consequences his actions would bring. This article claims that modern national borders are merely colonial constructs and how times of crisis show us the need for transcending such borders to build collective anti-colonial solidarity. (via ROAR Mag)
Research Papers
Decolonization is not a metaphor: This research paper by Eve Tuck and K. Wayne Yang reminds readers about the unsettling meaning of decoloniszation in terms of actions and not just mere words. In a radical step back (or ahead) from our progressive calls for decoloniszing education and society where it becomes a metaphor through which we forget about the past and settler colonialism - the authors ask for repatriation, reparation and decoloniszation in its most tangible sense. (via Decolonization: Indigeneity, Education & Society)
Decolonizing Post-Colonial Studies and Paradigms of Political-Economy: Transmodernity, Decolonial Thinking, and Global Coloniality: Ramón Grosfoguel addresses critical border thinking and posits how we may move beyond Eurocentrism that still pervades Postcolonial Studies. Grosfoguel takes a different direction than Decoloniszation is not a metaphor, and urges for the adoption of a new form of universality “that builds a decolonial universal by respecting the multiples local particularities in the struggles against patriarchy, capitalism, coloniality and eurocentered modernity from a diversity of decolonial epistemic/ethical historical projects.” (3) (via Transmodernity: Journal of Peripheral Cultural Production of the Luso-Hispanic World)
Our Sister Projects
Liminal Transit Review - Liminal Transit Review is a literary journal that publishes work related to themes such as (but not limited to) diaspora, immigration, displacement, borders, and decolonization. LTR is open for submissions all year round.
Bilori Journal - Bilori Journal is a bilingual, Marathi and English journal aiming to publish academic, research, and personal essays about books that are under-marketed, lesser-known, suppressed and marginalised. Bilori is currently open for submissions.
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