There Is No One Way To Be

Dr. Taymiya has, in the most eloquent manner, captured the split personalities within all of us. In the Manichean world of binaries, we would neatly fit into the category of the colonized. However, colonization did not leave us untainted – perhaps, it led parts of ourselves to begin thinking and acting as the colonizers. 

Indeed, we see also come to see the world in binaries. We notice this in the way we study our own histories. We tend to categorize our culture and traditions into pre- and post-colonial times. All the changes after the colonial era are impure and inorganic. They violate the true essence of our culture. This implies that there was an essence to begin with; the essence that remains unconquered. We, the high and mighty writing our own histories in foreign languages, claim to have the authority to decide what the essence is, and what constitutes a violation.

Yet, in our binaries, we forget our own agency as the colonized. Drawing a line between what is indigenous and what was imposed is an impossible process. The things that were imposed had to adapt within the local society and thus become a type of hybrid. Like the colonized, then, do we take the mantle upon ourselves to impose rejections of those aspects tainted by colonialism? If decolonization, as freedom from oppression and restoration to the authentic forms, is a homecoming, then who gets to decide what the home is? If, and naturally so, the process of decolonization has induced within us some changes that we are willing to live with, then can they not be a part of our homes? 

Dr. Taymiya gives the example of her own experience in Mexico, where, as a brown woman, she was outraged at the use of Spanish as the primary language of communication. It, to her (and all of us), symbolized the cultural death of Mexico at the hands of Spanish colonialism. However, five centuries later, the Mexicans seemed unbothered. They seemed to own Mexican Spanish as their language. This makes us question our own binaries and notions of change against an unchanging essence. The former precludes us from appreciating the dynamism of the latter.
Another example of the same problem is our tendency to judge other cultures from the same colonial lens. We believe in our own cultural superiority and accept our norms as ideals. Thus, for, instance, most of us would look at the case of Kenya and sent a silent blessing upon the whites for ending the barbaric practice of clitoridectomy, which is barbaric by our standards. Do we not see ourselves closer to the colonizer than the colonized, in this case?

It is difficult to decolonize our modes of thought and smash the colonial binaries. History can be studied, however, without imposing the colonial frameworks on every society. It is important to get rid of the colonizer within us, and to learn about other cultures and practices without creating hierarchies. This is a long process (which might take us five centuries or more to catch up).