Borderlands

Decolonization had several devastating consequences but perhaps one of the most enduring and profound of its damages is its psychological imprint on our epistemology and conscience. Colonization, hence, hasn’t just been one of land, resources, heritage, and identity but also of ways of knowing and experiencing the world. As the white people ensured there remained only one valid way – only their way – of interacting with and navigating the present, the future was meant for only those who fit the mould. All other ways of inhabiting the world were categorically declared primitive and a roadblock for progress until the nations eschewed them or modified them to ‘civilization’ standards. Even so, nations were forced to be ensnared in the trap of incessantly catching up to the task of civilizing themselves to the validation of white people and their standards.

Anzaldua proposes a mestiza consciousness, a third consciousness that is neither tied to the historicity of our indigenous traditions nor an emulation of the ‘civilized’ way we’re meant to follow. A great part of colonization’s baggage is not only that it has ensured the whitewash of our culture but to those who are aware of the self-minimization, entangled them in a false and undue glorification of their own ways. Even while they are aware of colonization invalidating their ways of living, they are not aware that they are still operating within its dichotomy of the one who exists in the present and the future, and the ones who don’t. One is always more dominant than the other. The ascent to the throne of progress necessitates violence on the other creating a monolithic future, regardless of who takes up what position. Mestiza consciousness departs from reacting to the oppressor for while that may be liberating, still locks one in the cycle of oppression. It is exclusionary, unsustainable, and doesn’t pave the way forward. Even when we are defying the oppressor, we are responding to it; our realities are constrained within the paradigm of oppression still. Possibilities, that are more forward-looking, only reveal themselves to us when we open ourselves to them, to differences and accepting them. We have to learn to live in the ambivalence that pluralism and flexibility bring with it; we have to be accepting of all cultures without abandoning any. The third way respects the historical heritage and recognizes the damage not just the fact that it was inflicted but that it is a bridge to moving on. We have to critique those without, rejecting imitation of its ways, and those within, of acknowledgement and disclosure of the violence by those from us. It starts by taking inventory, critically evaluating, and then shedding the oppressive, divisive aspects of our history, religion, and culture. We have to lay ourselves bare and expose ourselves to new ways of thinking, experiencing, and being. We have to deconstruct what is familiar and valid, and from it construct new ways, personal to us and grounded in spaces open to all. The battle starts within first and then wages out in the open, in the wider society.