Decolonisation, knowledge and political independence

OUR knowledge of the nation’s history, rather, the lack of it is legendary. In many ways, we are nonchalant about our past, if not selective, subconsciously or otherwise. Another aspect of the past — haunted by a few, resisted by some and celebrated by many — is colonialism. In my previous articles, the most recent dated June 27, 2018 and titled “Theorising as usual, or a new perspective”, I dwelled on alternative discourses in the social sciences and the humanities and intellectual imperialism viz. Malaysian universities.

A prerequisite of approaching a restructured and an autonomous tradition in the social sciences is appropriating modern history and engaging in decolonisation — as a process and consequence. Few, if ever, linger on decolonisation in history, and as elements in the emergence of new states and societies, and as actors in a globalised world.

In the run-up to Malaysia’s National Day this Friday, the discourse usually takes on a popular turn generated by the government, media and universities. But universities in the country must play a significantly different role. Academics must take on a different level of discourse in engaging the campus population and the public on the meaning of “independence” and liberation viz. the nation-state. Flying the national flag is one manifestation. But the onus to objectively inculcate what our society means and has gone through over more than six decades should go beyond the popular — beyond “patriotic” documentaries and films produced yearly to portray the “struggle” and “hardship” during British and Japanese colonialism, and the Communist insurgency.

This is where too, Members of Parliament, the Cabinet and public authorities need to expand their horizon on what it means to be “independent”. The “Malaysia Baru” that we came to celebrate post-May 9 should be seen as a continuation of the establishment of Malaysia as a nation-state, and not only as a critical juncture, revolutionising the nation. If our thinking is still colonised, there is no change.

In the month of independence (Bulan Merdeka) this August, it is pertinent to think and re-understand what is meant by the term “decolonisation”. Very little is discussed about this in Malaysian universities and among members of society. Strictly speaking, “decolonisation” is a technical and undramatic term for one of the most dramatic processes in modern history. This refers to the disappearance of the empire as a political form, and the end of racial hierarchy as a widely accepted political ideology and the structuring principle of world order. Colonialism, as we and other nations have experienced it, is racial prejudice — with a “White race” (or a superior “Japanese race” in Japanese colonialism in China and Southeast Asia) dominating and subjugating non-white peoples. Note that “Japanese Occupation” is the term normally used.

In their book “Decolonization: A Short History” (2017), first published in German in 2013 as “Dekolonisation”, authors Jan C. Jansen and J¸rgen Osterhammel examine decolonisation in the heart of modern history and how new states emerged as actors in global politics. Tracing the decline of European, American and Japanese colonial supremacy from World War 2 to the 1990s, they provide a comparative perspective on the decolonisation process.

Anchoring to the history of the 20th century, the authors in specific terms, spell out that decolhistorians onisation is two things: the simultaneous dissolution of several intercontinental empires and the creation of nation-states throughout the global South within a short time span of roughly three postwar decades (1945-1975), and linked with the historically unique and, in all likelihood, irreversible delegitimisation of any kind of political rule that is experienced as a relationship of subjugation to a power elite considered by a broad majority of the population as alien occupants.

Critical to our consciousness, decolonisation designates a specific world-historical moment, yet it also stands for a many faceted process that played out in each region and country shaking off colonial rule. On the other hand, the authors argue, some scholars put less emphasis on the breakdown of empires and more on local power shifts in specific colonies when colonial powers transferred institutional and legal control over their territories and dependencies to indigenously based, formally sovereign, nation-states. What the authors forget is that earlier, the indigenousbased territories were robbed off their sovereignty by the colonial powers through the destruction of peoples, identities, systems and legal institutions by the very alien institutions that came to replace them.

Nevertheless, we can learn much on decolonisation, viz. the different levels and themes. There are vagueness and ambiguities on the part of the historical phenomenon itself. Decolonisation has a history. And on this, Jansen and Osterhammel remind that “decolonisation” is not a category that or social scientists thought up in retrospect. Traces of the concept may be found much earlier. And in Malaysia, before 1957, and even before Japanese colonialism in 1941.

The authors find that the term “decolonisation” can be attested lexically since 1836. There are some theoretic elaborations in the writings of the German émigré economist Moritz Julius Bonn. Yet, it was found used more significantly frequently beginning in the mid-1950s. The process was a violent affair — India 1947 (about 15 million refugees were expelled), Algeria (195462) and (1946-54), Indonesia (1945-1949), Vietnam (1964-1973). These are follow-up wars of decolonisation.

But decolonisation is not only “the lowering of the flag histories”. The colonisers did not simply turn off the light and vanish into the night. It is the broader process of disentanglement, re-entanglement and re-enlightenment. Intellectual production from universities in Malaysia must factor in the reintegration of the political, economic, social and cultural dimensions of knowing. And more so, it is the restructuring of knowledge about ourselves, our identity, our history, our geography and our indigeneity.

... decolonisation is not only ‘the lowering of the flag histories’.

...It is the broader process of disentanglement, re-entanglement and re-enlightenment.