Issues for Classroom Discussion
Decolonization is a vital interest of post-colonial writers. Decolonization involves the decolonization of various concepts, which include the following: history, patriarchy, boundaries, and self. Concretely, what does this vast abstraction mean?
Decolonizing history can include any of the following works and concepts: works by native authors, works using words from native languages, works which focus on native people, works which show the pain of being colonized, confrontational works, works which focus on the native struggle for independence, works which focus on ecology.
Decolonizing patriarchy can include the following works and concepts: works by female writers, works which focus on female characters, works which deal with an array of female issues - including divorce, child custody, legal and inheritance rights, marital infidelity, societal emphasis on male rights and prerogatives, female political power, and female education, work, and daily pursuits.
Decolonizing boundaries involves the critique of boundaries set up by colonialism, whether those boundaries are geographical, social, cultural, ethnic, artistic, or personal.
Decolonizing the self involves a confrontation with the notion of the self constructed by the language and ideology of the colonizers. It can explore such themes and metaphors as the difference between the outer and inner self, alienation, madness, mental breakdown, and finally, regenerative possibilities afforded by reconnection with one’s roots and one’s authentic identity.
Decolonizing art, for the artist, means breaking with slavish adherence to colonial models, including themes, forms, styles, and ideologies.
Discuss where Forster fits in this twentieth century literary movement.
Also, discuss the view by historian Niall Ferguson, expressed in “America: an Empire in Denial,” in The Chronicle of Higher Education, 28 Mar. 2003, B7-B10, that “no organization in history has done more to promote the free movement of goods, capital, and labor than the British empire in the 19th and early 20th centuries. And no organization has done more to impose Western norms of law, order, and governance around the world. To characterize all this as ‘gentlemanly capitalism’ risks underselling the scale—and modernity—of the achievement in the sphere of economics; just as criticism of the ‘ornamental’ (meaning hierarchical character) of British rule overseas tends to overlook the signal virtues of what were remarkably nonvenal administrations” (B9).
Ferguson believes that the British accomplished a lot, and that it is the fashion now to overlook their accomplishments and to emphasize their faults of empire. His list of what they brought to colonized countries is instructive:
1. The English language
2. English forms of land tenure
3. Scottish and English banking
4. The Common Law
5. Protestantism
6. Team sports
7. The limited or ‘night watchman’ state
8. Representative assemblies
9. The idea of liberty (B9)
Although Ferguson points out that the British did not live up to their own ideals, nevertheless they had many accomplishments, many of which are capitalist in nature, but also in areas of communications, rule of law, and, at times, maintenance of global peace (B10).
For balance in the discussion, also consider the views of Edward Said, in Culture and Imperialism, New York: Knopf, 1993. Said finds that Forster uses Passage to India to represent “vastness, incomprehensible creeds, secret motions, histories, and social forms” (200). He finds Forster’s sympathy to lie more with the Muslims than with the Hindus, but states that his “final lack of sympathy [for either] is obvious” (202). He finds that Forster plays down the opposition between India and Britain. He concedes that the portrait of India is affectionate and personal, but that India’s struggle for independence is not taken sufficiently seriously.
Carefully discuss Forster’s portrait of the main British and Indian characters, as well as his narrative tone.