Decolonizing The Mind
“The real aim of colonialism was to control the people’s wealth: what they produced, how they produced it, and how it was distributed; to control, in other words, the entire realm of the language of real life. Colonialism imposed its control of the social production of wealth through military conquest and subsequent political dictatorship. But its most important area of domination was the mental universe of the colonized, the control, through culture, of how people perceived themselves and their relationship to the world. Economic and political control can never be complete or effective without mental control. To control a people’s culture is to control their tools of self-definition in relationship to others.
For colonialism this involved two aspects of the same process: the destruction or deliberate undervaluing of a people’s culture, their art, dances, religions, history, geography, education, orature, and literature, and the conscious elevation of the language and "culture” of the colonizer. The domination of a people’s language by the languages of the colonizing nations were crucial to the domination of the mental universe of the colonized.
The effect of the cultural bomb is to annihilate a people’s belief in their names, in their languages, in their environment, in their heritage of struggle, in their unity, in their capacities and ultimately in themselves. It makes them see their past as one wasteland of non-achievement and it makes them want to distance themselves from that wasteland. It makes them want to identify with that which is furthest removed from themselves; for instance, with other peoples’ languages rather than their own. It makes them identify with that which is decadent and reactionary, all those forces that would stop their own springs of life. It even plants serious doubts about the moral righteousness of struggle. Possibilities of triumph or victory are seen as remote, ridiculous dreams. The intended results are despair, despondency, and a collective death-wish.“ - Ngugi Wa Thiong'o - Decolonising The Mind: The Politics of Language in African Literature
Decolonize the Mind - is the meaningful and active disciplined practice to heal from the forces of colonialism that perpetuate the subjugation and/or exploitation of our minds, bodies, spirits, and lands. Through studying historical indigenous cultural practices of people colonized throughout the world, tools that heal people from historical and complex trauma are discovered, understood and developed to assist in the process to decolonize the mind.
Decolonizing actions must begin in the mind, and that creative, consistent, decolonized thinking shapes and empowers the brain, which in turn provides a major prime for positive change. Undoing the effects of colonialism and working toward decolonization requires each of us to consciously consider to what degree we have been affected by not only the physical aspects of colonization, but also the psychological, mental, and spiritual aspects.
Source: Divine Forces
