Colonialist discourse (in the colonial as well as the so-called postcolonial situation), as it is disseminated in many European modes of thought and knowledge about the Other, has been functioning within intricate, violent structures and acts of domination, whose psychological effects-the negative aspects of so-called hybridity- such as shocks, traumas, and scars are left in and felt by today's (ex)colonisers and (ex)colonised. There are ample instances and examples of this kind of violent contact. The problem has been and is still being made more complex with the continuing perpetuation of imperialist aggression, which is justified by a more complex ideological system of what I call imperialist culture, rather than cultural imperialism. The ideological role of imperialist culture has been the lumping together of the Other's different ways of life with underdevelopment, violence, and terrorism, just as in the past non-European modes of life and violent barbarism were lumped together.
As long as the Other is still denied the right to belong to the same time, as long as there is a denial of coevaleness, as Fabian terms it, of the Other, domination will continue and will always find alibis and subterfuges. As long as the relationship between the powerful (ex)colonisers and the powerless (ex)colonised is maintained through the perpetuation of all structures and forms of inequality: economic, technological, political, military, etc., the debate on colonialism with all its posts will continue and the dismantling process of colonialist discourse, which is based on two psychological elements: the superiority complex and the inferiority complex will take longer time, more violence and counter-violence to eradicate, erase, and eventually obliterate from memory.
Last modified: 7 May 2001