Colonialism

Colonization is a process that replaces indigenous peoples’ culture with those of the colonizer and puts in place institutions and mechanisms to perpetuate it. Colonization is not simply an act of taking over physical territory, it is also an act of taking over the mind.

It takes over the mind by supplanting the indigenous social narrative with one contrived by the colonizers:

• By shaping the past to suit and promote the colonizer
• By marginalizing the indigenous peoples, their histories, languages and cultures.
• By defining the colonizer as “civilized” and the colonized as “savages,”
• By diminishing or ignoring the contributions and worth of colonized societies
• By manipulating the identities of the colonized, leading to divisions among indigenous groups, making it easier to apply “divide and conquer” strategies.

Colonizers perpetuate their narrative across community groups and generations:

• By education (Textbooks for example) that promotes manipulated historical narratives that reflect only the colonialist’s view that become the ‘truths’ taught to the new generation, effectively shaping the perspectives of future generations.
• By creating a state of ignorance, people are concerned only with trivial matters
• By institutions that perpetuate colonialist’s practices, law, culture, religion, and ignore or actively discredit those of the indigenous population