What students have eagerly commented on plus shared observations by staff point to the presence of a constant critical evaluatory stance resulting in either critical resistance or critical awareness. These can be interdependent such that critical awareness can be seen to be producing critical resistance.
Nevertheless, interviewees suggest the presence of a critical awareness discourse in relation to imperialism. These critical thought processes have helped students and staff to understand how imperialism can become influential. According to students, such as Raheel, the potential of the English language to assert its authority to the extent that it subjugates a populace is obvious:
As far as imperialism of ideas superiority of ideas—subjugating a people physically and subjugating their minds their intellect—
language is a vehicle of ideas and when we embrace the English language as we have…
What Raheel means is that language delivers ideologies and their inherent inclusion represents the imperialist notion that one set of ideas is superior to another. Many interviewees clearly feel that the course structure has incorporated American names, opinions and cultural traits. The notion of bias in courses and the overwhelming inclusion of Western discourses in the curriculum are cause for concern. Farah elaborates as she describes the current curriculum:
It was very Western, like the stories and everything—Western names, Western ideas, Western culture. Composition skills were more neutral… There was one story I remember about the husband and wife and they like were not, it was about individualism, all that, and discontent and over here we do not have a lot of individualism… no concept…there were a couple of others...
The concept of individualism is alien to local discourse and therefore irrelevant and/or Western to Farah. Farah points out that such a concept is foreign and that individualism is not part of her social discourse. However, critical awareness enables her to identify the reason behind such inclusions. And even though individualism may have been foreign, this and other concepts are now more acceptable. The difference is evident when students make comparative observations:
The language has changed our perceptions…it is different [from what] our parents and grandparents used to think. There were
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many things that we do not even consider a taboo, for example, I cannot imagine my grandmother talking to strangers like girls do now.
According to Farah, the change in the way society perceives cultural deviation and the way in which cultural practices become dominated has transformed within a space of one generation. Farah’s comment suggests the change is more obvious in that young men and women are allowed to mix and approach each other. The concept, as one Rise University staff member mentioned, of
‘sharam haya’ (feminine modesty) has shifted. This concept of modesty has been an intrinsic part of local cultural values and celebrated in subcontinental literature, especially poetry. Today the so-called ‘death of sharam haya’ has been an important issue within critical debates on changes in Pakistani society.
The most commonly held belief is that the West is to blame for the spread of what the Vice-Dean of Rise referred to as ‘fahashi’ or immodesty.
5.5 HEGEMONIC DISCOURSES AND APPROPRIATION
Interview data analysed suggested that one of the most prominent views was that of an awareness of an inevitable Western cultural domination. This perception of Western cultural invasion seems to have permeated both staff and student interviews. The belief that culture and the associated language taught or promoted is wholly a foreign entity emanates from the obvious cultural deviation that staff and students experience in everyday life.
However, it is clear that individuals and communities do not passively accept the domination of hegemonic discourses. The active awareness and critical responses identified suggest that participants are agents of resistance or appropriation. Mariya, a teacher at Apex, suggests that English should be learnt not only for socioeconomic gain but also for insights into English speakers and the way they think. In her opinion cultural imperialism is a certainty and the only way to combat the cultural ‘invasion’ is awareness. She asserts:
If you don’t know their language then you don’t know their ways and you cannot even combat them. You can’t close your eyes and
pretend it is not there and you cannot be involved… and think that the culture will not invade us [because] of course it will. We may at least be wiser and at least the people who speak English will know what is in the books will know what they …
Nasser uses the term ‘cultural imperialism’. He believes that the expansion and influence of the Western media has become a natural occurrence and the effect, however unwarranted, is inevitable:
There is cultural imperialism. On the basis of media propaganda that has penetrated almost all cultures and communities—we have Hollywood and American media interference—what can you expect?
As a visiting lecturer from Rise to Apex, Nasser accepts the idea that cultural imperialism is a global phenomenon and the promotion of such cultural values is propagandist in nature. Like Mariya, Naseer believes that political discussion is clearly evident among the academic community of both universities.
In order to understand imperialism Raheema uses particular events that have shaped her awareness of the foreign nature of course materials. The ability to remain unengaged with the knowledge presented and the feeling of the course material being irrelevant suggests a discourse that indicates a deep-rooted feeling of being subjugated or dominated by what is considered to be a superior language and/or culture.
I find it quite difficult to relate to events and values that are not present in our culture and surroundings. I mean…like when you read about baseball…like in our course readers or when you read about the Simpsons [which] I find quite foreign. Sometimes we have to ask what this is about or what the point of the paragraph is and the lecturer can get quite annoyed because they don’t want to talk about irrelevant issues. But these are relevant because we have very little idea and find it difficult to relate…you know what I mean?
What is evident in interviews is a discourse of resentment, vocalized by many students and staff. Osman, a student at Apex, goes on to list a number of alien values; his tone is clearly one of annoyance.
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We don’t have nursing homes in Pakistan. So all our grandparents and relatives live together or we all take care of each other. So why should we read about the problems of nursing homes. We don’t play baseball, we play cricket, so we would appreciate topics like on cricket or the World cup or even on other players from Australia, India, England, you know. We don’t have problems with missing people or have high divorce rates. And also things like…adultery is very rare, I mean if there is a case it makes [the]
headlines. We don’t need to talk about rock music or the history of jazz because it is not part of our culture, also the other topics that I mentioned.
This reactionary discourse stems from the idea that course topics assume that such societal problems exist in the local community. Qader, a student from Rise, complains along the same vein.
You know topics like gridiron; what do I know about gridiron? How many people in class are interested in something they don’t see on TV? Most of us are not at all interested in such topics. Anyway there are a lot of such topics that are very difficult. They should not be included in the courses.
5.6 NEO-COLONIALISM
From the discussion above it is clear that staff and students at both academic institutions are involved in discursively identifying values, assumptions and opinions that are imperialistic in nature. They are actively engaged in analysing imperialistic discursive strategies employed by the curriculum, and by so doing have entered into a discourse of critical awareness. This awareness has helped them identify neo-colonial discourse embedded within the educational system.
Mariya’s observation, as a staff member at Apex, is interesting as it suggests that the English language via its domination is directly linked to a new form of imperialism. This neo-imperialism is one that has precedence and is easily traceable by a community that has been subjugated by colonial masters:
…it is nothing new…there is always a court’s language now the courts have become bigger…
Fahim, who also teaches at Apex, delves deeper into a neo-colonial discourse of subjugation. He identifies a capitalist connection and suggests the presence of underlying discursive strategies, which aim to promote consumption. This is of vital importance to survival and the ultimate goal is to attain money. And according to Fahim, the economic pundits who send this message through the English language to a global audience drive this defining notion of success.
What is the message that is embedded…that consumption is happiness and that wealth is the key to salvation…look at the message…there is something wrong with you…here is the market solution…In the history of national capitalism, we went from a problem from not having enough production to a not having enough consumption…we were trying to make people uncomfortable with themselves so we can sell them things that they otherwise would not buy. …instead of advertising products...
for pure functionality [we] began to project lifestyles…to project things where people could construct identity to the point that
…they are selling meaning, dreams, they are selling surfaces on which people can construct their identities…these are deep value issues…changing at the margins…changing wines to sherbet…
you can’t change the message of the media itself…e.g. salvation lies in consumption…that the money you have…there are quick fixes to life’s complications…that quick fixes can be bought…
Fahim’s analysis links the discourse of power, domination and economic progress with neo-imperialism, particularly in relation to marketing, consumerism and the popularisation of ‘flash’ lifestyles. How participants view their ‘world’ is primarily based on the belief of an all-invading discourse of capitalist propaganda. But the presence of a palpable resistance (Yee, 1994:2) gives rise to the presence of a more tacit and subtle form of discursive resistance that is a product of “hegemony [that] is never total and complete, but rather is porous, leaving room for different types of active agency and resistance” (Perry & Purcell Gates, 2005: 3). Ndhlovu identifies direct and diffuse hegemonies that elicit either overt or covert resistance among the dominated populace. Ndhlovu identifies the hegemonic concept of appropriation, defining it as “the adoption of hegemonic practices and discourse for the purposes of the dominated and not the purposes designated by those in
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counter-discourse is apparent in the responses t gathered from both Apex and Rise Universities. The identification of postcolonial and neo-imperialistic discourses as hegemonic and the resistance strategies identified highlight the active presence of both covert and overt resistance.
5.7 IMPERIALISM AND POSTCOLONIALISM
In outlining postcolonial theories of resistance, Ndhlovu (2010) employs Foucault’s analysis of power/knowledge to suggest that the fluidity of power coupled with knowledge is a multifaceted tool, disseminated within society in such a way as to produce subtle acceptance among the dominated. Naheed, a lecturer at Apex, highlights this in her description of the lingering hegemonic influences of a colonial era that has pervaded the psyche of postcolonial Pakistan. For Naheed, the obvious attitude towards a power/knowledge dichotomy and the influence it exerts is part of an age-old deep-rooted phenomenon, partly accepted but also resisted.
Naheed admits that once colonized, learning the English language is approached with apprehension. Her earlier suggestions identified notions of an age-old inculcation of imperialist values by the British colonisers. She reiterates that curriculum texts cannot be seen as any different and that cultural bias notoriously exists. The postcolonial discourse that gives rise to critical awareness establishes the notion that bias will always exist.
...if you are teaching English and texts written by the English or the Americans or the Australians, I mean there will always be a cultural bias; it will always be there and you can even distinguish between them because you know obviously there are cultural values or whatever it is that gets attached and I don’t think anything is neutral.
The belief that there is always a bias in English language teaching is at the heart of the notion of imperialism. This unpalatable idea is emphasized by a number of staff and students at both institutions. The question now arises as to
how English language learners have reacted and adapted. Nasser answers this succinctly:
Anyway…yes linguistic imperialism is there but it may be a slightly different case. You see if language is learned and learned on a large scale, such as the whole of the subcontinent, then the language is adopted and adjusted to the local context. So what we have is a localized version of English.
Nasser, a member of the teaching staff and a visiting professor to Apex, is quite clear about the prospect of change and the success among English language learners of adapting to a postcolonial language. His opinion is supportive of the idea that localized forms of Englishes, or World Englishes, flourish among learners when faced with using the language within their own communities (Kachru and Nelson, 2006; Brutt-Giffler, 2002; Gorlach, 2002; Kirkpatrick, 2007).
Similarly, a student studying at Apex describes the inevitability of the situation.
Rahim suggests:
Yes, taking on the foreign culture because you are forced to. I mean, it is imperialism, because we are stuck in a world that is run as a capitalist market and we have to economically survive.
English is the only language that is used for economic survival and so we have to learn it. I guess that this means it is imperialism. But the values can change, we can put our own values and we can translate our own desires. We do not have to follow what we don’t want to follow.
It is interesting to see the possibility of resistance as a translation of hegemonic forces, such that they are transformed into something useful, rather than dominating. This transformative discourse, alluded to in Rahim’s response, is revisited in the next chapter as it carries within it Islamic discursive undertones.
The developing resistance and influence of agency on the process of colonialism/imperialism/hegemonic discourse is clearly evident in the responses of both staff and students.
With reference to their own language learning experiences, staff and students of both educational institutions discuss how the postcolonial discourse has
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generated a critical awareness among learners. The ideas that have been presented in this chapter not only showcase the diversity of opinions that are present in a postcolonial society, but also depict the development of postcolonial ideologies.
Although English language learning can be seen as positively empowering (Chomsky, 1994, 1996) as well as a fascinating language study that enables seeing the world through the eyes of a different culture, the perspectives that have been captured in this research bemoan the loss of identity, the awareness of a neo-colonial future and the potential for adaptation and adjustment to an inevitable socioeconomic present.
In categorizing postcolonial discourse, a number of discourses are palpable, which have arisen as a result of postcolonial discourse, or have been given credibility because of it. The next chapter will discuss Islamic anthropological discourse.
'What of religion that raises the ire in its own hue? Is it not the tirade of the fanatic that congeals free flowing thought, raising the bar of subservience to a drummed up God?’ he quietly suggested.
Could I argue? It is not the label that upsets me, but the constant intent of the ignorant to obsessively label. The idea that religion is timeless fictitiousness that knots the heart strings of devotees is advantageous to the lonely explorer who parades in only his ignorance.
Messages that cannot survive a year, but survive through thousands are indeed worthy of a second look, don't you agree? What profit could dead bones have that begged for a God to remain worshipped?
It is only after I have dipped myself into the warmth of the smoothed out reverence of this faithfulness that I come to this point. Not God's knowledge but knowledge of God that brings me to the steps of my mind. Do I dare enter?
At this beginning let us begin to draw out this wonderment. Souls live from dawn to dawn, thankful for their faith. It is but a reflection on deeds that are nonetheless indebted to a faith that stands inspired, scaffolding the ego. It is the possibility of turning and returning- the stalwart for those who assess their weaknesses and rejoice in their strengths of their morality. But what of those who stand away from this 'maddening' crowd?
They stand alone.