Postcolonial Culture

In Western society, the postcolonial world is often viewed through a very specific lens that, throughout history, has changed and evolved over time. These changes occur due to many different reasons, including additions to the collective knowledge that is colonial discourse and the way in which Western power over post-colonial countries has shifted and evolved throughout history. However, no matter how much it has changed, colonial discourse has always affected, and continues to affect, how Westerners have come to understand and view postcolonial cultures. Colonial discourse and orientalist knowledge was originally gathered by those who viewed post-colonial nations from the outside looking in with a superior and dominating mentality. This had

It very much continues to impact Western knowledge of post-colonial countries. However, it has evolved over time as more knowledge has been acquired and, as a result, impacts understandings of post-colonial cultures in different ways. For example, there is still very much a divide between post-colonial countries and Western countries in the minds of people in the United States. However, we now label them as "developed" and "developing" countries. Instead of being under the impression that post-colonial countries, especially those in Africa, must be dominated and colonized, Americans often feel that they need to send aid to those places. The idea that they are not capable of progressing in the "right" direction on their own is still there. The plan of action of Western nations is the only aspect that has changed. Americans' opinions of the Middle East are also still heavily influenced by orientalism, but it is a different kind than that of the past. As Professor Sut Jhally said in the video, Edward Said on Orientalism, according to Said, "...The way the West, Europe and the U.S., looks at the countries and people of the Middle East, is through a lens that distorts the actual reality of those places and those people." This is very similar to the way in which colonial powers viewed the places they overpowered. However,

Feelings of dominations have morphed into the desire to assist. Fears that were not present in the past are much more prominent today regarding Arab culture. The Western world must not fall under the impression that past injustices towards post-colonial countries no longer have