Examples Of Colonial Mimicry

People commonly believe that European colonizers maintained their dominance over the colonized subjects by labeling the identities of the subjects as uncivilized and inferior compared to those of the imperial powers. This notion is legitimate to the extent that colonial discourses have their primary goal in stabilizing the power of the colonial authority. However, when Bhabha discusses colonial discourse of mimicry, he argues that the case of mimicry was different from what was expected, since it led to a reversal in power between the colonizer and the colonized. If people continue to neglect this distinctive outcome of mimicry and believe that all colonial strategies were successful in stabilizing the power structure, they will fail to recognize

This shared technique of colonial discourse is known as the “partial representation,” which is utilized to maintain imperial position over the colonies. In Orientalism, Said believes that the Orientalist viewpoint created certain images about the Orientals, which usually hold negative features based on the binary opposition between the West and the East. These generalized images hardly embrace the wide range of diversity and only represent partial aspects of Eastern culture. This process of representation may lead to “cultural stereotyping,” infusing misconceptions into people’s understanding and beliefs about the Orient and enabling the Westerners to remain in the dominant position over the Orientals (Said

Bhabha illustrates that although the colonies “desired for reform,” the changes were limited to a degree of a “subject of a difference that is almost the same, but not quite” (Bhabha 86). This means that the colonizers, in their mission of mimicry through education and assistance, still left clear sense of “difference” between the colonial subjects and themselves (87). He explains that this process of “othering” was conducted by “partial reform” (87). To be more specific, one of the British politicians, Charles Grant advocated for only the “partial diffusion of Christianity” and “partial influence of moral improvements” of the Indians (87). This was because he was afraid that if the Indians gained equal level of self-sufficiency and self-consciousness as the British colonizers, through education and reform, they might rise against the colonial authority. The colonial powers tend to leave such a gap from the colonizers in order to stabilize power and justify their control over the subordinates. The colonial discourse of mimicry is ambivalent in this sense, since what actually occurred through the process of “Othering” and partial representation differs from the ideal goal of such missions and mimicry, which is to equalize all the states. Therefore, it is apparent that partial representation is a dominant strategy used in colonial discourses to stabilize the power structure between the