7 Decolonization
Traditionally, the term “decolonization” referred to political independence from a colonial power. The American Revolution of 1776 against Great Britain is an outstanding example of that sort of decolonization. Later political decolonizers around the world, like Simón Bolívar in South America, were inspired by the United States example. More recent understandings of “decolonization”, at least by some authors, characterize the United States as a colonizing imperial power in its own right, a power that must be resisted in the name of liberation (Freire 1970, 1973, 2004; hooks 1994; Kendi, 2014). These “colonial” practices of the United States encompass more than just the physical conquest of overseas territory. More currently, United States “imperialism” is seen through economic and cultural lenses as well. Globalizing U.S.-based corporations, or U.S.-produced films or television, or U.S. consumer products in general, are all suspected of hegemonic purpose when exported around the world. For this reason, pushback against the perceived imperialism of U.S. is found in places such as Russia, Iran, and North Korea. Other nations, the People’s Republic of China being a noteworthy example, have a more complex relationship to U.S. economic and cultural production, selectivity adopting or even co-producing some of it, while rejecting other elements. The Maoist Cultural Revolution in China of the 1960s had previously attempted comprehensive decolonization across all economic, social, and cultural dimensions. The generally disastrous impact of this Cultural Revolution on Chinese power and prosperity induced later Chinese leadership to embrace a more nuanced approach to the “hegemonic” productions of the U.S. Today, on the level of great power politics, the U.S. and the People’s Republic of China are clearly rivals. On every other level – it’s complicated. So “decolonization” is far from straightforward when the term gets stretched beyond the simple idea of expelling a foreign occupying power.
Even more complexity arises when “decolonization” is applied to cultural movements within the U.S. itself. Let us consider the example of George Washington. Washington owned slaves. If statues of Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson are coming down in the name of antiracism, can statues of George Washington still remain standing? Moreover, Washington purchased property vacated by the forced expulsion of the Delaware, Shawnee and Mingo tribes (Ferguson, 2011, 116). This followed a youthful career of active combat against Native Americans in the French and Indian War. Clearly, George Washington was no antiracist by contemporary standards. So how should we view Washington now? Hero of the decolonizing battle against the British Empire? Or villain of the racist, colonizing project of U.S. territorial expansion? Current culture wars in U.S. media essentially derive from picking one side or the other in this sort of controversy, generating an abundance of emot