It is at the fag end of this phase of Europe's world domination that
we stand today, ready to pick up the fragments of our lives and cultures
that have survived two centuries of European hegemony and intrusion. For
while some Asians have become rich and others powerful during these two
hundred years, none has emerged from the experience culturally unscathed.
As the West has been partly internalised during the colonial period,
its cultural stratarchy and arrogance, too, have been introjected by important
sections of the colonised societies and by societies not colonised but
living with fears of being colonised. They all have learnt to live with
this internalised West-the feared intimate enemy, simultaneously a target
of love and hate--as I have elsewhere described it.(6) Psychoanalysts
should be happy to identify the process as a copybook instance of the
ego defence called `identification with the aggressor.' For this adored
enemy is a silent spectator in even our most intimate moments and the
uninvited guest at our most culturally typical events and behaviour. For
even our religions and festivities, our birth, marriage and death rituals,
our food and clothing, our concepts of traditional learning and wisdom
have all been deeply affected by the modern West. Even return to traditions
in Asia often means a return to traditions as they have been redefined
under western hegemony. Even our pasts do not belong to us entirely.
Asish Nandy
