Unbecoming

One of the quotes from Fanon that Tuck and Yang start their article “Decolonizing is not a metaphor” is:

Let us admit it, the settler knows perfectly well that no phraseology can be a substitute for reality.
-Franz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth, 1963, p. 45

I think this is an ideal expression for the confused state of being in which I find myself oscillating. For years now, if not decades, I have been struggling to understand and express myself as if I were never colonized. I always thought of this as a postcolonial take on self though, because how could I — a colonized being raised in a postcolonial ex-colony(?) — ever be decolonized.

I have argued in informal conversations with friends and colleagues in academia that one can never be decolonial and only be postcolonial because colonization is not a process of erasure but contamination. If it were a process of erasure, the colonized could be repaired/recovered from the damage. But can we be? And then I read Tuck and Yang — who reminded me that decolonizing is not a metaphor.

Tuck and Yang (2012) remind us that decolonizing is not to be used as a metaphor for removing colonial influences from our practices, thinking, beliefs, and systems. Rather it is about the repatriation of land. To quote them: “decolonization in the settler-colonial context must involve the repatriation of land simultaneous to the recognition of how land and relations to land have always already been differently understood and enacted; that is, all of the land, and not just symbolically.”

My understanding leans towards the latter because this would still involve dismantling and restructuring the systems and lands that continue to perpetuate colonial acts in plain sight. Yes, the need to shift power to the first people would account for the aims of decolonization. How first people choose to build relationships with their land, organize it, and share it will then be their decision to make. Of course, these ideas are written in digital ink scare settlers (including immigrants like me — who is a settler in America and a colonized being himself). Well, it does not scare me personally but it does unsettle, as it should. Because it raises a lot of questions for practice and policy, which is Tuck and Yang’s intention, I believe.

This brings me to the point I wanted to write about. If decolonizing is not be used as a metaphor because it is a part of the bigger reparation first people are fighting for, other scholars, especially immigrants from postcolonial nations like myself, need to be mindful not to invade this space with personal agendas. I take this as a reminder to myself who has used the term decolonizing dismissively before knowing what Tuck and Yang had written. In this understanding, I am drawn, again, to my initial argument that a colonized self can never be decolonized and only postcolonized (if that is even grammatically correct — also, fuck grammar).

Could I physically take the colonized bits in me and liberate myself of whiteness and oppressive practices embedded in me? I am pessimistic. Then how do I, pardon the metaphor, decolonize myself? This is where Fanon’s quote becomes a crucial reminder — not to get stuck in the phraseology, as it is no substitute for reality.

The reality is that decolonial, postcolonial, anticolonial, or any other variation is a theoretical or practical act in reaction to the acts of colonization — blatant and hidden. Irrespective of which phrase I choose to identify with the most, what I mean is: reality is to (un)become what I was made through no choice of my own or those who raised me. (Also, it is not my individual call to make and more of a collective understanding of those seeking to rid of their colonized selves and lands). The individual call that I can make is to how I can (un)become a colonial contamination. What are the epistemological, ontological, and discursive choices that I need to make to move past the colonized self and create a postcolonial self? So, here are some reminders I keep in mind as I move forward to think of these ideas more formally and academically:

• The postcolonial me is not something I can discover or recover because I was never colonized in the first place. I was born colonized. I can only create a new me that never was but can be. The act of (un)becoming is, thus, not destructive but creative.
• The act of (un)becoming is not decolonial, but postcolonial. However, the dense and mostly pretentious baggage that postcolonial scholarship carries makes it difficult to use the term “post” and not be judged. So, I will continue to stick with the term (un)becoming for now.
• Solidarity with other colonized beings is crucial. Not everyone is seeking to (un)become. First people feel the need to decolonize and that needs to be supported by other colonized beings. The freedom of colonies in the 20th century was also a result of decolonization. While Fanon argues that decolonization can only be a violent act, the likes of Gandhi have argued a non-violent case, too. Decolonization does not need to be violent, but the shift of power needs to be considered at its core. This could mean many things that people may not be ready to hear or fathom. So, I will leave it here.

More on this to come.

Disclaimer: There are a lot of ideas I have been meaning to write about but am usually scared of my own ignorance. I found courage through my acceptance of depression — that I can only learn when I speak my mind first. For that, if you feel there is room for me to grow in these ideas, please share your thoughts with me, even if you wish to yell at me — I will not take it personally.

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