Reverse Colonialism - Ussy101

I first heard of reverse colonialism while reading Ghassan Hage’s article on a ‘Dying Domesticating Colonialism’ partly to gather ideas for an essay topic and partly because reading up on colonialism is always a great way to procrastinate. Reverse colonisation, as Stephen Arata defines it, includes narratives of the “‘civilised world’ being overrun by ‘primitive forces’” and the ‘coloniser (consequently) find(ing) himself in the position of the colonised.’ This definition describes the general sentiment that characterises recent coverage of ‘refugee crises’ with displaced people being referred to as ‘floods’ and ‘waves’ infiltrating or ‘invading’ – as one headline put it – Europe.

This fear and feeling of being ‘besieged’ by these refugees is particularly interesting when the majority of people are fleeing from countries that have being both historically and currently experienced military interventionism or at least, some form of indirect meddling, by Western states. The United States’ refugee ban which prohibits displaced people from Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen, under the pretence of terrorism (despite no terrorism being committed on U.S. grounds by people of those nationalities) is interesting in light of the increased military involvement of the U.S. in Libya, Syria and Yemen. So ironically, it is the Eurocentric colonising world that have benefitted for centuries and continue to benefit from some refugee-producing states, that are experiencing their culture being ‘colonised’ by a minority of refugees.

This fear is particularly espoused when a refugee commits a crime or expresses their culture or faith (in particular Islam). When some Sudanese refugees in Australia committed robbery in gangs, the Australian immigration minister essentialised Sudanese refugees to be incompatible with the Australian way of life, without even considering the factors involved in youth criminality. Similarly, when a refugee commits an act of sexual assault in Australia, it is reduced to their ‘culture’ and religion that encourages it, while disregarding the rates of sexual assault committed by Australia’s local population. When more Muslim refugees enter France, especially Middle Eastern, France’s culture is increasingly perceived to being subjugated by Islam to the point where it is necessary to ban the two thousand women (out of a population of sixty-six million) in France that adopt the burqa.

Thus, the Western world’s hostility towards refugees stems from this contradictory sentiment of feeling besieged by a culture when their economic, political and cultural power has colonised many of these refugee-producing nation-states.

References:

Hage, G. (2016). Etat de siege: A dying domesticating colonialism? American Ethnologist, 43(1), 38-49.