Imperialism 101

There are so many easy ways to be an imperialist without having to physically oppress and enslave  the Other. Of course, this doesn’t preclude at all the absence of physical oppression and physical violence in an imperial stance: there is inescapable violence in imperialism and I suppose it involves a physical component inevitably. But sometimes the physical oppression is not as obvious as during the era of American slavery or the practices during the South African culture of apartheid, or the events of the Nazi genocide. Imperialism occurs when one sits outside a culture and looks into it as a disengaged observer and who then makes judgements regarding that culture based on a willed ignorance of the other. Imperialism requires a particular blindness and the assumption of privilege to observe and to judge.
            On the drive to a gated resort community (already through many degrees of separation) I look out of the window of an air-conditioned van being driven by a hired native driver and I see the shops and domiciles along the side of road and I make judgement regarding the living arrangements of the local population and wonder to myself and E how these people manage to survive. The homes I see as we speed past in the rented air-conditioned van are ramshackle structures, tin-roofed and walled as fragilely as structures built of playing cards. Sometimes there is a disordered dirt yard with children playing in it. I observe schools along the road but I don’t see activity in them. Of course, that doesn’t mean that there is no activity in there, just that I cannot see it or even conceive of it. But the school buildings don’t look like the ones with which I am familiar in my culture, and so I make uninformed judgements based in my ignorance.  I wonder why the children are not in school and again make value judgment based in my experience in my home country even as I learn that school here proceeds in shifts and the children I see might be scheduled for a different shift. A dog might be asleep somewhere on the property. (I am making judgements as I can only see poverty but not the life that grows in the home). There is no cultivation that I can observe: not a garden for self-sufficiency visible but then I realize, perhaps, it is in the near vicinity, in a community garden, perhaps. But from my seat in the air-conditioned van, I see only the poverty I think I recognize but I remain blind to the possibilities of the richness of life. 

            Along the sides of the road are a myriad of restaurants and mini-markets but they do not look like the establishments with which I am familiar, and I make judgement. I will not enter and purchase anything, even though I do desperately want a water or a beer. I am also unable to speak the native language and it embarrasses me to find myself mute. Yesterday our driver wanted very much to engage us in conversation, but we knew nothing of his language. In schools in the United States learning a second language is not a priority except for those coming from other countries.
            Tourism is a major component of the functioning economy here. E wonders what would happen to the country if we all stopped touring in it and spending our monies here, and I answered that I didn’t know, but I suggested that perhaps the government would have to do something to support the citizenry. The governments would have to rethink the relationship between the leaders and the citizens they lead. Countries send the wealthier populations here with money they have to spend in these foreign ports: perhaps the governments could just send monies until a vibrant economy could be established without its base in tourism. I don’t know: I’m not an economist and I would not be an imperialist. And I am thinking that perhaps I won’t leave home again to roam. I remember that it is said that one should only consume what is grown in one’s own neighborhood. I think I’ll shop from hereon in my neighborhood.