English Education Created Natives Influenced By Enlightened Liberal Democratic Discourses

By Author: Mike Jones
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In the nineteenth century, when the company exercised an administrative rather than a commercial role, this policy was reversed. Against this background it was decided to put a stop to the practice of sati, whereby a dead man's widow was expected to throw herself on her late husband's funeral pyre. This was banned and declined as a result. Similar action was taken in parallel circumstances over cannibalism among the Maoris of New Zealand and, eventually, over slavery among certain peoples of Africa. Of importance here, in what are admittedly selective and extreme cases, is that local customs are not always to be preferred or to be given an equal voice, although how they are confronted is a legitimate matter for debate. In other words, the right kind of hegemony can be a good thing. On a more contemporary note, it is worth considering the statistics recently released by World Wide Governance Indicators (Time, 17 September 2007).

These represent 'the amount of freedom citizens [in different countries] have to voice opinions and select a government'. Among those scoring well on the Voice and Accountability Index are the ...
... anglophone nations, including India and South Africa, although top marks go to Scandinavia. Of course, one might question the validity of such an evaluation, or the criteria used; and these results should not be taken as a measure of the quality of life, which in some respects Replica Tag Heuer may be higher where freedom is curtailed. Nevertheless, the statistics are not greatly misleading and should give pause for thought to all who propose a critical approach to education, which rather presupposes, except in very confrontational situations, that the teacher is operating in an environment where criticism is indeed permitted. If one then uses that freedom to subvert a culture which strongly guarantees the right to differ from and oppose established orthodoxies, one is placed in an ambiguous position. The reply will naturally come that such licensee has not existed for those who have been the subjects rather than the perpetrators of anglophone domination. However, in many cases the alternative to western colonization was not necessarily self-determination but domination by another local or foreign power. It is sometimes appropriate to ask, therefore, not only how blameworthy the respective colonial power was, but whether others would have behaved better and with better results.

That anglophone hegemony has been oppressive in various ways is well documented, but the discourses formulated by its opponents often owe much to its traditions. Edward Said, for example, a well-known critic of imperialism, was a Protestant Christian, whose father was American and who was educated in British and American institutions; Mahatma Ghandi was immersed in English common law and practised as a barrister before becoming involved in politics; Jawaharlal Nehru, leader of the Congress Party and first prime minister of independent India, had his Breitling Replica Watches education at Harrow, a prestigious public school in England. CP itself is a product of European rationalism, long associated with the notion of equal rights, and of the Judeo-Christian tradition, self-reflective and concerned with the welfare of the individual. These priorities were absorbed by those subject to this hegemony, and then applied in return to the rulers themselves. As Canagarajah (1999: 58) says, 'English education ... created a breed of natives influenced by enlightened liberal democratic discourses, who demanded such values from colonial rulers'. It could be argued, indeed, that opposition to continued colonial rule was in part fired by resentment that the West had failed to live up to its own ideals rather than by a rejection of those standards in themselves.