How I Was Colonized
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I’ve been reading Frantz Fanon and I feel both seen and condemned. Fanon describes a type of colonized intellectual, which was me once upon a time. He also describes a trajectory for their awakening, which I seem to be following. It’s a bit annoying cause I could have just read this instead of making a fool of myself in public for decades.
The Colonized Intellectual
When I was 21, I returned to sender. I finished my education in Canada/America and moved ‘back’ to Sri Lanka. I put ‘back’ in quotes because I hadn’t lived there since I was four. As a young man, I thought I knew it all, but I had no idea. I had an education but I didn’t realize how much I had to unlearn, and how much sources I trusted were actively lying to me. It’s only now, as an adult, finally reading Fanon at my wife’s insistence, that I understand who I was. I was a certain sort of colonized man, and quite unconsciously. As Fanon said,
During decolonization, certain colonized intellectuals have established a dialogue with the bourgeoisie of the colonizing country. During this period the indigenous population is seen as a blurred mass. The few “native” personalities whom the colonialist bourgeois have chanced to encounter have had insufficient…
