CH. 20 CONTINUED: BELIEVING AND BELONGING, CULTURAL CHANGE AND IDENTITY

The exposure to the European culture during their colonial rule brought about cultural changes in Asian and African societies. Colonized peoples had to change their way of living. These changes might have been forced upon them at the beginning but some were by choice. I guess the best way to describe it is that it is like a cultural evolution. It was a change in a population, induced by their environment and the result of the desire to adapt.

EDUCATION

The beginning of this section began with the sentence, "For an important minority, it was the acquisition of Western education, obtained through missionary or government schools, that generated a new identity". For a while, I was fixed on the words "important minority". Why were the colonized people considered the minority when in actuality, they made up the majority of the population? I guess the identification on who is the minority or the majority at the time depended on the power and ability to rule and not on the number in a population. But moving on from that sentence, through wester education, the colonized people saw a way to improve their social status and avoid forced labor. They wanted high salaries, a position in the government, businesses and organizations. But their wants didn't stop there. They also wanted to attain an elite status and to be seen equal with the whites. And the best way to do that is to eat, dress, live in houses like the Europeans and marry in long white dresses instead of their traditional wedding dress. From the literate christians, a new group of people was formed and they were a perfect copy of their rulers, including racism but much worse because they were prejudice against their own race.

RELIGION

Europeans missionaries might have brought christianity to the colonial territories but it was the natives that carried out its spread through the remote villages and local communities. The natives were very open to the new religion and even built the churches and the schools. They were hoping that the European Gods will grant them the same achievements and social improvement. But how they will welcome christianity was still up to them. In Africa, christianity became Africanized with the combination of traditional practices which we now call "African Reformation".