ABSTRACT
Colonial subjugation is perhaps the most devastating disenfranchising status because it affects almost every part of society and culture. Colonialism has a far-reaching impact on visions of the past—an impact that may continue in force long after colonial rule has been overthrown ( Meskell 1998a ). The clearest distinguishing factor in colonial disenfranchisement is the effective replacement of an indigenous past by a narrative that emphasizes the conquest culture. Inevitably this results in a movement to reestablish the hegemony of the older culture—within a newly formed, globally conscious paradigm (Bond and Gilliam 1994). Either because of demographic factors (where the colonized are as numerous or more numerous than the colonizers) or because there has been no geographic displacement, the indigenous predecessor culture and its history are usually not truly lost despite attempts by colonial powers to eradicate them (Said 1994, 210). There is an essential transmogrification of these cultures, however, stemming partly from modernism and partly from an unexpressed desire to learn something from the humiliating experience of conquest.
