Kenyatta S. Gray

 9/11 and Colonial-Postcolonial Literature:  The Legacy of Colonialism on the Postcolonial World

            The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy defines colonialism as the practice of domination by the subjugation of people from one country under another country.  MSN Encarta, an online encyclopedia, provides a more detailed explanation of colonialism.  The history of colonialism goes back to antiquity, when the Greeks and Romans established military posts in conquered territory.  The Mongols as well as the Ottoman Turks created a vast empire that extended from the countries of present-day China and Spain.  These conquerors developed a theory of colonization; this involved the conquered people joining the society of the settlers by providing labor, intermarrying, and fighting alongside them.

            The Crusades were an attempt to stop the spread of Islam into European territory.  As the Christians captured territory during their military campaigns, the European monarchs questioned their ability to expand their power elsewhere.  Between the fifteenth and eighteenth centuries, Europe ushered in the age of exploration by creating settlements in the countries known as the New World.  They flew under the banner of God, glory, and gold; as they realized the vast amounts of wealth generating from the colonies, many Europeans began migrating to the colonies in hopes of striking it rich and gaining social status.  In order to produce mass labor needed to extract important resources, Europeans looked to Africa for slave labor coupled with native labor.

            There were different types of colonies that are important to mention here.  Colonies of settlement such as the United States, New Zealand, and New South Wales, were the result of the migration of people from the country that colonizes the other country, who often took control politically and economically of the new area.  Colonies of exploitation like Nigeria, Jamaica, and Malaya, resulted when colonizers did not settle in the new territory, but came to extract profitable natural resources the new area possessed.  Colonies of contested settlement such as Kenya and Algeria resulted when a particular number of colonizers took up residence in the new area and set up their own system of government in defiance of the ruling country.

            Colonies of exploitation not only resulted from colonizers coming into the new territory, obtaining resources until depleted, and leaving; colonizers also had a say in the political system of the new area.  These colonies may not have been solely for the purposes of exploitation, but colonizers may have already had some stake in the country, but when their interests were in peril, colonizers intervened in the affairs of that country in order to protect those interests.  For example, when England felt Egyptian nationalism in 1872 might affect their stake in the construction of the Suez Canal, English nationals were sent to Egypt to oversee the affairs of the country.

            This paper will argue that nationalism is a result of the legacy of colonialism as seen through the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.  The emergence of post-colonial literature can be argued to be a result of that nationalism and if read could help audiences understand the attitudes and sentiments produced during and after colonialism.  The paper will focus for the majority on writings of the colonial, an example for this is a short story by Rudyard Kipling called The Story of Muhammad Din; and for the post-colonial, an example would be a poem by Derek Walcott called The Spoiler’s Return.  Ultimately, the readings would help to connect the period of colonialism to the period of post-colonialism, which the actions of the hijackers on September 11, 2001, will show.  The nineteen hijackers consisted of one Egyptian; one Lebanese; two from the United Arab Emirates; and the remaining were Saudi Arabian.  What Went Wrong?:  Western Impact and Middle Eastern Response discusses the history of how the divide between the West and East occurred.  Through these readings, we will come to understand how colonialism left a legacy on the post-colonialism world that prompted a negative response.  

            Post-colonial literature is the term ascribed to the writings of those colonized by Europe.  Some scholars believe the term often includes the time before and after independence “in constructing national literary histories, or in suggesting comparative studies between stages in those histories” (Ashcroft, Griffiths, and Tiffin 1989:  1-2).  Normally post-colonial literature refers to colonized countries such as Africa, India, Australia, Bangladesh, the Caribbean, Singapore, New Zealand, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and the South Pacific islands; however, the United States should be included in this category, but due to its role as world power, its post-colonial nature has not been fully recognized.

            Ashcroft, Griffiths, and Tiffin argue that post-colonial writing and literary theory coincide with European theories, such as postmodernism and Marxist ideology (155).  “Central to this perception was the encounter with African culture in the period of the so-called ‘Scramble for Africa’ in the 1880s and 1890s” (156).  As Europeans imported African artifacts such as tribal masks, carvings, and jewelry into their countries, Europeans began to use these artifacts as symbols for inspiration in forming new art forms.  These images were used in literatures such as D.H. Lawrence’s book, The Rainbow (1916), and in the artwork of Picasso.  Most importantly, these African remnants “were amongst the earliest signifiers of the Other both as a positive and negative force in European culture’s concept of itself and of its ‘uniqueness’ and value” (157).  These remnants set the stage for what is depicted in Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness as the dark side or primitive side of the civilized man (158).

            Language is important when it comes to post-colonial texts.  Walder uses the example of the harmattan in Things Fall Apart.  It is a deliberate step towards overturning the assumptions of cultural and racial inferiority imposed by the colonizers and accepted by the colonized; it is a step towards showing that the African words, their languages, their ways of life, have their own integrity (10-11).  Language also comes in handy because of its impact on the post-colonial.  Nigeria can serve as a prime example.  When the British came to Nigeria, they found the country populated with various tribes who had their own dialects.  By the time of the publication of Things Fall Apart, only a tiny percent of the population could understand English or afford to purchase the book.  Language was often the barrier between the colonizer and the colonized; thus, if Achebe is writing for an international and national audience, he had to decolonize his mind in order to get through to both (52).  In Things Fall Apart, the reader can see that Achebe uses both English and Nigerian dialect in conveying the story to both audiences; in a way, this will help the audiences feel some sort of connection with the story (53).  The elements of the book include the colonial and post-colonial through the character of Okonkwo.

            Since the post-colonial cannot be understood apart from the colonial, a look into literatures from both periods is needed.  Rudyard Kipling was born in British India; his works usually portray his experiences in colonial South Asia as evident in the Jungle Book, The Man Who Would Be King, and Gunga Din.  In Kipling’s collection of short stories, the one that stood out the most was The Story of Muhammad Din.  Kipling clearly expresses the attitude of the British towards the Other in the narrator’s feelings toward the little boy, Muhammad Din.

            When one reads the text of Muhammad Din, they must analyze the paragraphs carefully and separately.  When the reader looks deeper into the text, the language Kipling uses vividly describes the attitude of the colonizer toward the colonized.  The story opens with the narrator (later called sahib) describing a polo-ball among the pipe-stems of a mantelpiece in the dining room.  Imam Din, a servant, was cleaning these pipes when he inquired about the polo-ball, asking, “Does the Heaven-born want this ball” (Kipling 1930, 18)?  The narrator wondered why such a man would be interested in the ball, but Imam Din must have sensed his inquiry and mentioned his small son desired to play with the ball.  The narrator must have allowed him to take the ball because Imam Din is next mentioned to have given it to his son, who was very delighted upon receiving it.

One day, the narrator comes into the dining room upon arriving home from the office and sees Imam Din’s son prancing around the room.  The narrator states, “He had no business in my room, of course; but was so deeply absorbed in his discoveries that he never noticed me in the doorway” (18).  When the little boy did notice him, he gasped as he sat down on the floor.  The narrator commented that he startled the boy to where his eyes and mouth widened; he knew what was coming and left.  All he heard next was a loud wail and Imam Din coming to the boy.  Imam Din told the narrator that the boy was a budmash and would be punished for his behavior.  The narrator told Imam Din that he was not angry and to take the baby away.  As he was leaving, Imam Din told the narrator that the boy was called Muhammad Din and repeated that he was a budmash.  Muhammad Din confirmed that this was his name and that he was not a budmash but a man (19).

There are a couple of things in the first part of the text that should be mentioned.  The narrator does not mention the setting of the place the story happens, but if one were familiar with some of the names and words, they could guess the place is British India.  The fact that Imam Din is cleaning for the narrator suggests this.  One can also tell that Imam Din is Muslim because he is an imam.  Later, when he calls Muhammad Din a budmash, we know it has to be India.  This word is familiar to one who has read Train to Pakistan when the main character, Jugga, is called a budmash; this is a name given to bad people.  In this case, Imam Din calls Muhammad Din a budmash because he has misbehaved.  An earlier point to make is Imam Din’s referring to the narrator’s offspring as the Heaven-born.  This implies that the colonizer is good while the colonized is bad; thus, bringing us back to the use of the word budmash.  This is the attitude of most colonizers when they occupy other countries that the uncivilized are bad and must be taught obedience.  Muhammad Din can be seen as a challenge to colonial authority in a sense; in other words, he is the post-colonial to the narrator’s colonial.  When his father is walking him out of the dining room and tells the narrator his name and that he is a budmash, Muhammad Din confirms his name but denies he is a budmash.

One can see the defiance in Muhammad Din’s “I am not a budmash.  I am a man!”  Most causes of nationalism arise from the inferior treatment the colonized suffered under the colonizer.  The interference of the colonizer in the lives of the colonized, especially the degradable conditions brought upon by colonialism, prompted many of the colonized to have the same attitude Muhammad Din expressed.  Even when Muhammad Din is punished for going into the dining room and is seen later playing by himself in the garden signifies isolation and criticism by the colonizer.  The colonized people of a country were often left out of decisions concerning their country and were not allowed to have access to natural resources they once had access to before.  The sediment washed up on the shores of India from the ocean was rich in salt and was forbidden to touch by the Indians as decreed by the British.

One must also take into account the language used in Kipling’s story.  The narrator is called Sahib, an honorable title given to someone of authority in India.  This word also happens to be used in Train to Pakistan when referring to someone who is educated.  The narrator is assumed to be educated or in this sense civilized since he hails from the colonizing country.  The narrator and later the doctor who comes to see the ailing Muhammad Din speak about Muhammad Din as if he were not a person.  When Imam Din tells the narrator his son’s name, the narrator treats it as if the name really did not matter.  Although the narrator says “Salaam Muhammad Din” when he sees him, he refers to him as “the baby” or “the chubby one” or “the child” as if he has no name when he is not addressing him personally.  As the doctor leaves from treating Muhammad Din, he says to the narrator, “They have no stamina, these brats” (20).  When the Spanish settlers reached Latin America in the fifteenth century, they brought with them many diseases the natives were not immune to.  Muhammad Din’s illness caused him to have a high fever and needed quinine to treat him.  The doctor makes the above remark to say that he is weak and probably the reason for his death.  It is possible that because Muhammad Din was only a small child that he had not developed a healthy immune system to fight the illness.  The doctor’s use of brat clearly shows he is not concerned for his health, but that he is the other and it would not make a difference if he got well or not.  The early Latin American settlers serve as an embodiment of this attitude.  When the natives died, they replaced them with slave labor from Africa, who were stronger and able to resist the diseases.

Perhaps the most interesting note to make is the symbolism in Muhammad Din’s play and death.  Since Muhammad Din does not have any friends or toys, he keeps himself busy in the garden of the narrator by creating magnificent palaces “from stale flowers thrown away by the bearer, smooth water-worn pebbles, bits of broken glass, and feathers pulled” from fowls (19).  The fragments used in Muhammad Din’s creations symbolize India; a country fragmented after gaining its independence from Britain.  As can be seen in the novel, Train to Pakistan, when the British left India in 1947, the country was divided; Muslims went to Pakistan while Hindus remained in India with Sikhs concentrated in the area known as the Punjab.  Muhammad Din symbolizes Gandhi, who wanted to see a united India.  Unfortunately, he was assassinated and though tensions may have subsided, India and Pakistan face problems of extremism associated with the Taliban (for further discussion on the Taliban, see below).  When Muhammad Din dies, the narrator says that his body was wrapped in white cloth, which sounds similar to the white cloth Gandhi was known to wear (20).  In the same way Gandhi envisioned a unified India, the creations made by Muhammad Din symbolized the fragments of the country that Gandhi wanted to put together and make magnificent.  The fragments used also serves as an allegory of the chaos resulting from colonialism that is still left unresolved in most post-colonial countries.

The Spoiler’s Return (1981) by Derek Walcott serves as a good example of post-colonial writing.  The narrator in the poem is a native of Trinidad and Tobago who went away and came back to find the island unchanged.  As mentioned earlier, to understand the post-colonial, one must know the history of the former colony during colonialism.  Throughout the poem, Walcott gives glimpses into the colonial past of Trinidad and Tobago in order to reveal the island that it is today.  In the opening stanza, the narrator is sitting on a bridge in Laventille, a ward in Port of Spain that contains many squatter settlements, slums, and has the highest crime rate of the island.  The passersby are dressed poorly and address him as Spoiler, which the meaning behind the name will become clearer as one reads on.  Apparently, he has come back from Hell, a place where he keeps a crown.  After begging Satan for a two week’s leave, he is granted the leave providing he checks out the town, probably to come back and report what he sees, though Walcott does not make this clear.  Satan has a stereo and blasts caiso all day.  Caiso is a Trinidadian station that informs locals of new and events of the island.  This means that the narrator though far from home still keeps track of the latest news of the island.  This fact may be the reason why Satan allows him to go and check out the town.  He also says he will go to sing the truth and bite fat women (432-433).  When the narrator says he will sing the truth, he is implying to the listener that when one visits the Caribbean it will not be paradise.  Judging from the use of crown, the floccy suit, limeskin hat, and stereo (432), we can guess that the narrator lives a life similar to that of the colonizer.  He says that thin women do not have to worry about him biting them because he will only bite the fat women (433) signifies that the thin women are the poor islanders while the fat women are the wealthy former colonists.  In short, although the narrator lives a different life from most of those in the Caribbean, he has not forgotten their conditions.

The narrator feels that passing over the Caribbean is like a shark racing its shadow over clear coral rocks.  Furthermore, nothing has changed but attire and color, in which the narrator asks for back up from important figures of political, judicial, and religious authority (433).  The intentions of the colonists when they settled in the Caribbean and Americas was to recreate a life similar to the one they had in Europe.  To make sure these intentions were carried out, the European monarchs gave control to the judicial, political, and religious authorities in the colonies to enforce rules forbidding interracial unions and natives from holding public office.  However, the colonists and natives found ways around these laws, resulting in populations of mixed race persons and natives holding positions of power.  The poem takes place in Port of Spain, a city of diverse races, cultures, and not to mention officials coming from other countries.  With these difference peoples come difference in beliefs, customs, languages, and clothes.  The narrator is given the name Spoiler as it serves as an irony or contradiction to the intentions of the colonists.  Walcott himself is of mixed race and has made a name for himself not only in the Caribbean, but internationally.  However, he also mentions that when he sees the islands he wants to bawl because it is an area of darkness to V.S. Nightfall (433).  Darkness and nightfall can be attributed to the color black, and black is usually associated with sadness and the race of most of the inhabitants of these islands.  V.S. Nightfall is actually a play on the name of V.S. Naipaul, a writer from Trinidad and Tobago.  Apparently, Walcott has labeled him a traitor because he has turned his back on Trinidad and has become fully British.  Walcott seems to suggest that unlike him, Naipaul is an example of those who find away off the island to have a better life and completely forgets who they are and where they come from.

Walcott further mentions that there are some who turn off their ears and wipe their tears so that they can block the truth behind the reality caused by colonialism (433).  As stated earlier, mixed races were the product of unions between the colonists and the natives.  Walcott uses verses such as “the gift of mockery with which I’m cursed” and “a vermin swimming in a glass of wine” to show that himself and others like him moved up in society despite the former colonists disdain (434).  He calls himself an insect, most notably a flea and bedbug; as we know, insects are usually black and often bite.  Walcott seems to suggest that the islanders are insects that ruin things such as crashing a fete (celebration) and “whose itch to make all Power wince.”  They pile up in heaps daily so that their deliverers may sleep; we know understand that those running the island have to be those islanders who rose to political authority to bring them out of British control (434).  They promise free and just debate, yet want to silence radicals in the name of national security.  Then they say, “Spoils, things ain’t so bad.  This ain’t the Dark Age, is just Trinidad, is human nature, Spoiler, after all, it ain’t genocide, is just bohbohl” (434).  These are the same voices that said in the slave ship “Boy, is just the whip,” implying that these islanders who moved up made it by stepping over their own people.  The ideologies and practices that the colonizers brought to the island were picked up by the new power elite, yet instead of improving their conditions and helping their people, they used it to put them down while bettering themselves.

The narrator sings with Attila the Hun and Commander to ask what right in Guyana and Uganda.  Walcott mentions Attila and Commander as figures behind invasions of other countries.  He asks who gave them the right to invade in order to show the similarity behind political control on the island.  When Walcott states, “The time could come, it can’t be very long, when they will jail calypso for picong” (435).  Calypso is a form of Afro-Caribbean music and picong is a comical banter at the expense of another.  Walcott is being sarcastic in a way, suggesting that the island authorities are so corrupt to the point that soon they could censor things that make the island unique or happy all in the name of civic righteousness as Walcott states (435).  Walcott describes the chaos brought on by the political body of the island to Carnival, an annual event held in Trinidad and Tobago before the advent of Lent.  “All Port of Spain is a twelve thirty show, some playing Kojak, some Fidel Castro, some Rastamen, but, with or without locks” (435).  Kojak was a popular show in the 1970’s; Fidel Castro was a leader in the Cuban Revolution; Rastamen hail from Jamaica with a certain philosophy and wear their hair in dreadlocks.  Walcott may be implying that the attitudes in Port of Spain are mixed with those who seek justice, revolution, or a certain view on life.  While Frederick Street stinks like a closed drain (435); this particular street is the entertainment district of the city.  Walcott may have mentioned it to further the point that issues remain dire, with no hope of them being solved.

The narrator states that Hell is like Port of Spain and that they blow their oil-bloated economy (436).  Jamaica and Dominica seem to receive their natural gas from Trinidad and Tobago because Walcott states “we make them know they begging, every loan we send them is like blood squeezed out of stone, and giving gives us back the right to laugh that we couldn’t see we own black people starve, and, more we give, more we congratulate we-self on our own self-sufficient state” (436).  This must mean that Trinidad and Tobago is the main supplier of natural gas in the Caribbean, and just like most trade agreements, the other islands fall under certain obligations for receiving the resource.  To Walcott, this makes the other islands vulnerable to debt, to which he asks “what happen to the Brotherhood of Man” (436).  They sung the Commonwealth of caiso and were united in chains, but according to Walcott, it seems like after colonialism ended, the islands of the Caribbean were no longer united in the name of independence but were now struggling to keep from failing economically.  This struggle had them relying on each other but at the expense of the other.

Walcott goes on to speak of the poor in the city stating that children are in funeral shroud and the Creoles do not own books, making Spoiler want to bawl (437).  The narrator seems to through this scene in the direction of the justices of the High Bench, who seem to turn their noses in another direction to ignore the fact.  He also states he wants to take a taxi south of Laventille, which seems to be the poorer part of the city because he mentions even worse conditions of the inhabitants there.  To this scene, the narrator says things will never change and it makes him want to bawl.  Also in the south, there seems to be brown and green patches of the islands that are restricted by the Indian and fishermen, the poorest of the islanders (437).  However, we can see that these things serve as remnants of the old life before colonialism and it is questionable whether the narrator wants to bawl over their conditions or he misses the old life.

In closing the poem, Walcott states that hell is organized in soaring circles (438).  Jesus and Dante have passed Spoiler on the way there and Spoiler in turn invites others to join him in the tent of Satan along with Lord Rochester and other figures of importance during colonialism who compete for the monarchy.  It is important to note that in the book of Corinthians, Jesus was said to have gone to hell to free the dead prophets of the Old Testament; in The Inferno, Dante went through several levels of hell encountering dead philosophers.  Walcott may be suggesting that even great men must go to hell to seek the truth and set it free.  The mentioning of the key figures of colonialism seems to suggest that even in hell they would try to divide and conquer!  The narrator states that all who gave the earth the carnival and fatigue bawl they want to fall while those whose anger for the poor on earth weep until they laugh.  Walcott may be suggesting that those former colonists feel ashamed for what they did to their former colonies while those who sympathized with them could not really do much to help them improve their condition.  “Names wide as oceans when compared with mine salted my songs, and gave me their high sign” may refer to the narrator getting the truth out in the open (438).  The end of the poem has Spoiler telling those who passed him straight he is going back down; is he going south as he wanted to go earlier or down to hell?  Those who passed him straight must mean those crossing the bridge into the city, but they could not pass him without hearing what he has to say.  With this in mind, now that the narrator has told the truth, his work is done and he is now returning to where he came from.

The short story by Kipling and poem by Walcott have created a dialogue that reveals to the reader the hardships brought upon by colonialism and the response to those hardships by the post-colonial world.  However, some attitudes existing in the post-colonial developed centuries before colonialism.  In What Went Wrong, Lewis explains how the divide between the West and East occurred at the advent of the Crusades.  The world experienced the fast spread of Islam as the Ottoman Empire increased its hold over Asia and into Europe.  When Spain and Portugal fell under Ottoman rule, the countries of Christendom grew increasingly worried; they believed that Muslims were socially backwards and uncivilized.  Lewis would argue that “for many centuries the world of Islam was in the forefront of human civilization and achievement” (3).  Because Islam had entered into European territory, the Crusades were fought in order to stop its spread.  When the Ottoman Empire was defeated, it witnessed the loss of major territories such as the Crimea and the establishment of Russia as a major Black Sea power (21).  The other blow to Islamic greatness was the fact that Muslims were now allies and subjected to the “infidels.”  According to Lewis, Muslims considered those outside their territories as infidels and barbarians (4).  Muslims now had to fight alongside the infidels in times of war with other infidels and saw their Muslim children become pupils to infidel teachers (21-22).  To its Muslim citizens, the Ottoman rulers were determined to be more like the infidels.  The Ottomans declared that each religious community in their lands was free to practice their own customs, yet the arrival of European ideals caused a radical change.  National uprisings against the Ottomans dominated the nineteenth and early part of the twentieth centuries backed with European support (34).

As Europe ventured into Muslim lands to expand their commerce, Middle Easterners were not able to enjoy the same opportunities (35).  As European learning spread into territories who despised the infidels, other European methods such as military training and political reforms were adopted over their old ways (43-44).  The Muslims realized that the West was becoming superior due to their excellence in artillery during war; so they sought the source of Western superiority (64).  Some Muslim travelers to Europe noted that a difference in their respective societies was the status of women and treatment of slaves.  The Europeans by the twentieth century had struggled for women’s rights and abolished slavery in the Middle East (69).

As the Europeans interfered in Muslim lands to pave the way towards modernization and social equality by implementing their own practices in politics and economics, the Muslims began to feel an intrusion on their values, customs, and beliefs according to Islam (82).  A big problem lied in the West and East’s notion of who had the right to rule.  To the Europeans, God ordained the person who was fit to be ruler while the Muslims believed God was the only supreme ruler (97).  It seemed to many Muslims, that the changes being made in their countries was a response to westernization, meaning that their way of life should change to match that of Europe’s (135).  As the Ottoman Empire was steadily declining, the European powers of Great Britain and France occupied Muslim territories in the Middle East and North Africa.  The invaders modified and at times replaced Islamic laws and placed their rulers under direct guidance and supervision of their own politicians.  The presence of the European military on Muslim soil generated anger and feelings of nationalism.

On September 11, 2001, nineteen Middle Eastern men forcibly took control of four American airplanes and directed them at symbols of American superiority in economics and politics.  Their actions caused the deaths of not only themselves, but over 2,500 Americans civilians and foreign nationals.  These men were followers of Osama bin Laden, the leader of the terrorist organization, al-Qaeda.  Their hatred toward the West goes back to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979.  Even though the Soviets left Afghanistan in 1989, the U.S. had forces in Saudi Arabia, bin Laden’s homeland, for diplomatic purposes.  Osama was deeply angered at the presence of the American military in Saudi Arabia, and was also against U.S. foreign policy in support of Israel.  He has twice issued a fatwa, a ruling against someone or something who has violated Islamic law, against the U.S. coupled with warnings of war if the American government does not comply with his demands.

The men involved in the attacks had come to the U.S. some years before.  Some took flying lessons or had taken flying lessons, could speak English, and had knowledge of the West.  The motives were clear as Osama stated in a video issued to the U.S. that the presence of the West in holy places of Islam was unacceptable.  Furthermore, the West’s meddling in the affairs of Muslim countries have gone on for too long.  As we may recall, Lewis stated that Western ideas intruded upon Muslim values and beliefs.  This can be seen as a form of colonies for exploitation, when the Europeans interfered in the countries systems by dictating rules and procedures.

The point of this paper was to explain how the attacks of 9/11 corresponded to the legacy of colonialism.  This was done by bringing the colonial and post-colonial into dialogue with one another.  Kipling revealed the treatment of natives by the colonists to show in a sense the idea behind the notion of self and other.  Walcott through his poem creates a somewhat sarcastic response that shows the audience that colonialism only made things worse for the colonized instead of better.  The situations of the former colonies show no hope of changing as witnessed in the attacks of the hijackers of 9/11.  These men were upset at the continued presence of the West in their countries.  Their response to this was to attack symbols of Western dominance in hopes to get their feelings across and perhaps prompting a change in Western policies in other countries.  However, these actions only led to Western retaliation that seem to have no end to its beginning.

Works Cited

Ashcroft, Bill, Griffiths, Gareth, and Tiffin, Helen.  1989.  The Empire Writes Back:  Theory and Practice in Post-Colonial Literatures.  New York:  Routledge.

Kipling, Rudyard.  1930.  The Story of Muhammad Din.  In The Best Short Stories of Rudyard Kipling.  Ed. Randall Jarrell.  Garden City, NY:  Hanover House.

Lewis, Bernard.  2002.  What Went Wrong?:  Western Impact and Middle Eastern Response.  New York:  Oxford University Press.

Walcott, Derek.  1986.  The Spoiler’s Return.  In Collected Poems, 1948-1984.  New York:  Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

Walder, Dennis.  1998.  Post-Colonial Literatures in English:  History Language Theory.  Malden, MA:  Blackwell Publishers.