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Although few formal colonies remain at present, the discourse of empire has proliferated in the past several decades. In 2000, two thirds of the countries belonging to the UN, with three fifths of the world population, were former colonies of the European empires. The legacies of colonialism can be found vividly not only in ideas, ideologies, languages and institutions of the former colonized countries but also in the former centres of the empires including London and Paris. This paper first looks into the achievements and limits of postcolonial studies, which has flourished for the past several decades. Such names as Edward Said and Homi Bhabha have challenged the Euro-centered discourse of the colonialists. In postcolonial discourses are found vestiges of postmodernism and post-structuralism, all three agreeing in questioning of the values of the European enlightenment and its claims to universalism. Importantly, postcolonial theory rejects the binary opposition, refusing the fixed identities that colonialism and traditional colonial studies sought to impose upon both the masters and the subordinated. This paper then proceeds to discuss the relationship between colonialism and modernity. The days have passed when economic aspect of colonialism received the most attention from the academics. Interest in institutions is predominant in the discourse of modernity and modernization. It is argued that the most important legacy empire has left in the former colonies can be found not in the economy but in political-administrative contours and the institutions of law and education. Interestingly, recent studies have found that democracy has developed to a higher degree in the former British colonies than in those of the other empires and that former British colonies are rated ‘less corrupt’ than others. Finally, the paper deals with the native collaborators in the colonial and occupied societies, probably the most difficult and delicate issue in the colonial studies. The once rigid distinction between resistance and collaboration under foreign rule has been blurred since the 1970s, thanks to theoretical debates on collaboration in the periphery and the de-mythification of the Resistance. As a consequence, the moral and binary judgment of resistance and collaboration has largely disappeared. This paper emphasizes the necessity of recognizing collaboration as one of the realistic means of ensuring the survival of the subordinate nation.
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imperialism, colonialism, postcolonial studies, modernity, collaboration
