A historically common tactic excercised by flourishing nations is colonization. Colonization is the process in which one country attempts to gain control of the other by establishing settlements and enforcing their foreign culture without formally declaring war. Chinua Achebe’s novel “Things Fall Apart” focuses on the Caucasian colonization of a fictitious African tribe known as the Igbo. Although presented with the benevolent intention of “spreading their culture to the ‘primitive’ nonwhites,” the tyrannical qualitites of the colonization did not positively affect the Ibo people; The colonization stripped the tribe of their traditions and resulted in the extermination of a thoroughly developed African culture.
The primary negative effect that the Caucasian colonization had upon the Igbo was their abomination to the Ibo faith: Christianity. Unlike the Ibo, the Caucasians were descendents of a monotheistic religion. Upon their arrival to the tribe, the Christian missionarries immediately commenced their plan to “depurate” the area of polytheistic practices by “ask[ing] [the Ibo] to leave their wicked ways and false gods and turn to [God]” (Achebe 145).
The religious monopolization continued as the Christians established churches and “built a place of judgement…to protect the followers of their religion” (Achebe 155).
With time, the extremeties of the missionaries’ attempts to rid the tribe of the Igbo faith “had..overstep[ped] the bounds. [They] had gone into the village and boasted openly that all the [Igbo’s] gods were dead and impotent and that they were prepared to defy them by burning all their shrines,” conveying their intent to annihilate all faith intertwined with Igbo customs (Achebe 154).
The Research paper on Society and Culture 3
CHAPTER II NATURE AND SCOPE OF SOCIOLOGY OBJECTIVES: • Define sociology. • Discuss the development of sociology. • Identify different methods of sociology. • Give the importance of sociology. Lesson 1. Sociology as Science Sociology • What is Sociology? Sociology is the scientific study of society, including patterns of social relationships, social interaction, and culture. The term sociology was ...
The Caucasians had minute acceptance for the Igbo’s holy traditions. They promptly deemed them to be incorrect and apocryphal, thus violating the tribe’s freedom to practice their aboriginal culture. The Caucasians had engendered the unnecessary depletion of indigenous African religious customs.
A second detrimental effect that resulted from the Caucasian colonization of the Ibo was the replacement of Igbo’s diurnal conduct and morals for those brought forth by the westerners. Along with their coercive enforcement of monotheistic religion, “the white men had also brought a government” (Achebe 174).
The oppressive regime no longer allowed the Ibo to unrestrictedly live their lives. The integration of “a court where the District Commissioner judged cases in ignorance…[and a] prison, which was full of men who had offended against the white man’s law” resulted in numerous prohibitions on the Ibo peoples’ previous lifestyles (Achebe 174).
They treaded on the morals of the Igbo tribe, to an extent where those who had “thrown away their twins…were beaten in the prison,” regardless of if they were Christian or not (Achebe 174-175).
Due to the Bible acting as the cynosure of the government enforced by the Caucasians, the Igbo tribe had a multitude of their customs challenged and supressed. The Caucasians overthrew an aboriginal African system of government and outlawed the historical practices executed by members of the clan on a daily basis.
Colonization is the historic process in which one country attempts to peacefully gain control of another, primarily by influencing the culture of the country. Although frequently deemed as a manner to unify a multitude of ares, colonization inconspicuously annhilates an abundance of thoroughly developed culture. “Things Fall Apart” centers around the oppression of the Caucasians towards the Igbo Africans as they colonize the tribe. The tyrannical overthrow resulted in the exceedingly diverse Igbo culture to be depleted to a bare minimum, leaving Caucasian customs as the dominant practice. This “homogenization” of different areas accelerates the depletion of international cultures and languages, and does not prove advantageous to the world as a whole.
The Essay on Igbo Culture
Imagine living a life with a completely different set of cultures and traditions; it is hard to do. Many people in the world today do not take the time to acknowledge the ways in which other societies live or how their cultures and traditions shape the way they are. The way in which a culture survives depends on the people’s capacity to understand and transfer it to succeeding generations. The Ibo ...
