Post-colonialism

The aim of this article is to study selected poems of Oodgeroo Noonuccal, the national poet of the Australian Aborigines, in the light of Homi K. Bhabha’s postcolonial theories. Using a descriptive research methodology, the present study examines the way Noonuccal’s poetry fashions resisting discourse in contemporary Australia. First of all, introductory notes on postcolonial movement, colonial history of Australia and Noonuccal are presented and then postcolonial key terms such as hybridity, third space and otherization are applied to selected poems with the purpose of highlighting the anticolonial inclinations in them. Throughout the study, third space which comes as a result of hybrid cultures is emphasized as a background for reflecting and reinforcing Aboriginal tendency in Australia. Finally, issues such as expounding a view of history from the perspective of the colonized, pointing to the disappearance of Aboriginal culture and tradition and their revival, protesting against the states’ unjust policies regarding the Aborigines, putting an end to otherization and issuing a call for a just integration of blacks and whites are all considered as valiant attempts waging the anticolonial struggles in Oodgeroo Noonuccal’s poetry.

The present paper examines Elif Shafak’s 2011 novel Honour based on Bhabhaian concepts of hybridity and unhomeliness. Bhabha broached the idea of hybridity in order to address the social dimensions of postcolonial analyses. 4 Hybridity occurs when the relationship between the colonizer and the colonized blurs various boundaries. Bhabha explores the possibility of a hybrid space to elucidate the recollections of migrants and their unhomeliness. He defines hybrid identity as one constructed through relocation and separation in the contact zone. In fact, it is in a third space of enunciation in which every thought by both the colonizer and the colonized finds a means of expression or exchange. Using concepts of hybridity and unhomeliness to delve into Shafak's Honour , this research concludes that within the social and cultural structures and discourse of their ‘new’ country, diasporic characters feel unhomed and struggle to fill gaps and redefine their identities. The paper argues that characters in the novel seek refuge in diasporic communities to counter stereotypes. Their attempts, however, result in new experiences and feelings of isolation, nostalgia, insecurity, split self, and a sense of being out of place.

In the present paper, “Self” and “other” and their relation have been questioned. 7 types of political confrontation between self and other and, in a wider scope, between “our” culture and “their” culture are perceivable: conquest, conversion, assimilation and acculturation, partial assimilation: cultural borrowing, liberalism, conflict, and dialogical engagement. The first six were dominant in political history of humankind. But the last type is the only appreciated one that provides the path of development and progress in the shadow of peace and security.Findings of this article show that although the dialogical engagement is not the dominant type, there are some prominent and obvious cases in the Islamic heritage. Scientific contestation of Imam Sadeq and Imam Reza (PBUT), the believers of other religions and even atheists as well as the encounter of Abū al-Rayhān Muhammad ibn Ahmad al-Bīrūnī and Indians in his everlasting book, India are examples of dialogical engagement.