Untitled - Memorial University of Newfoundland

linguistic groups . The people who occupiedthe land prior to European inausi on must,
however, have communicated because they interacted and traded with each other .
Whether in blatan t or subtle ways, ideas that elevated the European 's
worldview at the expense of the non-European permeated colonialist texts. The
colonized were mis- or re-presented as the antithesis of civilized Europe. the inferio r
'other' with all its connotations of savagery. In his essay . "Manichean Allegory: The
Function of Racial Difference in Colonialist Literature," Abdu1 1anMohamed asserts
that the English texts were used to justify imperial control and the exploitation of the
colony's resources:
[f such literature can demonstrate that the barbarism of the native is
irrevocable. or at least very deeply ingrained. then the European 's
attempt to civilize him can continue indefinitely . the exploitation of his
resources can proceed without hinderance. and the European can persist
in enjoying .a position of moral superiority (62).
This wasthe process of colonizing the mental universe of the natives while reinforcing
the supremacy of the European.
In his essay on "victorians and Africans: The Genealogyof me Myth.of the
Dark:Continent,.. Patrick Brantlinger analyzes several texts to delineate the
development and establishmen t of the myth that Africa is the dark:continent. He bases
his discussion on the theory of discourse"as strategies of power and subjection.
inclusion and exclusion, the voiced and silenced" (166). Brantlinger argues that the
imperiali st ideology produced the Dark Continent myth. which wasdeveloped and
maintainedduring the slave trade and the partitioning of Africa;
13