Mohanty’s essay Under Western Eyes explores how some part of the western feminist discourse is used to appropriate fundamental differences that characterize the lives of women around the world and instead create certain realities about the third world woman as a single monolithic subject. These ways of understanding reify assumptions about the average third world woman (“average” implying that their varied experiences can be equated) and yet at the same time help reaffirm the identity of the western woman as secular, liberated and in control of her life. There may not necessarily be a ‘civilizing mission’ behind these ways of thinking, but the very act of attempting to understand brings with it certain assumptions that Mohanty problematizes in her essay. These ideas end up eerily echoing the sort of generalizing notions that were essential to the imperialist agenda and were used to inform colonial policies not too long ago.

We come across the silenced subject of the colonized woman. And in some ways, she is not even recognized as a subject: western discourse on feminism puts the western woman at the center as the subject, while the third world woman is merely the object who does not have agentive power as such and is only acted upon. For instance by referring to women in the global south as “ourselves undressed”, writers like Rosaldo not only equate the struggle of women all over the world (with little attention to the nuances that make them so different) but also imply that these women are lesser or unrefined versions of the more advanced and developed woman in the west. The third world woman is reduced to only being referenced to in relation to her western counterpart and not in and of herself. This casting of the third world woman as the essential other, is what unites western feminists with their (previously colonial) governments.

In referring to the kinds of reductive analysis that are usually employed, Mohanty constantly reiterates how alluding to women as an organic entity based on a shared characteristic completely ignores the multiplicity of factors that constitute their person. The focus shifts from trying to understand the complexities of power relations, to “finding a variety of cases of “powerless” groups of women to prove the general point that women as a group are powerless”. This ignores the nuances that produce women in certain contexts and cultures and analyses them as a singular group, effectively rendering their identity universal and at the same time ahistorical. Moreover, reducing the colonized women to victims par excellence assumes them to be an already constituted group that is merely placed within the structures that victimize them. This ignores the effect of these institutions in creating these women as they are.

While maybe not strictly imperialist in its aims, first world feminist writings usually gloss over nuances that are essential in understanding the struggles of women globally. For any meaningful analysis to take place, special care then needs to be taken to understand cultures or contexts in all their complexity and use them to inform discussions.

National liberation as a process for the colonized almost always came to defining who they were as a people. And one of the most defining features of this identity for Cabral is the local culture. For this very reason, culture became vital in anti-colonial struggle and thought, and in laying claim to one’s identity in opposition to that defined by the coloniser.

The continued existence of the coloniser in Africa was helped by the fact that it involved a constant negation of the personhood and entire history of the African people. And since culture for Cabral ensured the continuity of history, imperial control “must necessarily be the negation of its [Africa’s] cultural processes”. Since imperialist control by definition involved the negation of culture, efforts to take back control and reclaim history in a meaningful manner would necessarily involve reclaiming cultural values. What is interesting in this case is that Cabral does not call for a complete return to the culture and ways of the past. While remaining true to the roots is seen as desirable, culture is also seen as forever evolving and incorporating the way the world has progressed within it. Returning to the pre-colonial past as it was is not the best way to replace colonial rule. Cabral instead calls for an adoption of culture that is more cognizant of its own flaws and shortcomings.

The arrival of the coloniser in Africa interrupted a historical process, which would have led to a very different ‘developmental trajectory’ for the continent. One of the more prominent changes when it came to culture was the schism struck by conquest between the elite and the masses. The assimilation of a select group of people into the coloniser’s culture and language ensured that they were white in all but skin colour. This helped diminish the threat of a cultural conquest because all those who were in power, the “petit bourgeoisie” effectively considered the coloniser’s culture their own. The model national liberation movement for Cabral should be able to bridge these gaps and bring together the disparate groups in a single struggle that is predicated upon their common culture. The leaders and the laboring masses would be able to understand the worth of all actors involved and how instrumental the role of each is. He admires Eduardo Mondlane for this very reason: that he remained true to his cultural roots “despite all the attempts and the temptations of alienation from his African and Mozambiquan identity”. By bringing the leaders of the nationalist movement closer to the masses, local culture could be enriched and the movement used for the welfare of the people. Cabral’s ideal is however easier dreamt of than achieved. More often than not, the petite bourgeoisie are the pliant elite the coloniser would rather have them be, instead of a group that is well assimilated into the culture of the local population it claims to represent. Local culture is appropriated to the extent that any changes that are made end up being cosmetic, and do not achieve any substantive development because they are backed by the people who undermine that very culture and never identified with it in the first place.

Dada Amir Haider Khan and Sukarno are separated by several decades and thousands of miles. While one is set in the context of Communist internationalism, the other immediately follows global decolonization. And yet this does nothing to reduce the decidedly similar desires and hopes that their words reflect. Both represent the possibility of a world that diverges from European ways of being.

At the very beginning, Sukarno lays out that the Afro-Asian countries are present in Bandung because of a conscious choice and not out of a necessity or a sense of obligation to any other country. This is the first prominent departure from the kinds of conferences that were organized historically. For one, the countries are seen as equals in both their status and their ability to contribute to a mission that goes beyond their own selves. For another, no one is a silent bystander: every country gets its voice heard and respected. And in this process, the geographic centers of power have started to shift. In the time that this part of Dada’s account is set, the only geography that mattered was the link between the colony and the metropole. Moscow represented a completely unprecedented alternative and in some ways became the center of a new world that promised the ideals of Communism. As far as the time of the Bandung Conference is concerned, it represented a shift of power from the global north to the newly decolonized countries who could now hope to meet in places of their own choice, voluntarily.

A prominent theme in Sukarno’s speech is that of diversity. While Europe looked at diversity (whether it came through skin colour, ethnicity, language or religion) as a threat, it was a source of mutual recognition for Sukarno (which automatically implied acknowledgment of, and respect for, traditions and customs that were local to Asia and Africa). This recognition and sense of self-worth is precisely what the colonized had been robbed of by the colonialists. Regardless of how apparently different people may be, as long as they are guided by similar principles, diversity becomes a strength and represents a potential for self-recognition. In Moscow, Dada recounts a similar multiplicity of people gathered. Volunteers from all over the world congregated in one city and bridged the social distance that otherwise made cohabitating near impossible. The needs of the collective took priority over those of the individual. Diversity can hence become a positive trait “when there is unity in desire” and oppressed groups globally can gather in solidarity.

The presence of a cohesive society also became contingent upon state structures. For Dada, Moscow became the ideal that other places were compared to. A civilized society was one that had some social safety nets for its citizens (including access to healthcare, education, security and unemployment benefits). If a state failed to provide this to its people, then it could no longer expect the people to abide by its unjust laws. Interestingly Sukarno also talks about the ideal state and its responsibilities. He claims that the purpose of the law is fulfilled only so long as it is deployed for the wellbeing of people. In saying this, he is reconceptualising the idea of what politics can and should look like.

Dada and Sukarno allude to transformative experiences that helped shape the people who are engaged in these activities in their own times. For Sukarno, it is the price they have had to pay for freedom, on the journey to self-transformation. The pain and sacrifice that has helped shape the people, has also enabled them to stand on an equal footing with all others. For Dada, transformation was entirely different. It was the experience of the University of the Peoples of the East that many got to attend in Moscow and the pivotal shift it represented for them. For many, it was their first exposure to formal education. It also tied them in to people with similar aims globally and became a source of pride, for all the traits that were deemed undesirable in a Euro-centric world were desirable in this one.