The Brown Man’s Burden

On the 4th of July Café Bol screened the film, ‘Schooling the World: The White Man’s Last Burden’. I attended as someone thoroughly jaded by the current interventions in Pakistan’s education sector and fascinated by the Freirian model of ‘emancipatory’ learning. Moreso, I was interested in meeting the moderator of the event Nosheen Ali. Contextualising the film for Pakistan: Nosheen started off the event, contextualizing the film with reference to her research in Pakistan’s northern areas and how western-planted education not only inculcates a sense of inferiority within people of ancient, self-sustaining cultures but also alienates them from their own world.
The film delivers the message forcefully; through a rapid sequence of stunning imagery accompanied with commentary by renowned ecologists and thinkers such as Vandana Shiva and Helena Norberg, and powerful montages that revealed the talent of the filmmaker. However, the endless and repetitive rhetoric on the evils of modern education made the film come off as reverse propaganda. The film when into overkill, projecting modern education as the predominant tool of the ‘white man’ to replace the ‘pristine’ cultures of traditional societies like Ladakh with a ‘repulsive’ mix of McDonalds, Shakira and sagging jeans.
White man’s aim: to colonize; Brown man’s aim: to overpower: By first articulating the white man’s colonial ‘civilization’ mission for the brown man and then moving to suggest that modern curriculum sought to mentally overpower the brown men to empower corporate interests, the film maker came off as confused. The crux of the same message was delivered more effectively by a TED Talk by Ken Robinson on; where he discussed how modern schooling is meant to populate industries and not tap into peoples’ creative potentials. The film would have been far more potent had it spent less time bashing modern education and more time discussing alternates.
As someone already converted to the fim’s underlying philosophy, I was put off by its sensationalist approach. It was no surprise therefore that in the discussion that followed that fellow development workers, themselves proponents of transforming the education system, defended modern education; indicative of how an overly aggressive stance shall antagonize more than converge.
Nosheen Ali did manage to tie the message of the film with the local context eloquently and spoke at length on alternatives. Nosheen’s discussion of her nine month experience of Chitral and the attempt to educate people without instilling inferiority and alienation was uplifting. Her passion and depth of investment in her research was admirable and her commentary on the subject added value to the experience.
The brown man’s burden: I did not leave the talk with my world challenged, rather I felt weighed down by what I consider the ‘brown man’s burden’. It is yet not known if the ‘blue print’ approach of schooling mandated by International Financial Institutions bestows any tangible benefits on local communities. It is true that the one thing it always succeeds in is ‘whitewashing’ indigenous cultures, creating an identity crisis, and creating sharp cultural divides within these societies. Seated amongst today’s development workers and policy makers, I increasingly wonder if our role is any different from the notorious middlemen of colonial times who facilitated the process of colonization of their populations? In all honesty as a development worker or relatively more ‘enlightened’ member of our society, every day I find myself conscious of how my ‘lens’ for viewing and making meaning of the world is largely shaped by my elitist education at missionary schools and upbringing in a society with an overwhelming ‘gora sahab’ complex. Consequently the brief time I spent abroad has converted me into one of those ‘in between’ individuals, the documentary referred to; someone never quite at home abroad and never quite at peace
at home.
Towards critical thinking: Still I feel comforted by the realization that I am not alone in this feeling and a growing community of young Pakistanis are members of the ‘in between’ community. Our combined disorientation in today’s Pakistan should be the push that forces us to delve deeper into much needed introspection and critical thinking; so we can once and for all do away with our distorted lens. Except I feel instead of being humble about our circumstance and developing the patience to discover ourselves in these difficult times we have a tendency to immaturely cling onto a certain ideology or absolute truth and become overly defensive about it.
One of the people who accompanied me to the screening, is a member of the Education Task Force of Pakistan, with a PhD from a radical leftist university, over 35 years of experience in Pakistan’s education sector and has such conviction in the Frierian notion of education that she spent over two decades trying to implement a schooling model inspired by his philosophy. Yet, as heartened as she was by the radical notions of the youth she felt that the trick is not to preach and overwhelm but push those on the fence and those who are apathetic to critically think. Perhaps this is the greatest incapacity of our generation; our messages always swing between extremes and have resonance only with the converted. Moreover our approach always borders on preachy and self righteous, forcing many to tune out. Still I am hopeful that open spaces for debate and rational discourse like Café Bol can help a culture of critical thinking and convergence to be cultivated.— Farheen Hussain works at a development agency that deals with Education and Social Policy.