Long-Term Social Effects of Colonisation on the Culture of the Colonised

Abstract

The study set out to check what has become, years after decolonisation, of the long-term social features that were introduced at gun point into the culture of the colonised during the colonisation years. The data were collected via a 26- item questionnaire that focused on key cultural elements including food, body modification, dressing, language, religion, marriage, and naming. A total of 300 informants were contacted of which 110 were male and 190 were females, with 170 educated in French and 130 in French. They were students majoring in English on the one hand, and science-oriented students specialising in mechanical, electrical, computer, insurance, and banking engineering and learning business English on the other hand. The analysis revealed that, for each cultural token tested, there was a tendency for the colonised to mimic the coloniser. Imported meals were eaten regularly, body lotions were produced by the coloniser, the wigs they wore were made with the coloniser’s natural hair, clothes thrown away by the coloniser were bought, the coloniser’s language was widespread, artificial nails resembling the coloniser’s were gummed on the colonised fingers, the faith of the coloniser was adopted by some people, emphasis was put on church marriage by some people, polygamy was rejected by some people following the injunctions of their pastors, and names were taken from a repertoire drawn up by the coloniser. In short, several years after decolonisation, the social cultural features that the coloniser imposed at gun point on the colonised parents were joyfully adopted by the colonised, to the point that the latter spends huge sums of money to acquire these features that make him or her look like the coloniser.