WESTERNIZATION

Westernization on non-Western areas

Westernization on non-Western areas

Introduction

As applied to non-Western societies, Westernization term is almost always associated with modernization. It is important, however, to distinguish between the two, modernization, seen as a restoration of African societies, is prior to the incursion of the West on the continent. Before Europeans, the most important agents of modernization in Africa were the Arabs, who, after their settlement in North Africa, introduced Islam into West Africa and thereby set in motion a profound transformation of societies and cultures in the region. Similarly, the peoples of the coast of East Africa have been in contact with other civilizations long before the arrival of Europeans, the Arab influence in this field has been profound and lasting than in West Africa. Internally, the Zulu chief Shaka (1786-1828) conquests and his creation of the Zulu nation of various ethnic groups over a wide area in South Africa has led to a restructuring of their societies, the same can be said of hegemony Ashanti exerted on neighboring societies and peoples established in its sphere of imperial authority and cultural influence. In all these cases what is at stake is not only a process of adjustment resulting from the conquest, but a broad re-structuring of institutions and cultural practices of the companies concerned in accordance with a new model of the world.

the paper does not discuss westernization in all three regions as the instructions instructed

i.e. Asia, Latin America and Africa.

Westernization IN Asia

One of the most profound (but relatively less-understood) consequence of colonization has been how the political and economic rape of the colonies has also led to what sometimes seems to be an unbridgeable cultural gap between the nations that were the beneficiaries of colonization and those that were the victims of the colonial assault.

The era of colonial pillage and plunder led to the relative stagnation and often precipitous decline of traditional cultural pursuits in the colonies (mainly due to the loss of patronage resulting from political defeat and economic contraction). At the same time, there was an unparalleled and almost dazzling flowering of culture inAsia - in terms of urban planning, in the realm of science and technology, and most remarkably, in the genre of harmonically constructed polyphonic music. InAsia, the steady inflow of capital led to an unprecedented growth in trade and industrialization which culminated in a certain degree of political democratization - the reverse occurred in the colonies. Local economies were emasculated, and political and social progress was reversed, or highly circumscribed by the colonial authorities.

While Asia entered an era that ushered in unique and revolutionary developments in culture - the colonized nations of Asia, Africa and Central America not only missed out on these monumental developments, their political and economic subjugation led to cultural theft and annihilation, and even more so, to a deeply penetrating psychological genocide.Not only were certain aspects of the material culture in the colonies lost or destroyed, colonial societies also lost the power of cultural ...