Natasa Tucev tucev@tesla.rcub.bg.ac.yu wrote:
The Marxist Department of the Lyst established:
What we have here, then, is a pernicious piece of colonialist nostalgia, wistfully dreaming of the good old days when the sun never set on the Empire. It is glib propaganda for armchair adventurers who need to be reassured that civilisation amounts to supremacy and that technological sophistication is the only kind worth a damn. Ultimately, it endorses a self-granted mandate to invade the lives of so-called inferior peoples, prove one's superiority and promptly walk out again without care or consideration for the consequences.
Bravo! Bravo! Excellent!
Let us be fair to B7, however, and note that in general its underlying world-view is far from being imperialistic. The Federation are the imperialists, and they are the bad guys. As for the rebels, from the very beginning it is the case of 'proles of all planets unite'. Bran Foster's gang of rebels who live on Earth (cultural centre) neither resent nor despise the inhabitants of the Outer Planets (cultural periphery), but discuss the ways to help them gain independence.
Also, take 'Horizon', with its obvious allusions to India, and see how Blake encourages Ro to break away from the colonizing influence upon his mind, ask himself what his father (i.e., the past, ancestry, tradition) would do, and act accordingly.
N.
Or take Hal Mellanby and Lauren: he knew what was likely to happen to her and how her people would regard her.
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