Neocolonialism is a crafty movement of the colonial countries' social-economic and political practices to support cultural dominations, liberal globalization, and individualism to the new colonies. The former colonial countries have made sure that the newly sovereign countries continue to rely on them for political and economic guidance. The oppression and dependency of the recent colonized countries' political and social-economic lives are carried out for the ideological, social-economic, cultural, and political advantages of the former colonies. The pre-colonial masters have predominantly controlled the newly colonized countries by economically suppressing them, cultural appropriation, and land procurement.
The pre-colonial masters have economically suppressed the newly colonized countries. The article, “Legal action on Basmati & Jasmine rice" by Grain, has focused on how the United States policies allow companies to virtually modify products (Grain, 2000). The author states that US companies sell the US rice by naming it the Indian and Pakistani rice names. This deception has made people in the newly colonized countries to abandon their own produced rice by believing that the products are from their country. Additionally, the US government has allowed its companies to cheat consumers to buy their products; thus, threatening the rice farmers from India and Pakistan. Similarly, in Ethiopia, a staple food they have been consuming for over 2000 years was stolen by the Dutch. In another article, “Did the Dutch 'steal' this African food,” the author explains how Ethiopian food called Injera ended up being owned by a company located in Netherlands (Saurine, 2019). The report showed that in 2003, an agronomist from Dutch purportedly took teff seeds for research but patented them as his own. His company was later granted the patent by the European Patent Office, which enabled him to market and sell the product. The teff patent stripped the Ethiopian’s rights and manifested the global power correlations in which huge companies in developed countries practice cultural appropriation in the developing countries—restraining the economy in the countries suppressing their economy.
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Cultural appropriation has deviated the cultural aspects of the underrepresented groups of people in regard to their art. It has superficial individual’s understanding of other cultures over the real culture through modeling and selling it (Domise, 2017) . The appropriation of culture has affected the indigenous communities and spread from music, art, traditions, among others. The appropriated cultures are undergoing financial and social consequences for failing to outhouse their own cultures and merging them into a dominant one. For example, tattoos have become more dominant in the world with all kinds of people having them. People who obtain tattoos retrieve the images from various cultures without being aware of their primary context (IPinch, 2013) . Drawing images taken from various cultures without their permission is illegal and unappreciative. Also, the United States pirated Yoga from India, claiming that it is a general word meaning a style. By terming their products like Yoga, they claimed that no individual could claim exclusive ownership of the term (Mazumbar, 2013) . The Indian government gave the US access to its traditional knowledge database to prove that the alleged invention was nonobvious and not novel. Intellectual property laws need to be developed regarding the possession of other communities’ cultural practices.
The colonial countries are also procuring lands from the poor countries, interfering with their sovereignty. According to the article, "Korea's Overseas Development Backfires," Korea is giving itself a sense of entitlement and egotism in the poor countries (Durbach, 2009) . The government leased lands in other countries such as Madagascar for 99 years. They imported their workers from South Africa instead of the local communities who had been tilling the land for income and food, which resulted in protests. Korea claimed to aid the local people with technical help, but they exported half of their produce. The country has also made deals with other underdeveloped nations such as Uruguay. Korea's practice of agricultural imperialism by importing food from underdeveloped countries implies that the land is theirs. It has preferred to lease land and farm instead of importing food.
In conclusion, it has been evident that even after colonization, the newly colonized nations have continued to be put through new modes of colonization. It has posed challenges to the countries concerning the economy, political, and social-economic development. These challenges posed have resulted in negative impacts in the countries, especially the African countries. The research has shown that the powerful countries have taken advantage of the newly colonized countries to benefit themselves. However, the question will prevail on whether the newly colonized countries will ever be decolonized.
References
Domise, A. (2017, May 22). How some people are missing the point on cultural appropriation . M aclean's . https://www.macleans.ca/opinion/how-some-people-are-missing-the-point-on-cultural-appropriation/
Durbach, D. (2009). Korea’s Overseas Development Backfires . The Korean Times. http://koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/biz/2009/12/123_56697.html
Grain. (2000, April 27). Legal action on basmati & jasmine rice . https://grain.org/en/article/1978-legal-action-on-basmati-jasmine-rice
IPinch. (2013, January 25). Appropriation (?) of the Month: Tattoos, Heritage, and IP . https://www.sfu.ca/ipinch/outputs/blog/appropriation-month-tattoos-heritage-and-ip/
Mazumbar, A. (2013, April 13). The Bikram Lawsuits and Why it Matters to You . Yoga Alliance. https://www.yogaalliance.org/Learn/Articles/bikram_lawsuits_4_18_2013
Saurine, A. (2019, May 9). Did the Dutch Steal this African Food? BBC. http://www.bbc.com/travel/story/20190508-did-the-dutch-steal-this-african-food
