kenton+piper-ruth,+scott+herrick

Conquer: to overcome by force; subdue

When conquered, the previous culture is degraded, dehumanized, and demonized. But it is not destroyed. It is oppressed, not obliterated. As such, undertones of that culture remain. It is this faction that is tasked with telling the other side of the story, of counteracting the conquering chronicle.

The conquering culture’s story is almost always afterward accepted as the true story. At the time, the conquering story is regarded as just an righteous. The European colonizers of Africa saw colonization as the white man’s burden and their duty. The settlement of the American west was deemed manifest destiny. The British colonization of the Far East was seen as a promotion of commerce and free trade. But the other side, those that were colonized, saw something very different. They saw their way of life destroyed and replaced with foreign rule.

Works like Things Fall Apart are the only way the conquered culture’s story gets told. By definition, to conquer means to subdue. The losing culture’s story is lost in the takeover. It is suppressed by the conquerors. It is not until after the colonization has taken place and order re-established that the culture’s story can be told. This is how it worked for Things Fall Apart. It took fifty years after colonization for the world to be ready for the other side of the story, and even then it was revolutionary, and catapulted Chinua Achebe to international fame.

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The same way as the video above, the one that wins gets the opportunity to tell the story, in the same way that the Europeans tell the story of African colonization, and how the United States gets to tell the story of western settlement.

 The fight against the conquest is usually portrayed as evil, as a malignant uprising that must be dealt with swiftly and brutally.

In our natural world a version of "who's story gets told" can be seen in the survival of the fittest. It is only the dominant race that has the ability to pass on there genes. The stories of the lesser races will never get told simply because they die out because of their inability to adapt. The same can be said for human civilizations. The tribes of lower Niger were unable to adapt to the white man with out being swept away.  The above is a visual representation of these scenarios.

In Things Fall Apart the idea of "who's story gets told" is a very strong theme emphasized by this quote "the sun will shine on those who stand before it shines on those who under kneel under them." This clearly states that the strong and those willing to put forth the most effort are the ones who will inherit the earth.



The affects of colonization are seemingly endless. The problems created can simmer for decades, even centuries. The modern impacts of colonization are shown in this picture, showing the militant nature that colonies have left behind.