The cycle of violence, human suffering, and conflicts continues unabated. As we live in the 21st century, we witness an unprecedented systematic assault on human dignity and the cherished values of peaceful coexistence. The contemporary discourse in major parts of the world is shaped by the divisive politics of identity, racism, and pride of various forms. This perhaps explains the rejuvenated debates around the theories of cosmopolitanism and globalization. Tagore had visualized as early as 100 years before how nationalism and a false sense of supremacy posed a danger to the values of coexistence and humanity at large. Calling it an epidemic of evil and destructive enthusiasm, he offered through his philosophy of education a vision for cosmopolitan and harmonious coexistence. He redefined cosmopolitanism in ways that involve the local/national histories/identities and celebrates them as markers of the shared values of peaceful coexistence. The study offers insight into how his call for reconciliation of Western science with the spiritual wisdom of the East offers new avenues for peace, coexistence, and mutual understanding in times when mankind is confronted with myriad challenges on all fronts.
Received: 17 October 2022 / Accepted: 27 December 2022 / Published: 5 January 2023
Cross-cultural encounters and confrontations constitute major areas of postcolonial studies. These depictions are built upon a few stereotypes, colonial constructs and ‘exotic’ images of people. Even in this globalized world of today, these problematic and false assumptions continue directing our ways of thinking and understanding. We are deeply either ill-informed or misinformed about people who are like us with an insignificant difference in culture and language. As a result, the increasing cultural divide, tensions, conflicts, and misconceptions plague collective human existence. The postcolonial writings, travel literature and feminist studies, characterized by the ideas of ‘self’ and ‘other’, serve as the theoretical framework for this study. These theories have strong parallels as they seek to empower the oppressed and reinstate the marginalized to the position of equality and dignity. The paper attempts to examine in brief how African and Arab writers of the twentieth century, spurred to write back to their demonization in western literary texts, instead chose to promote cultural understanding and present their story from their cultural perspectives. With the help of textual analysis and Fanon’s Black Skin, White Masks, the paper shows how this colonial trauma distorts perspectives and engenders a sense of self-estrangement and rootlessness which adversely affects the personal lives of people. The paper seeks to use this study to dismantle the stereotypes, reveal similar urges and passions to move away from a troubling past towards a future of mutual respect and cultural understanding. Thus, free from all these mistaken notions misdirecting our ways of dialogues and communications, we, as a global community, will get rid of the ills plaguing our existence across cultures and regions.
As the calls for global peace and peaceful coexistence grow louder, nationalism, often tearing apart the oldest and largest democracies, emerges as one of the formidable menaces to mankind today. It is a resurgent force in major democracies across continents. In Asia and particularly in the Indian subcontinent, it emerges in response to the colonial hegemony and the emulation of Western values. But it soon assumes a religious dimension. Tagore, in its rise as a global phenomenon, sees a threat to global peace and fraternity, an onslaught on human dignity, and calls it a 'destructive enthusiasm,' an 'epidemic of evil,' an edifice of illusions, and moral annihilation. Against the background of fragile peace and shattered human existence. This study investigates how nationalism dehumanizes people, kills a human character, distorts perceptions, divests them of moral ideals, reduces a man's life to a mechanical existence, and releases a demon of ethnonationalist violence by using text analysis as its research method. The study shows how the author's cosmopolitan vision is capable of guiding mankind in these troubled times. Besides, it shows how his vision can help people overcome this mass delusion and foster global understanding and peaceful coexistence.
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