Theory of Imagery Review of Related Theories
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question, the author is admitting a tension between these historical roots and the new culture or hegemony imposed on the writer by conquerors. And by
asking the third question, the writer confronts the fact that he or she both individual and social is created and shaped by the dominant culture Said in
Blessler 1999: 267. The question of identity becomes important for people in the third world
countries to find common identity as a way forward to liberate their country. Timor Leste, a country under Portuguese rule and Indonesian military occupation, needs to
find common identity. The way to identify common identity is through the word maubere.
The word maubere was used by the Portuguese to marginalize Timorese. Maubere
means uneducated or inferior in the eye of the colonizer; however for the Timorese, maubere became their new identity. Frontier has a dual function, as an
imagined community and as national consciousness. The imagined community has certain boundaries geographically. As national consciousness, maubere creates
imaginative boundaries between people of Timor Leste who feel oppressed, poor, backward, uneducated and destitute nation oppressed by the Portuguese and
Suharto‟s military regime. During Suharto‟s military occupation, Xanana Gusmao used maubere, not only as a symbol of struggle but also as a political tool to gain
international recognition of Timor Leste. maubere is similar to the concept of “Negritude.”
The Negritude is Africans‟ common identity and common purposes in order
to move forward in building a better-civilized society. Negritude represents not only Africans but also the other nations under Western hegemony in fighting for
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decolonization. The Negritude is as much as the word Latinity, the concept that expresses the value of the Latin Civilizations. Negritude is the way forward to get
Africans and other nations regain their civilization as brought by the West. Therefore, the words of Negritude and Maubere reassert that the Africans and Timorese are the
society upholding the political and economic value, race, culture and civilizations, Senghor:
Negritude objective was defined as “the sum- total of the value-economic and political, intellectual and moral, artistic and social-not only the people of the
Black Africa but also black minorities in America, even in Oceania” and Negritude Subjective meant “to assume the value of black civilization, to
realize and nurture them. Negritude rejects White culture and religion. Negritude or Black meant a pride in his race, possession of a heritage, and a
culture and identity 1974: 269-273. The common identity shared by third world countries has an aim of redefining
their existence. Culture and common identity are tainted with western superior culture; however, western countries claimed that their culture and their identity are far
better than colonized people and they use it as a political tool to justify colonialism. This leads to the Homi Bhabha‟s concept of Hybridity, meaning that national identity
is mixed between colonized and colonizer. Bhabha 1994:2 states that, Hybridity, is the third space for the colonized people to become neither colonizer nor colonized but
to emerge as something else.