at the margin and other or different become the characteristics of the inferior natives.
d. Hybridity
The relations between the colonizers and the colonized are associated with the concept of hybridity from Bhabha:
“Hybridity is the sign of the productivity of colonial power, its shifting and fixities; it is the name for the strategic reversal of the process of domination
through disavowal that is, the production of discriminatory identities that secure the “pure” and original identity of authority.”
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From postcolonial perspective, hybridity then is the condition of the colonized subjects who have been contaminated by colonialism. It shows that the colonized
are not simply and completely opposed to the colonizers. Thus, the relationship between the colonizers and the colonized is ambivalent.
3. Decolonizing the Mind
Ngugi Wa Thiong’o’s details on how colonialism has imposed its control towards the native as a means of complete subjugation. He states that the
domination of the mental universe of the colonized is the most important area by controlling the colonized’s culture. By culture, he means the ways in which
people perceive themselves as individuals and on their relation to others. Therefore, by controlling people’s culture, it means controlling their tools of self-
definitions. Other than physical attack, the domination of the mental universe through
culture becomes the target. It refers to Thiong’o’s term as decolonizing the mind. It shows the process of revealing colonialist power that is maintained through
culture. That is how the influence of colonialism does not easily end up although
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Bhabha, p.112
the formal independence of a country has been gained. Thus, just as Said takes on power relation in postcolonialism, Thiong’o conceptualizes decolonizing of the
mind. To sum up, the above concepts are significant in postcolonial theory to
reveal the ongoing effects of colonialism through colonial discourse implanted in Hirata’s works. Loomba and Sutrisno’s theory on modern colonialism help to
identify the kind of inequality that is produced by modern colonialism. Colonial discourse is used to analyze the colonialist thinking, particularly European
thinking with its power to construct the natives, as conceived by Said’s Orientalism concept. Othering and hybridity highlight the relationship between
the colonizers and the colonized, which influence the natives’ view and attitude on perceiving and representing themselves as an indivual and their relation to the
world. To highlight the colonial domination on the natives’ mind, the work of Thiong’o is important to identify how colonialism has imposed its control through
culture. It helps to reveal how people perceive themselves as an individual and their relation to others.
D. Theoretical Framework
As theoretical framework, postcolonial theory used in this study is modern colonialism as conceived by Loomba and Sutrisno which shows
inequality as the product of modern colonialism through restructuring the economic of the colonized and constructing the natives’ attitudes. This theory is
supported with colonial discourse theories. Orientalism by Edward Said is one of the colonial discourse which underlines Western thinking that construct a
discourse about the East. Said’s Orientalism is supported by Tyson’s concept
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