Why is colony x colonizer so popular among Hetalia fandoms based in the former colony?
Let’s be honest: colony x colonizer pairings are the most popular ships in the Global South fandoms. Anyone who claims to identify with the Global South community that argues otherwise is either lying or disconnected from the fandom in the homeland. Ever since I got involved with the fandom communities based in the Global South, I was personally frustrated with how popular the colonizer was in these spaces. I just couldn’t understand why people would rather center their countries’ relationships with their colonizers/Westerners/Europeans/the sort rather than with their neighbours whom they share a far more expansive history with.
The easy response would be that it’s simply an expression of coloniality, colonial legacies that persist among the Global South (and its diasporas) even at the psychological level. There’s certainly merit to this, but I also don’t think it’s fair as a whole answer. There is an implicit (and frankly racist) implication that people in the Global South are “uneducated” or “brainwashed” for the crime of liking... a yaoi pairing. And I don’t think finding a less abrasive and one-sided answer will be found with only interrogating and psychoanalyzing our counterparts in the Global South. So I turned to myself, and why I personally didn’t like it – regardless of my tolerance for problematic dynamics or what not.
So here’s what this post isn’t:
A defense or promotion of colony x colonizer and any depictions worthy of criticism
My personal evaluation and opinions of the character or nature of colony x colonizer
An armchair analysis of those that do.
Something that should be used for nonsense proship antiship discourse.
A reflection articulated for my personal thinking.
What really triggered a shift in my perspective was when one of my mutuals, who is a homeland Asian, responded to an anon asking a similar question; to paraphrase, it was the sentiment that “[Those based and educated in the West] did not seem to understand just how much colonialism and the colonizer dominate their countries’ histories” and that it limited how they could engage with their own country as a character.
This response has always echoed in my head, especially when I’m asked by both people based in the West and in the Global South why there’s such a difference in preference. It also made me think about my own experiences, as someone who has only ever been educated in the imperial core. While it’s very funny to think about these things because of fucking Hetalia fandom, I will reiterate that I think the fandom is a very explicit microcosm of real world dynamics – by virtue of its source material. Essentially: no shit does geopolitical relationships influence how people interpret characters that are explicitly geopolitical entities. Regardless of how humorously chronically online exploring this is, I am using this post as a form of personal reflection.
I thought about my history education and how it may affect how I interpreted Western countries and their relationships. It is of no surprise that colonialism and imperialism is rarely given justice in American classrooms; I did not learn about the Non-Aligned Movement in a formal setting until late in my bachelor’s degree – and I was actually doing a British curriculum! To take my own colonizer for example: I would view England’s most mutually substantial relationships to be with other Europeans and the “Western World” more vaguely. The only exception from the “Global South”, I would think, is India. I wouldn’t even consider my own culturally representative character, Hong Kong, to have a substantial relationship with England – despite the fact I am deeply aware that Hong Kong does not exist without British colonialism.
I don’t know how Europeans teach colonization in classrooms, but if it is anything like how I just described, where relationships with other “Western” countries are prioritized while relationships with the countries they colonized are a mere footnote or chapter sub-section, it makes sense why there’s little interest in colony x colonizer for us. There’s just too much of a disconnect in the relationship, from the perspective in the imperial metropole. And this isn’t even accounting for colonizer guilt!
So once again, my mutual’s point highlights a privilege: being able to envision a nation’s history and international relations beyond colonialism. I would argue this does not apply only to one’s own nation, but in viewing nations in general. I personally see little appeal exploring the colonial relationship as a mutually intimate one, for I have experienced the colonizer’s disconnect myself. But I have grown to be empathetic to those who do for their own context, especially after speaking to those who come from the former colony. Do note that I do not believe in fatalism, that people in the Global South cannot possibly also hold this perspective nor do I think they all share this opinion or perspective – my point here is this point of privilege is generally overlooked and unaddressed.
Frankly, what I want to say here is less about what people in the Global South think in general or in assessment – but more about how we, in the West, treat them. How we fail to reflect on our own upbringings, worldview, and project what we think what people in the Global South feel or should feel.
This post has no underlying message or moral to it – and the closest to one isn’t really profound beyond… empathy. It’s just a scramble of thoughts from perspectives that tend to be drowned out – given the anglo-centrism of almost every mainstream social media platform. This post is nothing but an articulation of my own shift in opinion.
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