The Darker Side of Western Modernity

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The Darker Side of Western Modernity: Short Critical Review
Typically, modernity is characterized in celebratory conceptions. The ascension of
Western civilization 1500s onward, argues Mignolo in The Darker Side of Western Modernity, leaves out darker sides to European achievements in politics, economy, social sphere, arts and literature. In contrast to a much-hyped (and imposed) conception of modernity as an equivalent to progress only, Mignolo asserts that coloniality is, essentially, constitutive of modernity (3). That is, “European invasions of Abya Yala, Tawantinsuyu, and Anahuac; the formation of the Americas and the Caribbean; and the massive trade of enslaved Africans” (2) should not be understood as a linear progress of European civilization brought about by major powers including Spain, Portugal, Holland, France, and England (8) but should, more importantly, be understood in light of a decolonizing conception, i.e. dismantling “colonial matrix of power” (2), according to which alternatives universes, or options, are opened up by former colonies in Africa, Asia and Latin America and, as such, denying any one unitary conceptualization global pasts, presents and futures (amalgamated into a Eurocentric modernity) in an attempt to develop a “cosmopolitan localism” (23).
This understanding of modernity gives way to inseparable links to coloniality. According to Mignolo, “Coloniality...is constitutive of modernity—there is no modernity without coloniality” (3). That is, modernity, understood as European progress, cannot be divorced from a
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parallel conceptualization of coloniality, understood as crimes committed by European powers 1500s onward to bring forth historical and present forms ...