The " Je ne sais que" spirit

Yesterday, I was reading a book on Civilizations by historian Niall Ferguson. He was arguing that the Western Civilization have come to dominated the world through various masteries of technology, land, culture and medicine. He put forward the idea that through the masteries of these outward artefacts, they have controlled the world with their intellect and power. But in my opinion, this domination and colonization of land and other material artefacts is not the same as colonization of the mind or the spirit.

Colonization of the land and people includes power over its land, the erecting of institutions and other artefacts. These are merely outward trappings of power and dominations. Relatively small European powers has come to dominate large swathes of land and control masses of people through their control of political institutions and monopoly of violence. The control of land and it's people also presupposes the need to erect artefacts and institutions to demonstrate it's power

Outwardly, these material artefacts are grand and powerful but it says nothing about winning over the people's mind and spirit it claims to control. We can control the people, the movement and almost all outwardly trappings of people but you cannot colonize the spirit and the mind of people

United Kingdom or Great Britain used to control large swathes of land around England and all around the world but now it is struggling to even control the land north of itself, Scotland. They are seeking a second referendum to quit themselves from the United Kingdom. This is even after hundreds of years of war and domination.

The West claims to dominate in the field of medicine but they struggle with medical costs in keeping their people alive. They have claimed that through their advancement of medicine, mortality rate has increased throughout the years, prolonging the life of everyone - from the first world to the third world. But there are pockets of people who believed that natural medicine is better than the pathological approach that Western medicine takes to anomalies. What I am perhaps arguing is that there are lots of people who believed that God decides who lives and dies and not fellow humans.

This is almost backward but it is my belief that they are not that bothered when they die but if the medicine is available to prolong their life, it is all and dandy. But it is their belief that it is God's will when they live or die.

Hence having said that, after so-called so many years of Western domination, there are many areas that civilization is unable to conquer and that is the spirit of the people. It is not easy to define but you see it in the eyes of the people and the manner that it goes about doing things. They do not fight this so called coercion but rather maintain this spirit that this is my land, no matter what you do to change that, I will remain alive and live off the land. This might be a cop-out, but as the French will say "Je ne sais que" quality, or "I don't know what" quality that seems to exist in these people.

I think they almost pity them, for their obsession with wealth, power and prestige as they go about their own ways. They can erect the most grand court houses or the imposing institutions but they remain oblivious to the material trappings of their "colonial masters" and get on with their daily lives. This is because, they are people who remains true to the land.