What do you think?
Rate this book
Discourse on Colonialism
This classic work, first published in France in 1955, profoundly influenced the generation of scholars and activists at the forefront of liberation struggles in Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean. Nearly twenty years later, when published for the first time in English, Discourse on Colonialism inspired a new generation engaged in the Civil Rights, Black Power, and antiwar movements.
Aimé Césaire eloquently describes the brutal impact of capitalism and colonialism on both the colonizer and colonized, exposing the contradictions and hypocrisy implicit in western notions of "progress" and "civilization" upon encountering the "savage," "uncultured," or "primitive." He reaffirms African values, identity, and culture, and their relevance, reminding us that "the relationship between consciousness and reality is extremely complex. . . . It is equally necessary to decolonize our minds, our inner life, at the same time that we decolonize society."
An interview with Aimé Césaire by the poet René Depestre is also included.
Aimé Césaire eloquently describes the brutal impact of capitalism and colonialism on both the colonizer and colonized, exposing the contradictions and hypocrisy implicit in western notions of "progress" and "civilization" upon encountering the "savage," "uncultured," or "primitive." He reaffirms African values, identity, and culture, and their relevance, reminding us that "the relationship between consciousness and reality is extremely complex. . . . It is equally necessary to decolonize our minds, our inner life, at the same time that we decolonize society."
An interview with Aimé Césaire by the poet René Depestre is also included.
102 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1950
About the author
Aimé Césaire
101 books467 followersMartinique-born poet, playwright, and politician Aimé Fernand Césaire contributed to the development of the concept of negritude; his primarily surrealist works include
The Miracle Weapons
(1946) and
A Tempest
(1969).
A francophone author of African descent. His books of include Lost Body, with illustrations by Pablo Picasso, Aimé Césaire: The Collected Poetry, and Return to My Native Land. He is also the author of Discourse on Colonialism, a book of essays which has become a classic text of French political literature and helped establish the literary and ideological movement Negritude, a term Césaire defined as “the simple recognition of the fact that one is black, the acceptance of this fact and of our destiny as blacks, of our history and culture.” Césaire is a recipient of the International Nâzim Hikmet Poetry Award, the second winner in its history. He served as Mayor of Fort-de-France as a member of the Communist Party, and later quit the party to establish his Martinique Independent Revolution Party. He was deeply involved in the struggle for French West Indian rights and served as the deputy to the French National Assembly. He retired from politics in 1993. Césaire died in Martinique.
A francophone author of African descent. His books of include Lost Body, with illustrations by Pablo Picasso, Aimé Césaire: The Collected Poetry, and Return to My Native Land. He is also the author of Discourse on Colonialism, a book of essays which has become a classic text of French political literature and helped establish the literary and ideological movement Negritude, a term Césaire defined as “the simple recognition of the fact that one is black, the acceptance of this fact and of our destiny as blacks, of our history and culture.” Césaire is a recipient of the International Nâzim Hikmet Poetry Award, the second winner in its history. He served as Mayor of Fort-de-France as a member of the Communist Party, and later quit the party to establish his Martinique Independent Revolution Party. He was deeply involved in the struggle for French West Indian rights and served as the deputy to the French National Assembly. He retired from politics in 1993. Césaire died in Martinique.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 541 reviews
February 6, 2017
It is claimed that it is one of the pioneering works in the study of post colonialism.
Here Aime Cesaire does not write like a theorist or an academician. He is basically a literary figure/poet. So, naturally his writing is poetic than academic. But that does not mean it is purely fictional. It may be a first ever realist take on colonialism.
Colonialism is founded on a venomous ideology - an ideology of racial and cultural hierarchy. He proves it citing many examples from the historical, religious, philosophical and literary records. To lord over a race or a country, a philosophy/ideology was extremely necessary. More importantly that ideology should help in numbing the conscience of the colonizer. Thus was born the idea of racial hierarchy. Obviously the white race is at the top of the ladder and they are born soldiers/rulers. The other races are born laborers (Chinese/yellow people) or agriculturalists (blacks). These races love to be ruled because they cannot rule themselves. In the process, any kind of violence is silently approved by the white people of Europe. The irony was that such thoughts evolved in Europe when humanism was the ruling philosophy. Obviously, Cesaire mocks at the humanism of Europe. It is humanism of white men. Period.
In fact, Cesaire finds the origin of fascism in colonialism. He writes that when millions of blacks were tortured in Africa, coolies were killed in India, people were tortured in Madagascar the people in Europe never raised an objection. This he says paved the way for fascism. Later when Hitler took the same measures of treatment reserved for the colonized to the white people of Europe, the Europeans could not understand. According to them Hitler's crime was not the crime against human being or a human dignity. It was the crime against the WHITE PEOPLE.
Besides, Cesaire also says that colonization results in dehumanizing both the colonizer and the colonized. For the colonizer, it dicivilizes him. To calm his conscience (born out of tortures rendered to the colonized or the mass killing), he considers the colonized as mere animal. Thus, all his base elements are given free reign that result in brutish behaviours. For the colonized it is a humiliation and a perennial fall into the inferiority complex.
Cesaire writes all these in a passionate way and one cannot but be moved. And for me, a person from a colonized country the impact was powerful. Also, it is not a mere illogical blabber. He gives evidences to his theories and they are shocking and revealing at the same time.
A powerful book.
Note: This edition also contains an excellent introduction by Robin D. G. Kelly which is titled as "A Poetics of Anticolonialism." Five stars for introduction.
Here Aime Cesaire does not write like a theorist or an academician. He is basically a literary figure/poet. So, naturally his writing is poetic than academic. But that does not mean it is purely fictional. It may be a first ever realist take on colonialism.
Colonialism is founded on a venomous ideology - an ideology of racial and cultural hierarchy. He proves it citing many examples from the historical, religious, philosophical and literary records. To lord over a race or a country, a philosophy/ideology was extremely necessary. More importantly that ideology should help in numbing the conscience of the colonizer. Thus was born the idea of racial hierarchy. Obviously the white race is at the top of the ladder and they are born soldiers/rulers. The other races are born laborers (Chinese/yellow people) or agriculturalists (blacks). These races love to be ruled because they cannot rule themselves. In the process, any kind of violence is silently approved by the white people of Europe. The irony was that such thoughts evolved in Europe when humanism was the ruling philosophy. Obviously, Cesaire mocks at the humanism of Europe. It is humanism of white men. Period.
In fact, Cesaire finds the origin of fascism in colonialism. He writes that when millions of blacks were tortured in Africa, coolies were killed in India, people were tortured in Madagascar the people in Europe never raised an objection. This he says paved the way for fascism. Later when Hitler took the same measures of treatment reserved for the colonized to the white people of Europe, the Europeans could not understand. According to them Hitler's crime was not the crime against human being or a human dignity. It was the crime against the WHITE PEOPLE.
Besides, Cesaire also says that colonization results in dehumanizing both the colonizer and the colonized. For the colonizer, it dicivilizes him. To calm his conscience (born out of tortures rendered to the colonized or the mass killing), he considers the colonized as mere animal. Thus, all his base elements are given free reign that result in brutish behaviours. For the colonized it is a humiliation and a perennial fall into the inferiority complex.
Cesaire writes all these in a passionate way and one cannot but be moved. And for me, a person from a colonized country the impact was powerful. Also, it is not a mere illogical blabber. He gives evidences to his theories and they are shocking and revealing at the same time.
A powerful book.
Note: This edition also contains an excellent introduction by Robin D. G. Kelly which is titled as "A Poetics of Anticolonialism." Five stars for introduction.
October 24, 2021
Césaire didn't come to play. He came for bloody murder. Discourse on Colonialism is a reckoning with the Western world, with the idea of the Christian Occident. In it, Césaire accuses, he calls out, he illustrates the long history of injustice and hurt Black people are all too familiar with. This book is a punch to the gut. It’s urgent. It’s relevant. It’s eye-opening. It’s sickening. It isn't comforting.
For those of you unfamiliar with him: Aimé Césaire (b. June 26, 1913 in Martinique; † April 17, 2008 ibid.) was an Afro-Caribbean French writer and politician. He was one of the co-founders of the Négritude movement, advocating the cultural self-assertion of the colonized and showing solidarity with the "wretched of the earth". Césaire's work includes volumes of poetry, plays, and essays that have been translated into many languages.
The goal of the gradually emerging Négritude movement was to make the slave-derived Black people in the Caribbean – and, beyond that, Black people all over the world – aware that their cultural traditions, rooted in Africa, were by no means inferior to the culture of white people who defamed and oppressed them, but were equal to it in all their richness, which finally had to be rediscovered and represented with self-confidence.
Négritude appealed to all Black people to shed their sense of inferiority to white culture, to free themselves from its total dominance, and to find their own Black identity by returning to their African origins. With these ideas, the Négritude movement mentally prepared the decolonization process that got underway after World War II in many countries that had been colonies until then, and which led to the political independence of many areas in Africa and elsewhere, especially around 1960.
Césaire’s Discourse on Colonialism is one of the major works of the Négritude movement. In it, he denounces in passionate, moving language the crimes and atrocities that had been perpetrated for centuries by white people against Black people and continued to be perpetrated even after World War II in Indochina, on Madagascar and elsewhere, although the "mother countries" had just painfully experienced themselves what unfreedom and oppression is, and should have learned from it.
He argues that colonialism was not and had never been a benevolent movement whose goal was to improve the lives of the colonized; instead, colonists' motives were entirely self-centered, economic exploitation. By establishing colonies and then exploiting them, the European colonial powers have created two main problems: the problem of the proletariat and the colonial problem.
In describing the colonial problem that European civilization has created, Césaire calls Europe "indefensible", whose colonizers cannot be misconstrued as positive. He discusses the relationship between civilization and "savagery" and points out the hypocrisy of colonialism. He asserts that it is ironic that colonizers hoped to rid the countries they colonized of "savages" but in reality, by killing, raping, and destroying the land in which those "savages" lived on, the Europeans were the savages themselves. His interpretation flips the common narrative, in order to point out the autonomy that existed in colonizing foreign lands.
He bases his argument on the claim that, "no one colonizes innocently, that no one colonizes with impunity either; that a nation which colonizes, that a civilization which justifies colonization—and therefore force—is already a sick civilization, a civilization which is morally diseased, which irresistibly, progressing from one consequence to another, one denial to another, calls for its Hitler, I mean its punishment."
He labels the colonizers as barbaric for their treatment of those in the colonies. He defines the relationship as one limited to "forced labor, intimidation, pressure, the police, taxation, theft, rape, compulsory crops, contempt, mistrust, arrogance, self-complacency, swinishness, brainless elites, degraded masses".
In addition, Césaire also acknowledges the racial construction of the relationship. By identifying the colonial relationship as one based on race, he draws comparisons between his home of Martinique with the colonies in Africa. By equating racism, barbarism and colonialism, he claims colonization to be a form of dehumanization that results from Europe's racism against Black populations in Africa and the Caribbean.
Discourse on Colonialism is harsh in tone (–anything else would be inappropriate, really) and it was considered "radical" throughout time, it has been compared to "a declaration of war" on colonialism. And whilst that might be true it's also an unapologetic self-assertion.
For those of you unfamiliar with him: Aimé Césaire (b. June 26, 1913 in Martinique; † April 17, 2008 ibid.) was an Afro-Caribbean French writer and politician. He was one of the co-founders of the Négritude movement, advocating the cultural self-assertion of the colonized and showing solidarity with the "wretched of the earth". Césaire's work includes volumes of poetry, plays, and essays that have been translated into many languages.
The goal of the gradually emerging Négritude movement was to make the slave-derived Black people in the Caribbean – and, beyond that, Black people all over the world – aware that their cultural traditions, rooted in Africa, were by no means inferior to the culture of white people who defamed and oppressed them, but were equal to it in all their richness, which finally had to be rediscovered and represented with self-confidence.
Négritude appealed to all Black people to shed their sense of inferiority to white culture, to free themselves from its total dominance, and to find their own Black identity by returning to their African origins. With these ideas, the Négritude movement mentally prepared the decolonization process that got underway after World War II in many countries that had been colonies until then, and which led to the political independence of many areas in Africa and elsewhere, especially around 1960.
Césaire’s Discourse on Colonialism is one of the major works of the Négritude movement. In it, he denounces in passionate, moving language the crimes and atrocities that had been perpetrated for centuries by white people against Black people and continued to be perpetrated even after World War II in Indochina, on Madagascar and elsewhere, although the "mother countries" had just painfully experienced themselves what unfreedom and oppression is, and should have learned from it.
They talk to me about progress, about 'achievements,' diseases cured, improved standards of living. I am talking about societies drained of their essence, cultures trampled underfoot, institutions undermined, lands confiscated, religions smashed, magnificent artistic creations destroyed, extraordinary possibilities wiped out.Estimations show that 150 million Black people were taken from Africa as slaves within four centuries – one of the most egregious crimes in human history, for which the so-called 'Christian West' is mainly responsible. A reckoning is inevitable, and it came in the form of Césaire.
He argues that colonialism was not and had never been a benevolent movement whose goal was to improve the lives of the colonized; instead, colonists' motives were entirely self-centered, economic exploitation. By establishing colonies and then exploiting them, the European colonial powers have created two main problems: the problem of the proletariat and the colonial problem.
In describing the colonial problem that European civilization has created, Césaire calls Europe "indefensible", whose colonizers cannot be misconstrued as positive. He discusses the relationship between civilization and "savagery" and points out the hypocrisy of colonialism. He asserts that it is ironic that colonizers hoped to rid the countries they colonized of "savages" but in reality, by killing, raping, and destroying the land in which those "savages" lived on, the Europeans were the savages themselves. His interpretation flips the common narrative, in order to point out the autonomy that existed in colonizing foreign lands.
He bases his argument on the claim that, "no one colonizes innocently, that no one colonizes with impunity either; that a nation which colonizes, that a civilization which justifies colonization—and therefore force—is already a sick civilization, a civilization which is morally diseased, which irresistibly, progressing from one consequence to another, one denial to another, calls for its Hitler, I mean its punishment."
He labels the colonizers as barbaric for their treatment of those in the colonies. He defines the relationship as one limited to "forced labor, intimidation, pressure, the police, taxation, theft, rape, compulsory crops, contempt, mistrust, arrogance, self-complacency, swinishness, brainless elites, degraded masses".
In addition, Césaire also acknowledges the racial construction of the relationship. By identifying the colonial relationship as one based on race, he draws comparisons between his home of Martinique with the colonies in Africa. By equating racism, barbarism and colonialism, he claims colonization to be a form of dehumanization that results from Europe's racism against Black populations in Africa and the Caribbean.
They throw facts at my head, statistics, mileages of roads, canals, and railroad tracks. I am talking about thousands of men sacrificed to the Congo-Ocean. I am talking about those who, as I write this, are digging the harbor of Abidjan by hand. I am talking about millions of men torn from their gods, their land, their habits, their life-from life, from the dance, from wisdom. I am talking about millions of men in whom fear has been cunningly instilled, who have been taught to have an inferiority complex, to tremble, kneel, despair, and behave like flunkeys.With relentless logic, Césaire holds up the mirror of barbarism to white civilization, especially in its bourgeois-capitalist guise, and shows that fascism has always been present in it: "Yes," he writes, "it would be worth the trouble to examine clinically precisely and in all details the methods of Hitler and Hitlerism and to make the oh-so-distinguished, oh-so-humanistic, oh-so-Christian bourgeois of the 20th century understand that he himself carries a Hitler within him without knowing it, that Hitler is his inner demon, […] and that basically what he does not forgive Hitler for is not the crime itself, the crime against man, not the degradation of man in itself, but the crime against the white man, the degradation of the white man, and that he, Hitler, has applied colonialist methods to Europe to which only the Arabs of Algeria, the coolies of India, and the Negroes of Africa have hitherto been subjected."
Discourse on Colonialism is harsh in tone (–anything else would be inappropriate, really) and it was considered "radical" throughout time, it has been compared to "a declaration of war" on colonialism. And whilst that might be true it's also an unapologetic self-assertion.
They dazzle me with the tonnage of cotton or cocoa that has been exported, the acreage that has been planted with olive trees or grapevines. I am talking about natural economies that have been disrupted — harmonious and viable economies adapted to the indigenous population — about food crops destroyed, malnutrition permanently introduced, agricultural development oriented solely toward the benefit of the metropolitan countries, about the looting of products, the looting of raw materials.As a Black person, it was a (surprisingly?) empowering read. It's something I will put into the hands of many of my friends, and will keep recommending. This essay is needed!
September 13, 2023
Scratch a Liberal, and a Fascist bleeds…
Preamble:
--Brief but severe, this 1955 essay on colonialism is poetic fury. I try to reserve 5-star ratings for in-depth masterpieces, but exceptions must be made here.
--Césaire identifies 2 root decays of Western Liberalism:
1) The proletariat problem (i.e. capitalist wage labour): since this is already the central critique by the Western Left’s Marxist tradition, Césaire skips this (although a synthesis of both points is crucial, see later). I’ve unpacked Marx’s proletariat problem (concentration of accumulation by capitalists leaves more precarity/dispossession/surplus labour for the masses) here: Capital: A Critique of Political Economy, Volume 1
2) The colonial problem: Césaire’s focus.
The Brilliant:
--I first heard of this work referenced in Vijay Prashad’s masterpiece The Darker Nations: A People's History of the Third World, in the context of Liberalism and Imperialism being 2 sides of the same coin, and the striking perspective that Nazism is what the Western Allies were doing in their colonies towards coloured peoples, now brought back to Europe.
--The Western Allies portray good vs. evil fighting the Nazis, while at the same time owning outright colonies or practicing settler colonialism (the US still had Jim Crow segregation as well!). Once we unravel the pervasive cognitive dissonance of Western/US exceptionalism, it really should be no surprise that this history of genocide (including “concentration camps”) inspired Hitler. Hitler seemed particularly impressed with the US’s settler colonialism, reflected in his “Lebensraum” (living space) in his Mein Kampf manifesto.
-Hitler's American Model: The United States and the Making of Nazi Race Law
--Imperialist ideological censorship:
-Vijay Prashad: https://youtu.be/6jKcsHv3c74
-Michael Parenti: https://youtu.be/npkeecCErQc
--I would like to quote this essay’s entire 1st quarter, it is that eloquent (the second half drifts off a bit):
“And then one fine day the bourgeoisie is awakened by a terrific reverse shock: the gestapos are busy, the prisons fill up, the torturers around the racks invent, refine, discuss.”
“[…] that it is Nazism, yes, but that before they were its victims, they were its accomplices; that they tolerated that Nazism before it was inflicted on them, that they absolved it, shut their eyes to it, legitimized it, because, until then, it had been applied only to non-European peoples […]”
“[…] he is being inconsistent and that, at bottom, what he cannot forgive Hitler for is not crime in itself, the crime against man, it is not the humiliation of man as such, it is the crime against the white man, the humiliation of the white man, and the fact that he applied to Europe colonialist procedures which until then had been reserved exclusively for the Arabs of Algeria, the coolies of India, and the blacks of Africa.”
“At the end of capitalism, which is eager to outlive its day, there is Hitler. At the end of formal humanism and philosophic renunciation, there is Hitler.”
The Missing:
--“Liberal”: this term is not used in the essay, and while there is much confusion around the term, I think it’s a useful starting point to represent the contradictions of real-world capitalism:
i) Capitalism in the real-world (as opposed to abstract theories) is not just the markets of goods/services ("societies with markets" pre-existed capitalism), which spread in a cosmopolitan manner and may be associated with some socially-“liberal” outcomes…
ii) Capitalism's peculiar markets conveniently obscured by ideologues are markets for labour/land/money, which buy/sell "fictitious commodities" since humans/nature/purchasing power are not "produced" for market exchange like real commodities. For an intro on how "societies with markets" became capitalism's "market society", see: Talking to My Daughter About the Economy: or, How Capitalism Works—and How It Fails.
iii) Rather than market capitalism vs. state socialism, the capitalist state is crucial in providing the violence to first build these peculiar capitalist markets (violent dispossession to create private real estate, where the dispossessed became dependent on wage labour and market goods, from the Enclosures in England to the triangular global trade where colonial markets fed Western industrialization) and to perpetuate such markets (from “House of Terror” workhouses to enforce wage labour discipline in England to the US Military/Prison Industrial Complex). This colonial loot/wage labour dependency/debt peonage/global inequality is the economic liberalism (liberty for money-power) underbelly of “liberalism”.
…This is how I am equating “liberalism” with the author’s terms “so-called European civilization” and “Western bourgeois society”.
...I am also clearly not confining “capitalism” to individual countries as if nations are all self-made and isolated entities (another convenient abstraction). We must consider the interactions. Global South countries with their arteries wide open for foreign multinational corporations to drain (free market, free trade!) are just as part of the global capitalist system as those who have fed off Global South inputs (directly and indirectly) since their own industrialization (which ironically required anti-free market policies, i.e. state protectionism and strategic long-term planning, not to mention “gunboat diplomacy” destroying free competition). See: Bad Samaritans: The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism
...As Parenti says, these Global South (capitalist) countries “are not poor, they are rich! Only the people are poor”... “they are not under-developed; they are over-exploited!” Colonizers do not go to poor places to loot; they go to rich places... The Global South are not barren places (Global North winters?) destined to be poor, nor do they just need “more capitalism” to “develop”.
--Now, let us start to synthesize the “colonial problem” with the other root decay, the “proletariat problem”: Marxist political economy critique focuses on capitalism’s abstractions + contradictions leading to crises. It is crucial to synthesis this critique with the imperialism of the “colonial problem”: when capitalism busts, fascism is an option for capitalists to:
i) Economically: revive capitalist production via military industrial complex, the safest form of state stimulus because it serves hierarchical domination rather than social needs (too close to socialism).
ii) Socially: scapegoat the crisis on visible minorities (immigrants, Jewish money-power which conveniently scapegoats individuals while fervently protecting the capitalist structures of money-power). It helps that capitalism’s social power (money-power) is so abstract (labyrinthian financial markets/property rights). Also, directly beat down anti-capitalists who have a greater opportunity during crises to capture mainstream attention, as the status quo mirage is temporarily dissipated (capitalist bubble bursts, and capitalists are too pessimistic of future profits to revive production).
--How this is playing out after the 2008 Financial Crisis/Euro crisis (foreshadowing Global Trumpism): And the Weak Suffer What They Must? Europe's Crisis and America's Economic Future
--The book that directly tackles this, which I will review soon: Blackshirts and Reds: Rational Fascism and the Overthrow of Communism
--Césaire post-WWII essay has its roots in theories steaming from the prior great war, WWI. There is Lenin’s 1916 famous essay Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism (lesser read is Luxemburg’s 1913 tome The Accumulation of Capital); black pioneer of American scientific sociology W.E.B. Du Bois was also well-positioned to explore the synthesis in his 1915 essay "The African Roots of War", on how the imperialist “Scramble for Africa” set up WWI (see: Darkwater: Voices from Within the Veil).
--To bring the economic side (Marx’s critique of capitalism’s abstractions/contradictions/crises) to today’s time while uncovering the censored Global South, I have to start with the Patnaiks (Global South’s surplus labour, value of money vs. commodity prices, crucial raw materials esp. agricultural cash crops, phases of global capitalism, etc.):
-magnum opus: Capital and Imperialism: Theory, History, and the Present
-accessible: The Agrarian Question in the Neoliberal Era: Primitive Accumulation and the Peasantry
-The Veins of the South Are Still Open: Debates Around the Imperialism of Our Time
-A Theory of Imperialism
--As for the best from the Global North:
-dive: Super Imperialism: The Origin and Fundamentals of U.S. World Dominance
-dive: Trade, Development and Foreign Debt
--For histories:
-intro: The Divide: A Brief Guide to Global Inequality and its Solutions
-intro: Washington Bullets: A History of the CIA, Coups, and Assassinations
-dive: Late Victorian Holocausts: El Niño Famines and the Making of the Third World
-dive: Debt: The First 5,000 Years
-dive: Perilous Passage: Mankind and the Global Ascendancy of Capital
Preamble:
--Brief but severe, this 1955 essay on colonialism is poetic fury. I try to reserve 5-star ratings for in-depth masterpieces, but exceptions must be made here.
--Césaire identifies 2 root decays of Western Liberalism:
1) The proletariat problem (i.e. capitalist wage labour): since this is already the central critique by the Western Left’s Marxist tradition, Césaire skips this (although a synthesis of both points is crucial, see later). I’ve unpacked Marx’s proletariat problem (concentration of accumulation by capitalists leaves more precarity/dispossession/surplus labour for the masses) here: Capital: A Critique of Political Economy, Volume 1
2) The colonial problem: Césaire’s focus.
The Brilliant:
--I first heard of this work referenced in Vijay Prashad’s masterpiece The Darker Nations: A People's History of the Third World, in the context of Liberalism and Imperialism being 2 sides of the same coin, and the striking perspective that Nazism is what the Western Allies were doing in their colonies towards coloured peoples, now brought back to Europe.
--The Western Allies portray good vs. evil fighting the Nazis, while at the same time owning outright colonies or practicing settler colonialism (the US still had Jim Crow segregation as well!). Once we unravel the pervasive cognitive dissonance of Western/US exceptionalism, it really should be no surprise that this history of genocide (including “concentration camps”) inspired Hitler. Hitler seemed particularly impressed with the US’s settler colonialism, reflected in his “Lebensraum” (living space) in his Mein Kampf manifesto.
-Hitler's American Model: The United States and the Making of Nazi Race Law
--Imperialist ideological censorship:
-Vijay Prashad: https://youtu.be/6jKcsHv3c74
-Michael Parenti: https://youtu.be/npkeecCErQc
--I would like to quote this essay’s entire 1st quarter, it is that eloquent (the second half drifts off a bit):
“And then one fine day the bourgeoisie is awakened by a terrific reverse shock: the gestapos are busy, the prisons fill up, the torturers around the racks invent, refine, discuss.”
“[…] that it is Nazism, yes, but that before they were its victims, they were its accomplices; that they tolerated that Nazism before it was inflicted on them, that they absolved it, shut their eyes to it, legitimized it, because, until then, it had been applied only to non-European peoples […]”
“[…] he is being inconsistent and that, at bottom, what he cannot forgive Hitler for is not crime in itself, the crime against man, it is not the humiliation of man as such, it is the crime against the white man, the humiliation of the white man, and the fact that he applied to Europe colonialist procedures which until then had been reserved exclusively for the Arabs of Algeria, the coolies of India, and the blacks of Africa.”
“At the end of capitalism, which is eager to outlive its day, there is Hitler. At the end of formal humanism and philosophic renunciation, there is Hitler.”
The Missing:
--“Liberal”: this term is not used in the essay, and while there is much confusion around the term, I think it’s a useful starting point to represent the contradictions of real-world capitalism:
i) Capitalism in the real-world (as opposed to abstract theories) is not just the markets of goods/services ("societies with markets" pre-existed capitalism), which spread in a cosmopolitan manner and may be associated with some socially-“liberal” outcomes…
ii) Capitalism's peculiar markets conveniently obscured by ideologues are markets for labour/land/money, which buy/sell "fictitious commodities" since humans/nature/purchasing power are not "produced" for market exchange like real commodities. For an intro on how "societies with markets" became capitalism's "market society", see: Talking to My Daughter About the Economy: or, How Capitalism Works—and How It Fails.
iii) Rather than market capitalism vs. state socialism, the capitalist state is crucial in providing the violence to first build these peculiar capitalist markets (violent dispossession to create private real estate, where the dispossessed became dependent on wage labour and market goods, from the Enclosures in England to the triangular global trade where colonial markets fed Western industrialization) and to perpetuate such markets (from “House of Terror” workhouses to enforce wage labour discipline in England to the US Military/Prison Industrial Complex). This colonial loot/wage labour dependency/debt peonage/global inequality is the economic liberalism (liberty for money-power) underbelly of “liberalism”.
…This is how I am equating “liberalism” with the author’s terms “so-called European civilization” and “Western bourgeois society”.
...I am also clearly not confining “capitalism” to individual countries as if nations are all self-made and isolated entities (another convenient abstraction). We must consider the interactions. Global South countries with their arteries wide open for foreign multinational corporations to drain (free market, free trade!) are just as part of the global capitalist system as those who have fed off Global South inputs (directly and indirectly) since their own industrialization (which ironically required anti-free market policies, i.e. state protectionism and strategic long-term planning, not to mention “gunboat diplomacy” destroying free competition). See: Bad Samaritans: The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism
...As Parenti says, these Global South (capitalist) countries “are not poor, they are rich! Only the people are poor”... “they are not under-developed; they are over-exploited!” Colonizers do not go to poor places to loot; they go to rich places... The Global South are not barren places (Global North winters?) destined to be poor, nor do they just need “more capitalism” to “develop”.
--Now, let us start to synthesize the “colonial problem” with the other root decay, the “proletariat problem”: Marxist political economy critique focuses on capitalism’s abstractions + contradictions leading to crises. It is crucial to synthesis this critique with the imperialism of the “colonial problem”: when capitalism busts, fascism is an option for capitalists to:
i) Economically: revive capitalist production via military industrial complex, the safest form of state stimulus because it serves hierarchical domination rather than social needs (too close to socialism).
ii) Socially: scapegoat the crisis on visible minorities (immigrants, Jewish money-power which conveniently scapegoats individuals while fervently protecting the capitalist structures of money-power). It helps that capitalism’s social power (money-power) is so abstract (labyrinthian financial markets/property rights). Also, directly beat down anti-capitalists who have a greater opportunity during crises to capture mainstream attention, as the status quo mirage is temporarily dissipated (capitalist bubble bursts, and capitalists are too pessimistic of future profits to revive production).
--How this is playing out after the 2008 Financial Crisis/Euro crisis (foreshadowing Global Trumpism): And the Weak Suffer What They Must? Europe's Crisis and America's Economic Future
--The book that directly tackles this, which I will review soon: Blackshirts and Reds: Rational Fascism and the Overthrow of Communism
--Césaire post-WWII essay has its roots in theories steaming from the prior great war, WWI. There is Lenin’s 1916 famous essay Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism (lesser read is Luxemburg’s 1913 tome The Accumulation of Capital); black pioneer of American scientific sociology W.E.B. Du Bois was also well-positioned to explore the synthesis in his 1915 essay "The African Roots of War", on how the imperialist “Scramble for Africa” set up WWI (see: Darkwater: Voices from Within the Veil).
--To bring the economic side (Marx’s critique of capitalism’s abstractions/contradictions/crises) to today’s time while uncovering the censored Global South, I have to start with the Patnaiks (Global South’s surplus labour, value of money vs. commodity prices, crucial raw materials esp. agricultural cash crops, phases of global capitalism, etc.):
-magnum opus: Capital and Imperialism: Theory, History, and the Present
-accessible: The Agrarian Question in the Neoliberal Era: Primitive Accumulation and the Peasantry
-The Veins of the South Are Still Open: Debates Around the Imperialism of Our Time
-A Theory of Imperialism
--As for the best from the Global North:
-dive: Super Imperialism: The Origin and Fundamentals of U.S. World Dominance
-dive: Trade, Development and Foreign Debt
--For histories:
-intro: The Divide: A Brief Guide to Global Inequality and its Solutions
-intro: Washington Bullets: A History of the CIA, Coups, and Assassinations
-dive: Late Victorian Holocausts: El Niño Famines and the Making of the Third World
-dive: Debt: The First 5,000 Years
-dive: Perilous Passage: Mankind and the Global Ascendancy of Capital
Read
February 6, 2022This was wonderful, a beautifully-written and searing essay. A few take-aways:
-Césaire argues that in the process of dehumanizing the colonized subject, the colonizer himself is the one that is truly dehumanized. If you are looking for the true source of barbarism, brutality and incivility it lies with the colonizer and his actions against the people he has dehumanized.
-He argues that European fascism directs the mechanisms of violence inherent to colonialism at white people - that fascism is born out of and facilitated by the mechanisms of colonialism.
-He describes a number of the hypocritical intellectual mechanisms of racism that justify colonialism. Of especial interest is the pseudoscientific psychology that creates a passive, infantile, dependent colonial psychology that must be regulated by the "civilized" man.
-His arguments show again and again that the "logic" that justifies colonialism is no true logic, but is simply a dogma of hatred that bends and changes and adapts itself to justify every form of inhumanity.
-Speaks to the values of the pre-colonial societies that have been destroyed but emphasizes that a restoration of the past is not the goal- rather, the goal should be to create a new future that respects the values that have been lost without replicating the oppressions of the present.
-Césaire argues that in the process of dehumanizing the colonized subject, the colonizer himself is the one that is truly dehumanized. If you are looking for the true source of barbarism, brutality and incivility it lies with the colonizer and his actions against the people he has dehumanized.
-He argues that European fascism directs the mechanisms of violence inherent to colonialism at white people - that fascism is born out of and facilitated by the mechanisms of colonialism.
-He describes a number of the hypocritical intellectual mechanisms of racism that justify colonialism. Of especial interest is the pseudoscientific psychology that creates a passive, infantile, dependent colonial psychology that must be regulated by the "civilized" man.
-His arguments show again and again that the "logic" that justifies colonialism is no true logic, but is simply a dogma of hatred that bends and changes and adapts itself to justify every form of inhumanity.
-Speaks to the values of the pre-colonial societies that have been destroyed but emphasizes that a restoration of the past is not the goal- rather, the goal should be to create a new future that respects the values that have been lost without replicating the oppressions of the present.
May 15, 2022
This was incredible. Exploring the contradiction and hypocrisy of Europe after the horrors of Nazism are revealed and arguing, successfully at that too, that Hitler wasn't the anomaly that he was–and is still, painted to be. Cesaire mostly uses French colonial history and the horrors done in Algeria, Madagascar, Vietnam as examples. No doubt it must have been a shock and a joke to the communities that had experienced and lived with the trauma European colonialism had wrought on them, when their colonizers were condemning Germany. The ironic tone of the writing, at parts strangely funny while showing contradiction, gave an even greater effect to the work the writing was supposed to do. Even though half the planet was still colonized when it was published (1950), and colonial exploitation has taken stealthier and more insidious forms since then, this book still remains both fortunately and unfortunately fresh and required reading.
June 19, 2020
“It is a fundamental error to consider the other cultures as inferior to our own simply because they are different.”
В своето кратичко есе Емѐ Сезер пламенно критикува колонизаторските практики на Европа, най-вече Франция, и „хуманистичната“ мотивировка, която стои зад тях. Колонизацията, твърди Сезер, обезчовечава дори най-цивилизования човек. За да облекчат гузната си съвест, колонизаторите гледат на туземните жители като на животни, държат се с тях като с животни, което превръща самите завоеватели в зверове. Колонизирането на „нецивилизованите народи“ никога не е било с алтруистични подбуди, никога не е целяло безкористно да въведе „варварите“ в лоното на люлката на цивилизацията Европа. Всъщност твърде ясно и лаконично, струва ми се, описва стремежите на колонизираща Европа един цитат от „Градината на мъките“ на Октав Мирбо:
„– Вие убивали ли сте негри? – попита Клара.
– Разбира се, обожаема мис!
– Защо пък, щом не сте ги яли?
– За да ги цивилизовам, тоест, за да отнемам от тях слонова кост и гума…“
Колонизацията е органично свързана и с расизма. Сезер цитира различни автори, които предлагат нелепи хипотези защо е необходимо да се владеят „по-низши“ нации. Китайците например са народ от умели работници, които нямат почти никаква чест и биха били напълно доволни от извършването на прост физически труд. Големи цивилизации никога не е имало в тропически климат и великите цивилизации могат да възникнат и да се развиват само в умерените ширини. И може би любимият ми „аргумент“ – че има народи, които по „необясними“ причини са зависими, които имат психологическата нужда и искат да бъдат владени. Сезер, разбира се, саркастично взима на подбив тези и други научни умозаключения.
“Discourse on Colonialism” е важен, но крайно недостатъчен източник по темите за колонизаторството, расизма и отношенията между коренното население и новодошлите „господари“. Сезер цитира много автори, които просто оборва с по няколко изречения. Цялото есе е като своеобразен поток на мисълта, в който се посочват аргументи и контрааргументи, като понякога вторите дори липсват – повечето от тезите „за“ колонизацията са толкова безумни, че сами се обезсилват.
Самият Еме Сезер е родом от Мартиника и е от нигерийски произход, основател е на политическото и литературно течение негритюд като противовес на френския колониален расизъм. В края на есето на Сезер е поместено и интервю с него, в което споменава, че умишлено решава да използва думата „негър“ за името на движението, тъй като е натоварена с отрицателни конотации. Счита евфемизмите като „цветнокож“ и „тъмнокож“ за „идиотщини“, използвани от негри, които се срамуват от произхода си. „Аз съм от расата на потиснатите“, казва Сезер, а неговият негритюд се стреми към хуманизъм отвъд расовите разграничения.
“[the] primitive man talks raving nonsense.
Of course, there remain a few small facts that resist this doctrine. To wit, the invention of arithmetic and geometry by the Egyptians. To wit, the discovery of astronomy by the Assyrians. To wit, the birth of chemistry among the Arabs. To wit, the appearance of rationalism in Islam at a time when Western thought had a furiously pre-logical cast to it.”
В своето кратичко есе Емѐ Сезер пламенно критикува колонизаторските практики на Европа, най-вече Франция, и „хуманистичната“ мотивировка, която стои зад тях. Колонизацията, твърди Сезер, обезчовечава дори най-цивилизования човек. За да облекчат гузната си съвест, колонизаторите гледат на туземните жители като на животни, държат се с тях като с животни, което превръща самите завоеватели в зверове. Колонизирането на „нецивилизованите народи“ никога не е било с алтруистични подбуди, никога не е целяло безкористно да въведе „варварите“ в лоното на люлката на цивилизацията Европа. Всъщност твърде ясно и лаконично, струва ми се, описва стремежите на колонизираща Европа един цитат от „Градината на мъките“ на Октав Мирбо:
„– Вие убивали ли сте негри? – попита Клара.
– Разбира се, обожаема мис!
– Защо пък, щом не сте ги яли?
– За да ги цивилизовам, тоест, за да отнемам от тях слонова кост и гума…“
Колонизацията е органично свързана и с расизма. Сезер цитира различни автори, които предлагат нелепи хипотези защо е необходимо да се владеят „по-низши“ нации. Китайците например са народ от умели работници, които нямат почти никаква чест и биха били напълно доволни от извършването на прост физически труд. Големи цивилизации никога не е имало в тропически климат и великите цивилизации могат да възникнат и да се развиват само в умерените ширини. И може би любимият ми „аргумент“ – че има народи, които по „необясними“ причини са зависими, които имат психологическата нужда и искат да бъдат владени. Сезер, разбира се, саркастично взима на подбив тези и други научни умозаключения.
“Discourse on Colonialism” е важен, но крайно недостатъчен източник по темите за колонизаторството, расизма и отношенията между коренното население и новодошлите „господари“. Сезер цитира много автори, които просто оборва с по няколко изречения. Цялото есе е като своеобразен поток на мисълта, в който се посочват аргументи и контрааргументи, като понякога вторите дори липсват – повечето от тезите „за“ колонизацията са толкова безумни, че сами се обезсилват.
Самият Еме Сезер е родом от Мартиника и е от нигерийски произход, основател е на политическото и литературно течение негритюд като противовес на френския колониален расизъм. В края на есето на Сезер е поместено и интервю с него, в което споменава, че умишлено решава да използва думата „негър“ за името на движението, тъй като е натоварена с отрицателни конотации. Счита евфемизмите като „цветнокож“ и „тъмнокож“ за „идиотщини“, използвани от негри, които се срамуват от произхода си. „Аз съм от расата на потиснатите“, казва Сезер, а неговият негритюд се стреми към хуманизъм отвъд расовите разграничения.
“[the] primitive man talks raving nonsense.
Of course, there remain a few small facts that resist this doctrine. To wit, the invention of arithmetic and geometry by the Egyptians. To wit, the discovery of astronomy by the Assyrians. To wit, the birth of chemistry among the Arabs. To wit, the appearance of rationalism in Islam at a time when Western thought had a furiously pre-logical cast to it.”
April 8, 2022
It's easier for the coloniser to erect the myth of their superiority, than transcend the boundaries of the Self and meet these whole other universes halfway. The savagery within is flung outwards and projected onto these other universes. After all, something must be done to soothe the rupturing of the ontological flesh of enlightenment humanism from within. Naturally that must mean you are all animals and humanism still lies serenly in its cradle of univesality.
One of the best critiques of humanism there is, and in such little space! This is SO FUCKING FURIOUS YOU WILL FEEL IT IN YOUR RIBS! READ!
One of the best critiques of humanism there is, and in such little space! This is SO FUCKING FURIOUS YOU WILL FEEL IT IN YOUR RIBS! READ!
October 14, 2022
"For us, the problem is not to make a utopian and sterile attempt to repeat the past, but to go beyond. It is not a dead society that we want to revive. We leave that to those who go in for exoticism. Nor is it the present colonial society that we wish to prolong, the most putrid carrion that ever rotted under the sun. It is a new society that we must create, with the help of our brother slaves, a society rich with all the productive power of modern times, warm with all the fraternity of olden days."
The two texts that will inevitably be urged on a young, would-be anti-imperialist or postcolonialist in the U.S. today are Fanon's The Wretched of the Earth and Said's Orientalism. They're both great books, esteemed for a reason, but now that I've read it I'm firmly convinced that it's Césaire's Discourse on Colonialism we should really be pushing as the go-to primer on this subject.
For one thing, this book contains the seeds for both of those: Fanon's rejection of a morally decadent and decayed Europe in favor of revolutionary pan-Africanism (Fanon was a student and mentee of Césaire's), Said's reading between the lines of imperialist texts to illustrate how Empire is constructed and defended through words and ideas as well as force—Césaire is doing all of that here, 1-3 decades earlier, and much more concisely, and in much less academic language, than either of his successors. And yet somehow it's Césaire who is mostly relegated to the halls of academia these days, often only "discovered" by way of citations in other authors. Even Robin D.G. Kelley, in his excellent intro to the edition I read (much better than intros to this sort of thing tend to be), laments that "few assessments of postcolonial criticism pay much attention to Discourse, besides mentioning it in a litany of 'pioneering' works . . ."
I have no theories for why this might be the case. Nor do I blame the other authors I've mentioned, who are fully deserving of their own spots in the pantheon. But I do think it's a shame, because this text is really a perfect little capsule of postcolonial thought: it's fiery, it's smart as hell, it's easy to understand, it's far-ranging, it's brutally convincing, it's even funny in a scathing (and sometimes scatological) way. At the length of a long-ish essay (even with ample front and back matter my copy is only about 100 pages long) Discourse manages to lay out the major charges against the European capitalist-imperialist state, then to support them with undeniable textual evidence, then to at least begin pointing the way towards change.
Césaire posits, among other things, that the act of colonization ultimately corrodes and destroys the colonizers, just as it once corroded and destroyed the cultures and societies of the colonized nations. Just five years after the end of World War II, he demonstrates that the fascism of the Nazis was not an aberration to the liberal, "humanist" order of 20th century Europe, but a logical outgrowth of it, the techniques of the colonizer turned on the homeland. Yet he also pushes against the urge to reach back to an idealized, precolonial past, asserting instead the need to create something wholly new from the wreckage of the imperial system. These ideas are fully integrated into postcolonial theory now, and (as Kelley's introduction shows) they were not without precedent even in Césaire's time, but perhaps nowhere were they laid out as early and as resonantly as they are here. It's electrifying and convicting stuff even today.
I generally go into the reading of a new author with relatively little research or preparation (I like the text to speak for itself), but now, aided by the supplemental material here, I'm excited to dig into Césaire's life and work beyond Discourse. In addition to his theoretical writings he was one of the originators of the influential "Négritude" movement, a poet with strong ties to surrealist artists like André Breton, a leftist with a sometimes-complicated relationship to Marxism and Marxists, and a long-serving politician in his native Martinique, among other achievements. Altogether his turbulent life spanned nearly a century, from 1913 to 2008. (Ironically, he outlived his pupil Fanon by almost half a century, and Edward Said by five years.) I can only imagine what other literary riches are still there to be discovered, and I hope I won't be alone in exploring them.
The two texts that will inevitably be urged on a young, would-be anti-imperialist or postcolonialist in the U.S. today are Fanon's The Wretched of the Earth and Said's Orientalism. They're both great books, esteemed for a reason, but now that I've read it I'm firmly convinced that it's Césaire's Discourse on Colonialism we should really be pushing as the go-to primer on this subject.
For one thing, this book contains the seeds for both of those: Fanon's rejection of a morally decadent and decayed Europe in favor of revolutionary pan-Africanism (Fanon was a student and mentee of Césaire's), Said's reading between the lines of imperialist texts to illustrate how Empire is constructed and defended through words and ideas as well as force—Césaire is doing all of that here, 1-3 decades earlier, and much more concisely, and in much less academic language, than either of his successors. And yet somehow it's Césaire who is mostly relegated to the halls of academia these days, often only "discovered" by way of citations in other authors. Even Robin D.G. Kelley, in his excellent intro to the edition I read (much better than intros to this sort of thing tend to be), laments that "few assessments of postcolonial criticism pay much attention to Discourse, besides mentioning it in a litany of 'pioneering' works . . ."
I have no theories for why this might be the case. Nor do I blame the other authors I've mentioned, who are fully deserving of their own spots in the pantheon. But I do think it's a shame, because this text is really a perfect little capsule of postcolonial thought: it's fiery, it's smart as hell, it's easy to understand, it's far-ranging, it's brutally convincing, it's even funny in a scathing (and sometimes scatological) way. At the length of a long-ish essay (even with ample front and back matter my copy is only about 100 pages long) Discourse manages to lay out the major charges against the European capitalist-imperialist state, then to support them with undeniable textual evidence, then to at least begin pointing the way towards change.
Césaire posits, among other things, that the act of colonization ultimately corrodes and destroys the colonizers, just as it once corroded and destroyed the cultures and societies of the colonized nations. Just five years after the end of World War II, he demonstrates that the fascism of the Nazis was not an aberration to the liberal, "humanist" order of 20th century Europe, but a logical outgrowth of it, the techniques of the colonizer turned on the homeland. Yet he also pushes against the urge to reach back to an idealized, precolonial past, asserting instead the need to create something wholly new from the wreckage of the imperial system. These ideas are fully integrated into postcolonial theory now, and (as Kelley's introduction shows) they were not without precedent even in Césaire's time, but perhaps nowhere were they laid out as early and as resonantly as they are here. It's electrifying and convicting stuff even today.
I generally go into the reading of a new author with relatively little research or preparation (I like the text to speak for itself), but now, aided by the supplemental material here, I'm excited to dig into Césaire's life and work beyond Discourse. In addition to his theoretical writings he was one of the originators of the influential "Négritude" movement, a poet with strong ties to surrealist artists like André Breton, a leftist with a sometimes-complicated relationship to Marxism and Marxists, and a long-serving politician in his native Martinique, among other achievements. Altogether his turbulent life spanned nearly a century, from 1913 to 2008. (Ironically, he outlived his pupil Fanon by almost half a century, and Edward Said by five years.) I can only imagine what other literary riches are still there to be discovered, and I hope I won't be alone in exploring them.
June 11, 2020
"that it is Nazism, yes, but that before they were its victims, they were its accomplices; that they tolerated that Nazism before it was inflicted on them, that they absolved it, shut their eyes to it, legitimized it, because, until then, it had been applied only to non-European peoples."
This is one powerful essay by the Martinique Poet/Politician regarding his defense of the non-european civilizations against the rationalized propagandas of the colonialism. He breaks down the ideas of people from all walks of life (from philosophy, geography, politics, anthropology, psychology, missionary theology) which paved the way for the effective exploitations, ravages and barbarism of the western civilized over the non-western savages.
"I hear the storm. They talk to me about progress, about 'achievements,' diseases cured, improved standards of living.
..
I am talking about societies drained of their essence, cultures trampled underfoot, institutions undermined, lands confiscated, religions smashed, magnificent artistic creations destroyed, extraordinary possibilities wiped out.
..
I am talking about millions of men torn from their gods, their land, their habits, their life-from life, from the dance, from wisdom."
"in the scales of knowledge all the museums in the world will never weigh so much as one spark of human sympathy."
From the historical perspective, it astounds me how far our imagination could go when it is coupled with our prejudices and biases so as to make our justifications keeping the cold reason by our side.
I personally think we ought to make more attempts to read diverse literature that unsettles, makes one uncomfortable, question one's privilege and prejudices. Then all the introspection, assuming it's been done in the first place, will help becoming one become a better person in action. Maybe better isn't the right word. Maybe there's no word than living it. As they say, everything starts way from within.
This is one powerful essay by the Martinique Poet/Politician regarding his defense of the non-european civilizations against the rationalized propagandas of the colonialism. He breaks down the ideas of people from all walks of life (from philosophy, geography, politics, anthropology, psychology, missionary theology) which paved the way for the effective exploitations, ravages and barbarism of the western civilized over the non-western savages.
"I hear the storm. They talk to me about progress, about 'achievements,' diseases cured, improved standards of living.
..
I am talking about societies drained of their essence, cultures trampled underfoot, institutions undermined, lands confiscated, religions smashed, magnificent artistic creations destroyed, extraordinary possibilities wiped out.
..
I am talking about millions of men torn from their gods, their land, their habits, their life-from life, from the dance, from wisdom."
"in the scales of knowledge all the museums in the world will never weigh so much as one spark of human sympathy."
From the historical perspective, it astounds me how far our imagination could go when it is coupled with our prejudices and biases so as to make our justifications keeping the cold reason by our side.
I personally think we ought to make more attempts to read diverse literature that unsettles, makes one uncomfortable, question one's privilege and prejudices. Then all the introspection, assuming it's been done in the first place, will help becoming one become a better person in action. Maybe better isn't the right word. Maybe there's no word than living it. As they say, everything starts way from within.
May 11, 2023
To see an ontological movement so colossal and recalcitrant firsthand was nothing short of witnessing an explosion of knowledge and searing-hot ideas like emulsion on the page. I want the entire thing tattooed on my frontal lobe.
May 26, 2013
I thought this was brilliant. I love reading things like this that ensure me, that the dynamics of this world ARE indeed unjustified, and that it is NOT ME. What I love most, is the power it gives me, as an Arab, to tell those who try to convince me of their racial superiority, or those who are acting on self-imposed sense of authority to go fuck themselves. Or those who try to convince me that killing languages, cultures, and countries in the name of common good -AKA the good of the white man- is justified. I will be a dam to the waves of imperialist, racist thinking, that are crashing against us, even if it will tear me down.
Note: I read the English version and it's available in PDF online. It's a very short read, but very powerful.
Note: I read the English version and it's available in PDF online. It's a very short read, but very powerful.
January 1, 2014
One of my beautiful experiences of reading post-colonial literature along with Edward Said's Orientalism. And the difference between is that Said is an academic but Césaire not only a poet but a Marxist comes from a Third World country originally!
This style looks very unique to me and could be one of the most beautiful (styles) of writing I've ever read in both Arabic and English and can't imagine how more beautiful it must be if read in French ,the original language of the text."
Finally:
"My consolation is that periods of colonization pass, that nations sleep only for a time, and that peoples remain."
Aime Cesaire
January 22, 2019
A masterpiece. Completely uprooted how I approach and think about anti-colonialism and colonization. Pages 42 - 44 really resonated with me.
Césaire is a masterful writer who invokes a rightfully bitter, angry sense of humor with a strong political analysis to dismantle colonization and colonialism that western europe and now, the united states, is responsible for.
I would highly recommend this book. In fact, i'd call it mandatory reading.
Césaire is a masterful writer who invokes a rightfully bitter, angry sense of humor with a strong political analysis to dismantle colonization and colonialism that western europe and now, the united states, is responsible for.
I would highly recommend this book. In fact, i'd call it mandatory reading.
September 11, 2020
As relevant today as when it was written in 1950. As much as the set dressings of politics have changed, and as much as culture and technology have changed, the colonialist impulses under-girding dominant ideologies around the world retain their avaricious grasp on overarching trends of economic and political activity. Cesaire's incisive (and utterly disdainful) critique of how colonialism frames non-white peoples remains relevant and powerful.
People expecting a moderate examination of colonialism will not enjoy this read. Cesaire is explicitly anti-colonialist, anti-capitalist, and anti-imperialist; he also criticizes intellectuals of his time and from before it who seek to cloak their racism and grasps for power within seemingly moderate (for the time) language.
People expecting a moderate examination of colonialism will not enjoy this read. Cesaire is explicitly anti-colonialist, anti-capitalist, and anti-imperialist; he also criticizes intellectuals of his time and from before it who seek to cloak their racism and grasps for power within seemingly moderate (for the time) language.
December 27, 2023
A classic of anti-colonialist writing. I don't think the marxist ideas are mere window dressing, but it is a brief pamphlet, so we might forgive it if it doesn't lay on the detail Kapital-thick.
Famous for the thesis that seeks to "reveal to the very distinguished, very humanistic, very Christian bourgeois of the twentieth century that without his being aware of it, he has a Hitler inside him" (36). The problem with Hitler for the regular bourgeois is "not the crime itself," but rather "the crime against white man, the humiliation of the white man, and the fact that he applied to Europe colonialist procedures which until then had been reserved" for everyone else (id.).
Famous for the thesis that seeks to "reveal to the very distinguished, very humanistic, very Christian bourgeois of the twentieth century that without his being aware of it, he has a Hitler inside him" (36). The problem with Hitler for the regular bourgeois is "not the crime itself," but rather "the crime against white man, the humiliation of the white man, and the fact that he applied to Europe colonialist procedures which until then had been reserved" for everyone else (id.).
February 6, 2021
Underlined with exclamation marks. A poetic discourse on the decadent effects of colonialism on both, the colonizers and the colonized. bitter and very true.
Céisare leads a discussion, but takes no shit.
Céisare leads a discussion, but takes no shit.
January 11, 2023
This book is a necessary read for every marxist in my opinion. Such a clear analysis of colonialism and how to tackle it. It's painfully accurate still. The bits about the bourgeoisie and hitler are so great. Would give it a 6/5 if I could.
June 8, 2020
This was originally published in French in 1955 -- an earlier version in 1950 -- right at the beginning of the anti-colonial movement which followed World War II. It is essentially a manifesto against colonialism, which made many points for the first time that have since become obvious to anyone who thinks politically.
Césaire's basic thesis is that colonialism is not a civilizing influence but one which de-civilizes both the colonizer and the colonized. He argues convincingly that Naziism -- which had just been defeated in Europe -- was not, as so many tried to portray it, a unique and inexplicable phenomenon, but simply the use against Europeans of the same techniques that had long been used by Europeans against the rest of the world; that Hitler simply particularized the Master Race from whites in general to Germans, and acted the way whites had always acted in the third world.
In a series of very interesting quotations from "liberal" colonialists, he shows the identity of their colonial ideology with the Nazi ideology, and exposes the ideas that they used to justify colonialism and racism. Some of these writers I had not suspected had such racist ideas, since they are known as humanists and progressive writers -- for example Renan.
Césaire defends the non-European cultures against the falsehood that they were uncivilized. If he occasionally idealizes the precolonial cultures, at other points he admits that they were not ideal either, but shows that the colonialists allied with the most backwards elements in the traditional cultures, thus instead of advancing their civilization it held them back further. Unlike some of the proponents of négritude, such as his friend Senghor, he does not have any use for a romantic idea of going back to the traditional past, but focuses on a future without colonialism and class exploitation in both Europe and the third world. Particularly interesting in the light of the history of the later twentieth century, he warns Europe that without eliminating colonialism and allying with the decolonized countries the Europeans themselves will become part of a new American Empire.
As a member of the Martinican Communist Party, he does have some illusions yet in Stalinism, which he later broke with; as the introductory essay by Robin D.G. Kelley suggests, he is trying to revise Marxism to incorporate the anti-colonial struggle as a major focus rather than one that is subordinate to the struggle of the proletariat in the developed countries -- which is really to return to the principles of socialism that were eclipsed by Stalinism. Interesting in this connection is his commitment to surrealism, which had a similar ambiguous relationship to the official (i.e. Stalinized) Communist movement.
He does all this and more in less than seventy pages. The translation published in 1972 by Monthly Review Press includes the Discourse, the introductory essay by Kelley ("The Poetics of Anticolonialism") and an interview between Césaire and a Haitian activist. According to the introduction, this book influenced many later, better known writings on the anti-colonial struggle, such as the books by Fanon, and some of so-called post-colonial theorists, which may be why it seems strangely familiar despite its originality. A book I will certainly recommend as a short introduction to modern politics.
Césaire's basic thesis is that colonialism is not a civilizing influence but one which de-civilizes both the colonizer and the colonized. He argues convincingly that Naziism -- which had just been defeated in Europe -- was not, as so many tried to portray it, a unique and inexplicable phenomenon, but simply the use against Europeans of the same techniques that had long been used by Europeans against the rest of the world; that Hitler simply particularized the Master Race from whites in general to Germans, and acted the way whites had always acted in the third world.
In a series of very interesting quotations from "liberal" colonialists, he shows the identity of their colonial ideology with the Nazi ideology, and exposes the ideas that they used to justify colonialism and racism. Some of these writers I had not suspected had such racist ideas, since they are known as humanists and progressive writers -- for example Renan.
Césaire defends the non-European cultures against the falsehood that they were uncivilized. If he occasionally idealizes the precolonial cultures, at other points he admits that they were not ideal either, but shows that the colonialists allied with the most backwards elements in the traditional cultures, thus instead of advancing their civilization it held them back further. Unlike some of the proponents of négritude, such as his friend Senghor, he does not have any use for a romantic idea of going back to the traditional past, but focuses on a future without colonialism and class exploitation in both Europe and the third world. Particularly interesting in the light of the history of the later twentieth century, he warns Europe that without eliminating colonialism and allying with the decolonized countries the Europeans themselves will become part of a new American Empire.
As a member of the Martinican Communist Party, he does have some illusions yet in Stalinism, which he later broke with; as the introductory essay by Robin D.G. Kelley suggests, he is trying to revise Marxism to incorporate the anti-colonial struggle as a major focus rather than one that is subordinate to the struggle of the proletariat in the developed countries -- which is really to return to the principles of socialism that were eclipsed by Stalinism. Interesting in this connection is his commitment to surrealism, which had a similar ambiguous relationship to the official (i.e. Stalinized) Communist movement.
He does all this and more in less than seventy pages. The translation published in 1972 by Monthly Review Press includes the Discourse, the introductory essay by Kelley ("The Poetics of Anticolonialism") and an interview between Césaire and a Haitian activist. According to the introduction, this book influenced many later, better known writings on the anti-colonial struggle, such as the books by Fanon, and some of so-called post-colonial theorists, which may be why it seems strangely familiar despite its originality. A book I will certainly recommend as a short introduction to modern politics.
July 2, 2015
Aimé Césaire’s "Discourse on Colonialism" is a poignant exploration of the brutality, indifference, and dehumanizing effect of colonization on both colonizer and colonized. Colonization rips the soul out of both, driving the colonizers to violence and race hatred, and the colonized towards psychic and soulful death. However, “the mechanization of man, the gigantic rape of everything intimate” does not give the white man a second thought, not until this monstrous dehumanizing colonial impulse diffuses throughout Europe and colonizes the white man—as fascism. This is what Césaire sees as the end of the road of capitalism and the Western mentality of rationality, hierarchy and domination: an ultimate devastation of bodies, souls, and land.
A brilliant, evocative, poetic essay by a surrealist artist/writer whose work should be read as foundational for anyone with an interest in post-colonial thought.
A brilliant, evocative, poetic essay by a surrealist artist/writer whose work should be read as foundational for anyone with an interest in post-colonial thought.
August 5, 2007
One of the most essential books for anyone committed to freedom.
February 11, 2022
strávila som nad týmto celú noc (školské povinnosti) a aj keď som veľmi unavená, text to bol fantastický. bolo tam že:
- ako kolonizácia škodí kolonizátorom - avšak bez odobratia pozornosti na ľudí zažívajúcich kolonizáciu
- aká pokrytecká je snaha o odôvodnenie kolonializmu a chvála európskej civilizovanosti
- ako priamo súvisí nacizmus s európskou kolonizačnou históriou
plus to bolo písané krásnym a farbistým jazykom s trpkým sarkazmom. major tw kvôli násiliu - aj keď tam malo miesto.
- ako kolonizácia škodí kolonizátorom - avšak bez odobratia pozornosti na ľudí zažívajúcich kolonizáciu
- aká pokrytecká je snaha o odôvodnenie kolonializmu a chvála európskej civilizovanosti
- ako priamo súvisí nacizmus s európskou kolonizačnou históriou
plus to bolo písané krásnym a farbistým jazykom s trpkým sarkazmom. major tw kvôli násiliu - aj keď tam malo miesto.
April 12, 2024
passionate, very angry and always clear about that anger, beautifully written: at times feels like poetry, at times employs humour to turn the disgusting racist arguments into idiocies only worth a laugh.
césaire talks about how colonialism bred facism and really, we shouldn't be surprised it spred across europe in the 1930s - we nurtured it while it was still convienient for us, while it was "simply" justifying our colonial crimes. he blaims the bourgeoisie, he blaims the intelectuals, the academics for their mental gymnastics in legitimizing colonialism.
césaire talks about how colonialism bred facism and really, we shouldn't be surprised it spred across europe in the 1930s - we nurtured it while it was still convienient for us, while it was "simply" justifying our colonial crimes. he blaims the bourgeoisie, he blaims the intelectuals, the academics for their mental gymnastics in legitimizing colonialism.
November 15, 2022
Durante toda a leitura desse pequeno livro de Aimé Césaire, não pude deixar de pensar de como o colonialismo ainda nos fustiga, envolve e ameaça cotidianamente. Não pude deixar de pensar na situação da população negra no Brasil, que depois de 134 anos desde o fim da escravidão no país, ainda é colocado numa situação praticamente igual àquela da escravidão, em que a população dita "branca", porém miscigenada, dita "europeia", porém com ancestralidades africanas, indo-americanas, impingem à pessoa negra uma posição e um local nessa nossa sociedade que é praticamente de expulsão, de inferioridade, e se preciso for, buscando ainda em medicinas e ciências eugenistas razões para tal. Que massacram junto a essas pessoas os terreiros onde se cultuam deusas e deuses ancestrais oirundos da rica cultura yoruba, em nome de um Deus que dizem ser amor.
Etmologicamente, o nome Brasil pode ter origem feníncia, e de qualquer maneira, signfica vermelho, cor do pau-brasil. E vermelho foi o sangue derramado de tantos negros e índios, desenraizados de seus povos, de suas culturas, de suas crenças, para que o corpo pagasse por um pecado que não era seu, mas dos povos que os escravizaram. De sociedades onde a pobreza grassava, e no entanto, a burguesia e a aristocracia viviam no luxo de corpos dilacerados em terras distantes.
O colonizador, imbuído de suas crenças de superioridade, originárias tanto de sua posição como europeu e civilizado, como de sua religião, que indicava que haviam seres superiores e outros inferiores, chegavam em terras distantes onde eram recebidos com curiosidade, e raramente com animosidade. E na acolhida é que mostravam o sabre e dilaceravam seus hospedeiros.
E assim continuaram, não pararam quando o século XX chegou. Tomaram a África e Ásia e continuaram a praticar o que logo praticariam uns contra os outros em solo europeu, na primeira guerra mundial, e logo depois na horrenda segunga guerra mundial. E em fins do século XX, já as portas do século XXI vimos o que foi a dissolução da ex-Iugoslávia. Isso para não falar do atual imperialismo russo contra outros povos eslavos. Civilizados? Onde? Quando?
Lembro inclusive que as raízes do ódio já estavam implantadas antes mesmo de o nazismo alcançar o poder na Alemanha. Basta ver o caso Dreyfus na França, e todo o anti-semitismo que causou. E as raízes do ódio ainda vicejam pelo mundo, basta ver com leis no Brasil são aplicadas diligentemente aos negros, e muitas vezes com candura aos brancos. Como ao cidadão negro norte-americano sempre foi dado não o sonho americano, mas o pesadelo americano dos linchamentos e da exclusão. E que muita da realidade que hoje se vive em África, inclusive suas ditaduras, é resultado do espírito colonialista.
Há tanto o que dizer sobre esse pequeno livro, mas ficam essas palavras. A dor é imensa, porque ela não foi estancada, a ferida permanece aberta, pois enquato uma Declaração Universal dos Direitos Humanos for destinada a alguns, e não a todos os seres humanos, então haverá uma carta de direitos para alguns humanos.
A meu ver, Aimé apenas peca quando aponta a liberdade do proletariado tendo como breve exemplo a União Soviética, que sabemos claramente que de liberdade nada teve, que se tratou de um momento de horror, inclusive servindo de meio de extermínio de povos, mais escravidão dentro da própria URSS, inclusive imperialismo.
Etmologicamente, o nome Brasil pode ter origem feníncia, e de qualquer maneira, signfica vermelho, cor do pau-brasil. E vermelho foi o sangue derramado de tantos negros e índios, desenraizados de seus povos, de suas culturas, de suas crenças, para que o corpo pagasse por um pecado que não era seu, mas dos povos que os escravizaram. De sociedades onde a pobreza grassava, e no entanto, a burguesia e a aristocracia viviam no luxo de corpos dilacerados em terras distantes.
O colonizador, imbuído de suas crenças de superioridade, originárias tanto de sua posição como europeu e civilizado, como de sua religião, que indicava que haviam seres superiores e outros inferiores, chegavam em terras distantes onde eram recebidos com curiosidade, e raramente com animosidade. E na acolhida é que mostravam o sabre e dilaceravam seus hospedeiros.
E assim continuaram, não pararam quando o século XX chegou. Tomaram a África e Ásia e continuaram a praticar o que logo praticariam uns contra os outros em solo europeu, na primeira guerra mundial, e logo depois na horrenda segunga guerra mundial. E em fins do século XX, já as portas do século XXI vimos o que foi a dissolução da ex-Iugoslávia. Isso para não falar do atual imperialismo russo contra outros povos eslavos. Civilizados? Onde? Quando?
Lembro inclusive que as raízes do ódio já estavam implantadas antes mesmo de o nazismo alcançar o poder na Alemanha. Basta ver o caso Dreyfus na França, e todo o anti-semitismo que causou. E as raízes do ódio ainda vicejam pelo mundo, basta ver com leis no Brasil são aplicadas diligentemente aos negros, e muitas vezes com candura aos brancos. Como ao cidadão negro norte-americano sempre foi dado não o sonho americano, mas o pesadelo americano dos linchamentos e da exclusão. E que muita da realidade que hoje se vive em África, inclusive suas ditaduras, é resultado do espírito colonialista.
Há tanto o que dizer sobre esse pequeno livro, mas ficam essas palavras. A dor é imensa, porque ela não foi estancada, a ferida permanece aberta, pois enquato uma Declaração Universal dos Direitos Humanos for destinada a alguns, e não a todos os seres humanos, então haverá uma carta de direitos para alguns humanos.
A meu ver, Aimé apenas peca quando aponta a liberdade do proletariado tendo como breve exemplo a União Soviética, que sabemos claramente que de liberdade nada teve, que se tratou de um momento de horror, inclusive servindo de meio de extermínio de povos, mais escravidão dentro da própria URSS, inclusive imperialismo.
September 21, 2021
in less than 100 pages, aime cesaire, in precise and simple yet poetic language, shows how colonialism, capitalism and ideas of white supremacy festered until it turned inwards and resulted in 20th century fascism, violence that came from africa and asia back to europe. liberalism is not a force against fascism, rather allowed it to happen which is still apparent today. lenin stated that "fascism is capitalism in decay" and this book is also arguing the same thing, with the addition of how colonialism and racism helped it grow as well. this book is not a dense academic text but a short, easy to read essay on colonialism written by a wonderful poet and politician rather than a theorist, which is evident in how enjoyable it was to read
“it is Nazism, yes, but that before they were its victims, they were its accomplices; that they tolerated that Nazism before it was inflicted on them, that they absolved it, shut their eyes to it, legitimized it, because, until then, it had been applied only to non-European peoples; that they have cultivated that Nazism, that they are responsible for it, and that before engulfing the whole of Western, Christian civilization in its reddened waters, it oozes, seeps, and trickles from every crack.
[...] at bottom, what he cannot forgive Hitler for is not crime in itself, the crime against man, it is not the humiliation of man as such, it is the crime against the white man, the humiliation of the white man, and the fact that he applied to Europe colonialist procedures which until then had been reserved exclusively for the Arabs of Algeria, the coolies of India, and the blacks of Africa."
“capitalist society, at its present stage, is incapable of establishing a concept of the rights of all men, just as it has proved incapable of establishing a system of individual ethics. Whether one likes it or not, at the end of the blind alley that is Europe, I mean the Europe of Adenauer, Schuman, Bidault, and a few others, there is Hitler. At the end of capitalism, which is eager to outlive its day, there is Hitler. At the end of formal humanism and philosophic renunciation, there is Hitler.”
“no one colonizes innocently, that no one colonizes with impunity either; that a nation which colonizes, that a civilization which justifies colonization - and therefore force - is already a sick civilization, a civilization that is morally diseased, that irresistibly, progressing from one consequence to another, one repudiation to another, calls for its Hitler, I mean its punishment.”
“the bourgeoisie is condemned to become every day more snarling, more openly ferocious, more shameless, more summarily barbarous; that it is an implacable law that every decadent class finds itself turned into a receptacle into which there flow all the dirty waters of history; that it is a universal law that before it disappears, every class must first disgrace itself completely, on all fronts, and that it is with their heads buried in the dunghill that dying societies utter their swan songs.”
“it is Nazism, yes, but that before they were its victims, they were its accomplices; that they tolerated that Nazism before it was inflicted on them, that they absolved it, shut their eyes to it, legitimized it, because, until then, it had been applied only to non-European peoples; that they have cultivated that Nazism, that they are responsible for it, and that before engulfing the whole of Western, Christian civilization in its reddened waters, it oozes, seeps, and trickles from every crack.
[...] at bottom, what he cannot forgive Hitler for is not crime in itself, the crime against man, it is not the humiliation of man as such, it is the crime against the white man, the humiliation of the white man, and the fact that he applied to Europe colonialist procedures which until then had been reserved exclusively for the Arabs of Algeria, the coolies of India, and the blacks of Africa."
“capitalist society, at its present stage, is incapable of establishing a concept of the rights of all men, just as it has proved incapable of establishing a system of individual ethics. Whether one likes it or not, at the end of the blind alley that is Europe, I mean the Europe of Adenauer, Schuman, Bidault, and a few others, there is Hitler. At the end of capitalism, which is eager to outlive its day, there is Hitler. At the end of formal humanism and philosophic renunciation, there is Hitler.”
“no one colonizes innocently, that no one colonizes with impunity either; that a nation which colonizes, that a civilization which justifies colonization - and therefore force - is already a sick civilization, a civilization that is morally diseased, that irresistibly, progressing from one consequence to another, one repudiation to another, calls for its Hitler, I mean its punishment.”
“the bourgeoisie is condemned to become every day more snarling, more openly ferocious, more shameless, more summarily barbarous; that it is an implacable law that every decadent class finds itself turned into a receptacle into which there flow all the dirty waters of history; that it is a universal law that before it disappears, every class must first disgrace itself completely, on all fronts, and that it is with their heads buried in the dunghill that dying societies utter their swan songs.”
October 22, 2021
Ich habe leider gerade keine Zeit, möchte aber etwas aufschreiben, bevor mir der Gedanke entfleucht:
Dieses schonungslose und angriffslustige Buch ist an sich eine extrem lohnende Lektüre, auch wenn ich durch den zeitlichen Abstand keinen Akteur kenne und daher viele Debatteninhalte kaum nachvollziehen kann. Cesaire ist in "Über den Kolonialismus" ja viel zu sehr Zyniker (und: Yes, ich sehe absolut, wie geboten diese Emotion in Anbetracht der Widerwärtigkeit ist!), als dass er Politiker und Themen erst umfassend einführen würde.
Gleichzeitig ist diese schmale Büchlein die perfekte Parallel-Lektüre für Werke wie "Die weite Sargassosee" oder auch "Lolita"! Ich bin der festen Überzeugung, dass man durch Cesaires Offenlegung der rassistischen Gedankenstrukturen und Theorien bis in die 50er Jahre hinein die Großartigkeit der anderen Bücher besser begreifen wird.
Gerade Cesaires Analyse (naja, eher: Vernichtung) einer moderneren Spielart des Rassismus, nämlich der Übertragung der Psychoanalyse auf das Kolonial-Thema, finden wir ganz ähnlich bei Nabokov, nur entlarvt dieser nicht - wie Cesaire - den Unterdrücker Europa, sondern den Unterdrücker Humbert Humbert, der sich ganz ähnlicher, pseudowissenschaftlicher Begründungen bedient.
Aber so, wie manche Menschen auf Rassentheorien hereinfallen, fallen manche auf Humbert herein.
Ich freue mich sehr über diese fruchtbare Parallele.
Dieses schonungslose und angriffslustige Buch ist an sich eine extrem lohnende Lektüre, auch wenn ich durch den zeitlichen Abstand keinen Akteur kenne und daher viele Debatteninhalte kaum nachvollziehen kann. Cesaire ist in "Über den Kolonialismus" ja viel zu sehr Zyniker (und: Yes, ich sehe absolut, wie geboten diese Emotion in Anbetracht der Widerwärtigkeit ist!), als dass er Politiker und Themen erst umfassend einführen würde.
Gleichzeitig ist diese schmale Büchlein die perfekte Parallel-Lektüre für Werke wie "Die weite Sargassosee" oder auch "Lolita"! Ich bin der festen Überzeugung, dass man durch Cesaires Offenlegung der rassistischen Gedankenstrukturen und Theorien bis in die 50er Jahre hinein die Großartigkeit der anderen Bücher besser begreifen wird.
Gerade Cesaires Analyse (naja, eher: Vernichtung) einer moderneren Spielart des Rassismus, nämlich der Übertragung der Psychoanalyse auf das Kolonial-Thema, finden wir ganz ähnlich bei Nabokov, nur entlarvt dieser nicht - wie Cesaire - den Unterdrücker Europa, sondern den Unterdrücker Humbert Humbert, der sich ganz ähnlicher, pseudowissenschaftlicher Begründungen bedient.
Aber so, wie manche Menschen auf Rassentheorien hereinfallen, fallen manche auf Humbert herein.
Ich freue mich sehr über diese fruchtbare Parallele.
May 1, 2023
Aimé Césaire's anger is felt in this writing. He is angry at colonialism and at the inferiority complex the colonized people feel for not being white and European. He doesn't agree that the colonizers are civilized, in fact he believes that they are the true savages and that is the reason why Hitler came to power. He talks about a few personalities, who I unfortunately didn't know. These people support colonialism and Césaire is rightfully angry at their arguments. This book is very short and it is written in a passionate manner, but unfortunately something was missing for me. It was quite focused on French colonialism, so I couldn't follow all of it. I wondered while reading this what Césaire would think of today's world. Colonialism simply transformed into another monster - corporate power. And it still exists today, more powerful than ever before. Although he already hinted that if Europe ever loses power and the world would be lead by America, it wouldn't get any better.
"American domination - the only domination from which one never recovers."
"American domination - the only domination from which one never recovers."
May 18, 2020
"before they were its victims, they were its accomplices; that they tolerated that Nazism before it was inflicted on them, that they absolved it, shut their eyes to it, legitimised it, because, until then, it had been applied only to non-European peoples; that they have cultivated that Nazism, that they are responsible for it, and that before engulfing the whole edifice of Western, Christian civilisation in its reddened waters, it oozes, seeps, and trickles from every crack."
More polemic than political theory, Césaire argues the roots of fascism in Europe are inextricably linked with colonialism and many prominent enlightenment thinkers. Many of the themes and ideas here were expanded by frantz fanon in the wretched of the earth
More polemic than political theory, Césaire argues the roots of fascism in Europe are inextricably linked with colonialism and many prominent enlightenment thinkers. Many of the themes and ideas here were expanded by frantz fanon in the wretched of the earth
March 19, 2021
Passionate and angry discourse on colonialism that exposes its features of bourgeois capitalism, and how it mirrors Hitler’s Nazism within Europe. It’s great! I wanted the discourse to go further, however, deeper into collaboration . Vichy for Nazism, being the example I am thinking of. I feel that colonialism’s success needs further examination of the collaborative element that is so underplayed in discussions of colonialism.
October 19, 2020
huge mic drop, one of the best critiques ive ever read, engagingly written, bitingly funny, so completely true, every word of it. i hate the west.
July 8, 2019
The publication of “Discourse on Colonialism” in 1955 was simultaneous with the Bandung Conference, which is considered a major event in the history of decolonial thinking and acting. Publication of this short book paved the way for Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth. Through this process of evolution, postcolonialism was matured from its Marxian context to a broader and more encompassing discourse. Fanon was a student of Aimé Césaire. Although Fanon is associated with postcolonialism the most, it was Aimé Césaire who paved the way for Fanon, Said, Spivak, and Bhabha. Aimé Césaire’s early engagement with movements such as Negritude, Surrealism and many anti-capitalist organizations led to his political career at Martinique with the support of the French Communist Party (PCF). His intellectual career is intertwined with his political career which lasted until 2001.
In terms of methodology, Césaire is very much a Marxist, yet sometimes he is using Nietzschean (pre-postmodern postmodern) methods concerning science and universalist scientific thinking. He criticized the European and especially French humanists who theoretically justified colonialism and imperialism. The best example that he mentions in the Discourse is Renan, a racist humanist. An idealist philosopher who paved the way intellectually for colonialism. The burning quote that is extracted from Renan is probably the most racist quote I have ever read in academic texts and is taken from a book title La Refonne intellectuelle et morale [The Intellectual and Moral Refound].
Césaire also criticized M. Mannoni’s psychoanalysis thinking (especially regarding colonialism) as well as Bantu philosophy and its inherent racism, which was aimed to monopolize all the glory for the European race. However, in the Discourse, Césaire describes the European humanists as those “chattering intellectuals who are born stinking out of thighs of Nietzsche”. We also have to remember that Nietzsche seriously attacked Renan as comedian of the moral ideal in “On the Genealogy of Morality”.
Reading classical texts by Césaire and Fanon we realize that the history of postcolonial theory is as much entangled with psychoanalysis as it is with Marxism. This is however from an era in which not only intersectionality but the whole movement of poststructuralism and gender studies didn’t exist. The universities and especially the French philosophical establishment were stuck in universalism and scientific objectivity of pure knowledge.
Césaire is criticizing M. Mannoni’s existentialism. He believed that M. Mannoni was using existentialism to blame the victims of colonization rather than the colonizers. M. Mannoni perceived French government as moderate in solely arresting the Madagascan deputies during the Madagascans revolts of 1947. Maud and Octave Mannoni were a French psychoanalyst couple who were later associated with Lacanian circle. Octave Mannoni spend some time in Madagascar and returned to France after WWII. He was inspired by Lacan and published some psychoanalytic books and articles. Similar to Aimé Césaire’s criticism of M. Mannoni, Octave’s book ”Prospero and Caliban: The Psychology of Colonization“ was criticized heavily by Fanon:
“[O.] Mannoni argued that all colonization is based on a relationship between psychological types: the authoritative white man and the dependent black one. Fanon began to see how European models of psychoanalysis located all psychotic conditions in individual psyches while ignoring very real material conditions – such as racism or colonialism. Fanon himself would observe that it was the lived experience of the blacks that induced psychotic behavior.”
"In another psychoanalytic interpretation, Mannoni argued that when the native, black man dreams of guns, they are essentially phallic images. Fanon is outraged at this interpretation of the gun as a mere symbol. One cannot see only symbolism when the threat is very real, he believed. Fanon argued that the rifle in the hands of the colonized (in his dreams) is no Freudian symbol, or phallic metaphor – it is a real rifle he is dreaming of and one which can injure the black body (Black Skin: 79). One cannot lose sight of the real and be trapped within such fancy symbolism.” (1)
Similar to Nietzsche, Fanon shifts the debate from the individual psyche (conciseness) to a social relation. "The Oedipal is not, in the case of the Africans, rooted in the family (as Freud famously proposed), but in the social.” Pramod K. Nayar writes in his book on Fanon.
Today, we know that racism is not always as simple as a binary of black/white, yes/no, rather it’s a huge spectrum of cultural understanding-misunderstanding by the privileged whites that leads to hate and violence. Racism is not only the skinhead white nationalism of Neo-Nazis in Europe and KKK in the United States or the neo-fascist Islamophobes in India. Theoretical racism was and still is present in many universities and institutions around the world. In the context of post-war Europe, Césaire identified racism and Nazism as something within each and every European. He reminds us that its always easy to blame Hitler, Rosenberg, Jünger, and others. As Hitler is someone who made the white man look bad, who humiliated the white people in the most immediate way. He generated the killing and barbarism that was reserved for the non-whites.
“Yes, it would be worthwhile to study clinically, in detail, the steps taken by Hitler and Hitlerism and to reveal to the very distinguished, very humanistic, very Christian bourgeois of the twentieth century that without his being aware of it, he has a Hitler inside him, that Hitler inhabits him, that Hitler is his demon, that if he rails against him, he is being inconsistent and that, at bottom, what he cannot forgive Hitler for is not crime in itself, the crime against man, it is not the humiliation of man as such, it is the crime against the white man, the humiliation of the white man, and the fact that he applied to Europe colonialist procedures which until then had been reserved exclusively for the Arabs of Algeria, the coolies of India, and the blacks of Africa.” (2)
Europe is Moving Toward Savagery
In 1955 Césaire challenged the notion of White Supremacy, asserting that there is nothing superior in whites. He had argued that all non-Western societies were superior to European ones. (3) Césaire talked about the boomerang effect of colonialism. When the “civilized” people want to forcefully civilize the natives they in return become the savages through this forceful violence. He argues that the Idea of barbarism is a European invention. He places ‘Africa’ as the binary opposite of ‘Europe’. He comes up with the iconic mathematical equation Colonization = Thingification, which as its predicate we can discern the archaic colonial justification of colonialism; Christianity = civilization and Paganism = savagery. We all have seen the recent video of a white drunk pastor who is attacking and insulting the black hotel workers in Uganda. That incident can be another visible example of the continuation of this mentality.
Simultaneously, as a Marxist, Césaire analyzed capitalism and bourgeois societies which were very immediately observed in those days of post-WWII. In the Discourse, he asserts that both the Nation and Man is a construction, a bourgeoisie phenomenon. On page 43 he asserts: "I am talking about millions of men in whom fear has been cunningly installed, who have been taught to have an inferiority complex, to tremble, kneel, despair, and behave like flunkeys.”
Césaire criticizes knowledge production as well as ethnography as something that only West studies and talks about the rest of the non-Western countries. The ending of the Discourse could be timelier if he was using the same ending as the interview with René Depestre:
“I remember very well having said to the Martinican Communists in those days, that black people, as you have pointed out, were doubly proletarianized and alienated: in the first place as workers, but also as blacks, because after all we are dealing with the only race which is denied even the notion of humanity.” (2)
insideanairport
***
Displaying 1 - 30 of 541 reviews