Aime Cesaire, Robin D.G. Kelley Discourse on Colonialism 2001

5/22/2018 Aime Cesaire, Robin D.G. Kelley Discourse on Colonialism 2001

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DISCOUSE ON COLONIALISM

Translated by Joan Pinkham

A POETICS OF ANTICOLONIALISM

by Robin D G. Kll

MONTHLY REVIW PRSS

EW YOK


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Libra f aag-iPublcai Da

Cesar Ame.[Dscours sur I coloniasm Englh]Dscours on colonalism I Ame C6ar; ranlatd by Joan Pnkham

A of anticolonalsm I Robn DG Kllp e.

Contnts:Apotc of tcolonalsm I Robn DG Kll-Dscours on coloniasm I Ame C6air - A ntrvw wth me Cesar IRne Llcme

SBN 158370254 (pbk) SBN 15837024 (cloth)1 Colons 2 Coloni-Mrca 3 Postcolonalsm Klly, Robin DG

Potcs of antcolonalsm I T Po tc of ancolonalsm Tide.

JV51 C413 2000325'3c1

onthly Rvw Prs122 Wst 27th StrtN York N 10001

Prntd n Canada

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3

00020238CP

[ Contents}

Robin D G. Kelley

POECS OF NICOLONIALSM

Am Cfare

DISCOURSE ON COLONILSM 2

Ren Depestre

N INERVIEW WITH IM CIRE

Nes


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[Iroduo]

A POETICS OF ANTIOLONIALSM

obn D. G Kell

ime Cesair'sioure o Conal might b bst dcribd asa dclaraion of war. I would almos cit a "third world manifsto,bu hsia bcaus i is primarily a polmic against th od ordrbrf of th kind of propositions and proposals tha gnrallyaccompany manifsos Yt oue spaks in rvolutonay cadncs capturing h spiri of i ag just arx ad Engls did102 arlir in thir litl manifsto Firs publishd in 1950 asou u e olonale it appard ust th old mprs wron h vrg of collaps thanks in pt o a world war against fascismtha l Europ in marial spiritual and philosophical shambls1I was h ag of dcolonizaon and rvolt in rica sia and Latinmrica Fiv yars arlir in 1945 back popl from around thglob gard in anchsr England for h Fi an-ricanCongrss o discuss th frdom and tur of ri Fiv yars latrin 1955 rprsnivs from th on-lignd ations gard in

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8 A POEICS OF NTOLNALM

Bdung, ndonesia, to discuss the eedom nd future of the thirdworld Mao's revolution in China was a year old, while e MauMau in Kenya were just gearing up for an uprising against theircolonil masters The French encountered insurrections in Algeria,Tunisia, Morocco, Cameroon, and Madagascar, and suered a

humiliating defeat by the Viet Minh at Dien Bien Phu Revolt wasin the air ndia, the Philippines, Guya, Egypt, Guatemala, Southrica, Alabama, Mississii, Georgia, Harlem, you name it Revolt!Macolm X once described this extraordinary moment, this longdecade from the end of the Second Wod War to the late 1950s,as a "tidl wave of color

Discourse on Conialism is indisputably one of the key texts inthis tidl wave of anticolonil literature produced during thepostar period-works that include WEB Du Bois's Color and

Democra(1945)nd The WorandAica(1947) Frantz FanonsBck Skin, White Mks ( 1952), George Padmore's Pan-Aicanismor Communism?: The Coming Stru r Aica ( 1956) AlbertMemmi's The Colnizer and the Colonized ( 1957), ichard Wright'sWhite Man Listen! ( 1957), JeanPaul Sae's essay, "Black Orheus ( 1948), and journls such as rsence Aicaine and icanRevoluon Like much of the radical li terature produced dur ing thisepoch, Discoue places the colonial question front and centerthough Csaire, remaining somewhat true to his Commstliation, never quite dethrones the modern proletariat om i

exalted status s a revolutionary force, the European woring classis practically invisible This is a book about colonilism, its impacton the colonized, on cture, on history, on the very concet ofcivilizaon itsel and most importantly, on the coonizer n thenest Hegelian fashion, Csaire demonstrates how colonialismwors o decivilize the colonizer: torture, violence, race hatred,

ROBN D.G KELLEY 9

and immoralit constitute a dead wght on the socalled civilized,pulling the mster class deeper and deeper into the abyss of barbarism The instruments of colonil power rely on barbaric, brutlviolence and intimidation, and the end result is the degradation ofEuope itse Hence sire oy scrm Europe is indefensible

Europe is lso dependent Anticipating Fanon's famous proposition that Europe is literaly the creation of the Third World,Csaire revels, over and over again, that the colonizers' sense ofsuperiorit, their sense of mission as the world's civiizers, dependson tuing the Other into a barbarian The ricans, the ndians,the Asians cannot possess civilization or a clture equl to that ofthe imperialists, or e latter have no purpose, no justication forthe exploitaion and domination of the rest of the world Thecolonial encounter, in other words, requires a reinvention of the

colonized, the deliberate destruction of the pstwhat Csaire cls"thingication Discourse then, has a doubeedged meaning it isCsaire's discourse on the materil and spirtual havoc created bycolonilism, and it is a critique of colonia discourse. Anticipatingthe explosion of work we now cl "postcolonil studies, Csaire'scrtque of gures such Dominique O Mannoni, Roger Caillois,Ernest Ren, Yves Florenne, d Jules Romains, among others,revels how the circulation of coonil ideolo-an ideolo ofracil and cultura hierarchy-is as essential to colonial rule policeand core abor

Surprisingly, few assessments of postcolonia criticism pay muchattention to Dcourse besides mentioning it in a litany of pioneering works without bothering to elaborate on its contents RobertYoung's White Mythoes Wring Histo and the est ( 1990)dates the origins of postcoloni stues to Fanon's Wretched oftheEarth desite the fact that some of the arguments in Fanon were


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PTI F TII

already present in Dicou3 On he other hand, literary crics eno skp over Dicou or dismiss i s a n anomly bo of Csaireseleven-year sin as a member of the Communis Party ofMartinique. I has been rea in erms of wheher it conforms o orbreaks from "Marxs orthoo,,4 wan sugges that Dicou

made some crtic contrbuions to our hinkng about coloniism,fascism and revolution First, is recasting of he hisory of WesernCivlizaion helps us locae he origins of fascism wihin coloniismielf; hence within the ve tradiions of humanism critics believefascism hreatened Second Csaire was neither consed abouMarxism nor masquerading as a Marxist when he wrote DicouOn he conrary he ws aempting o revise Marx long the linesof his predecessors such as WEB Du Bois and MN Roy, bysuggesing ha the anicoloni stugge supersedes he proletian

revluion as the naental histocl movement of the perioThe mplicaions are enormous: he coming rolution was notposed in terms of capitism versus socialism (he very last paragraphnotihstanding ut we shl reurn to his ater) bu in terms ofthe complee and total overrow of a racist coloniis system thawould open the way to imagine a whole nw world

ha such a world mght look like is never spelled out bu habrngs me o the n point abou Dicou it should be read as asurrealis text perhaps even an uninened synhesis of Csaire'sundersanding of poery (via Rmbau) as revolt and his revision

of hisorical maerialism For all of hs Mas criticism and Negruian asserion Csaire's tex plumbs the dephs of one's unconscious so ha colonilism mi be comprehended throughout theentire being It is ful of ares full of anger ll of humor It is noa soluion or a srategy or a manu or a lile re book with pithyquoes I is a dancing e in a bonre

BN D.G KY

m sres credenis as colonia criic are impeccable Hewas born on June 2 in he small own of BassePoine,Marinique where he ong wih ve siblings, were raised by amoher who ws a dressmaker, and a faher who hel a pos as helocal x inspecor Alhough heir faher was well eucaed and hey

shared he cultura sensibiliies of he peit bourgeois the Csairesnoneheless lived close o e edge of rur pover Am urned outo be a brillian precocous studen and, a age eeven, was admitedto the Lyce Schoelcher in FotdeFrance There he met LonGonan Daas from Guiana, one of his chidhood soccermates(who would go on o collaborate with saire and Senegalese poetLopold Sdar Senghor in launching he Negritude movemen)sare graduate from the Lyce in and tok prizes in FrenchLain English, and histoy Unlike many of his coeagues, he could

not wait to leave home for he mother counryFrance I was noa ease in the ntillean world, he recalled Tha would changeduring his eightyear stay in Paris5

Once setled in Paris he enroled a he Lyce LouiseGrando prepare for he grueling enrance exs to get ino e EcoleNormle Suprieure There he me a nuber of likeminded intellectuals mos notably Senghor Meeing Senghor and anoherSenegese intellecul, Ousman Soce inspired in Csaire an interesin rica and their collaboraions evenually gave bir o theconcep of Negritue There were other black diasporic intellecual

circles in Paris at the ime, noaby he group surrounding theNad sisters of Marinique (Paulete Jane, and Andre) who rana son out of which ceLa vu du mond noi edied byPauleeNard and Lo Sajous nother circe of Martinican studens,consising manly of Etienne Lro, Ren Mnil M Monnero,and Pierre and Simone Yoyote joined togeher o declre their


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A POTICS OF ANTCOLONLISM

cmmmen surrealsm and cmmuns revun n her neand nl ssue f gitim Dn publshed n 932 he excraed he renchspeakng black burgese aacked he sel fms Wes ndan eraure celebraed several back wrerslke Langsn Hughes and aude McKa and denunced racsm

(pang specal aenn he Scsbr case sare knewabu he ardal ssers saln bu fund enrel burgesfr hs ases nd hugh he had read gim Dn he cnsdered he grup assmlaed There was nhng dsngushhem eher frm he rench surrealss r he rench mmunssn her wrds her pems were clrless6

sare Senghr Ln Damas and hers were par f aderen nellecual crcle ha cenered arund a urnal caled tudiant noi. n s March 935 ssue sare publshed a

passnae rac agans assmlan n whch he rs cned heerm egrude s mre han rnc ha a he mmensares pece appeared he was hard a wrk absrbng as muchrench and Eurpean humanes as pssbe n preparan fr hsenrance exams fr he Ecle rmale Supreure The exams kher ll fr sure hugh he pschc and emnal css f havng mbbe he ver cuure sare publcl reeced mus haveexacerbaed an alread exhausng regmen er cmpleng hsams durng he summer f 935 he k a shr vacan nYugslava wh a felw suden Whle vsng he drac cas

sare was vercme wh memres f hme aer seeng a smalsland frm a dsance Mved he saed up half he ngh wrkngn a lng pem abu he Marnque f hs uhhe and hepeple he maes f he place The nex mrnng when henqured abu he lle sland he was ld was called Marnska magcal chance encuner sa he leas he wrds he penned

ROBIN D.G KELLEY

ha mnl ngh were he begnnngs f wha wud subsequenlbecme hs ms famus pem f al Cahi d'un tou au paynatal (Notbook of a tu to My Nativ an The nex summerhe dd reurn Marnque bu was greeed b an even greaersense f alenan He reurned rance cmplee hs hess n

rcanmercan wrers f he Harlem Renassance and herrepresenans f he Suh and hen n u 0 93 marredSuzanne Russ a felw Marncan suden wh whm he had

wrked n tudiant noi7

The cuple reurned Marnque n 939 and began eachngn r-de-rance nng frces wh Ren Mnl Luce Thseersde Mauge Gerges Graan and hers he launched aurnal caled Topiqu The appearance f Topiqu cncdedwh he fal f rane he fascs Vch regme whch cnse

quenl pu he clnes f Marnque Guadelupe and Guanaunder Vch rule The effec was sarng an lusns sare andhs cmrades mgh have harred abu clrblnd rench brherhd were shaered when husands f rench salrs arrved nhe sland Ther racsm was laan and drec lerar crc ames rnld bseed The nsensv f hs mar regmeals made dcu fr Marncans gnre he fac ha hewere a cln lke an her a cnclusn ha he cal pc fassman had masked smewha These cndns cnrbued radcalzng sare and hs frends preparng hem fr a mre

anclnals psure a he end f he war The cal plc fhe regme censr Topiqu and nerdc he pucan when was deemed subversve as hasened he grups radcazanIn a nrus eer daed Ma 0 943 Marnques hef fnfrman Seces apan Bale used nerdcng Topiqufr beng a revlunar reew ha s raca and secaran Bale


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ET CS ICLIL

accused the editors of poisoning the spirit of sociey sowing hatredand ruining the morle of the county Two days later the editorspenned a brilliant polemicl response

To Lieutenant de Vaisseau Bayle:

Sir, We have received your indictment of Tropiques

"cists "sectarians "revoluonaries and traitors to the

country poisoners of souls none of these epithets really oends

us. Poisoners of Souls like and traitors to our

good Country like Zola "Revolutionaries like the Hugo of

Chtiments Sectarins passionately like Rimbaud and Lau

tramont asts yes Of e racsm of ossaint L'Ouverture of

Claude McKay and Langston Hughes that of Drumont

and Hitler As to the rest of it dont expect us to plead our case

or to launch into vain recriminations or discussion We do not

speak the me language

Sgned m Csare Suzanne Csaire Georges Gratiant Aristde

Mauge Ren Mnil Lucie Thsee9

But in order for Topiqu to surive they had to camouageheir boldness passing it off as a journl of West Indian folloreYet despite he repressions ad the ruses Topiqu surived thewar as one of the most important and radil surrealist publicationsin the world Lasting from 1941 to 1945 the eays and poems it

published by the saires Ren Mni and others) revel heevolution of a sophisticated anticolonial stance s well as a visionof a postcolonil future Theirs was a vision of freedom that drewon Modernism and a deep appreciation for precolonial Africanmodes of thought and practice drew on Surrelism s he strategyof revolution of the mind and Marxism s revolution of the produc

RB D,G KELLE

tive forces It was eort to carve out a position independent ofall of a kind of wedding of Negritude Maism ndsurrealism and eir collective eorts would have a profoundimpact on international surrealism in generl and on AdrBreton in particular Topu so published Breton s well s

texts by Pierre Mabille Benjamin Peret and oher surrelists. Infact it is not too much to proclaim Suzanne Csaire as one ofsurrelisms most original theorists Unlike critics who boed surrealism into narrow avant garde tendencies such as futurism orcubism Suzanne sire linked it to broader movements such asRomanticism socilism and Negritude Surrelism she arguedwas not an ideology as such but a state of mind a permanentreadiness for the Maelous In a 1941 issue of Topiqu sheimagined new possibilities in terms hat were foreign to Maxis;

she called on readers to embrace the domain of the strange emelous and he ftastic a domain scoed by people of certaininclinations Here is the eed image daling and beautil with abeaut hat could not be more unpected and overhelming Hereare he poet the painter d the artist presiding over the metamorphoses and the inversions of the wold under the sign of haucination and madness" Ad yet when she speaks of the domain ofhe Marelous she hs her sights on he chains of colonial domination nevr forgetting the crushing reali of everyday life inMartinique and the rest of the world In Surreism and Us 1943"

she writes with a boldness and clarity that wold come to characterize her husband's Dcou on Coniaim

Thus far from contradicting dluting or diverting our revolu

tionary attitude toward life surrealism strengtens it It nourishes n

impatient strength within s endlessly reinforcig the massive army

of refusals


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O O AIOOASM

reites of cooniism, hen perhps we shoud heed Csires pointh ht presides over he poem is no he most ucid inteigence,the shrpes sensibiit or he subtes feeings, bu s whoe This mens everyhing every hisory, every ture, everydrem, every ife form from pn o nim, every creive im

puseis pumbed from the dephs of he unconscious If poetryis indeed power source of nowedge nd revot one mightexpec to empoy i s Diou shrpest wepon Ad Ihin mos reders wi gree h hose pssges which sing, thtsound the wr drs, th pode sponneousy re the mostpower secions of he essy But hose reders who re expecting sysemtic critique repete wh hypoheses sucient evidence opicsenences, nd bue points re bound for disppointmen Consider Csires third proposiion regrding poeic nowedgePoeic nowedge is tht in which mn spers he object with of his mobiized riches

Surreism is so impornt to he formion of Dou becue,ie the movemens th gve rise o Pnricnism nd Negriude,it hs is own independen nicooni roos I m no suggesingh Csires critique of cooniism necessriy derived from thesurreiss; rer I wn sugges th e muu trctionengendered beween Csire nd mny oher bc ineectus he ime nd he surreis n be prty pined by niies inheir posiion towrd Empire Up uni the mid1920s, the Euro

pen surreiss were gey cuur iconocsts who mde rdicpronouncemens but dispyed ie interes in soci revouionBut h woud chnge in 1925 when he Pris Surreist Groupnd the extreme e of e French Communist Prt were drwntogeher by their support of bdeKrim eder of he f uprisingginst French cooniism in Morocco They civey ced for the

ROBI D K 9

overthrow of French cooni rue Tht sme yer, in n Openeer o Pu Cude, writer nd rench mbssdor to Jpn,he Pris group nnounced e profoundy hope ht revoutio,wrs cooni insurrecons, wi nnihite this Western ciiiztionwhose vermin you defend even in the Orient Seven yers ter, the

Pris group produced is most miitnt sttement on the cooniquesion o dte Tited Murderous Humnitrinism 1932 nddred miny by Ren Creve nd signed by ndr Breton, PuEurd, Benmin Peret, Yves Tngu nd the Mrtinicn surreiss Pierre Yoyotte ndJM Monnerot, he document is reenessc on cooniism, cpitism, the cergy, the bc bourgeoisiend hypocritic ibers. Th rgue tht e very humnism upon

which he mode Wes ws buit so justied svery, cooniism,nd genocide Ad they ced for ction, noting, we Surreistspronounced ourseves in vor of chnging the imperiist wr, inis chronic nd cooni form into ci wr Thus we pced ourenerges the dispos of revoution, of the proetrit d itssrugges, nd dened our ttitude towrds the cooni probemnd hence owrds the coor question,7

hie Murderous Humnitrinism ceriny resontes withCsres criique he hd ess fth in the proetrit-the Europenproerit, th is-thn those who signed this document Moreover, product of the period foowing he Second Word Wr,Diougoes one sep rther by drwing direct in beween the

ogic of cooniism nd the rise of fscism Csire provoctiveypoints out h Europens oerted Nzism before it ws inictedon hem, tht they bsoved i shut heir es to it, egitimized it,becuse, unti hen it hd been ppied ony to nonEuropnpeopes h they hve cuived ht Nzism, t they re responsibe for it, nd th before engung the whoe edice of Western,


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20 A POETICS OF ANOLONIALIM

Christin civiliztion in its reddened waters, it oozes, seeps, andtricles from every crack" So the real crime of fscism was eapplication to white pple of coloni procedures which unl thenhad been reseed exclusively for the Arabs of geria, the 'cooliesofIndia, and the 'niggers of Mrica" (p. 36) Here we must situate

srewithin a larger context of radic black intelectulswho hadcome to the same conclusions before e publication of Discoue.As Cedric Robinson argues, a group of radicl black intellectuls,including WEB Du Bois, CL James, George Padmore, andOliver Cox understood fscism not as some aberration from themarch of progress, a unexpected right-wing turn, but a localdeelopment of Western Civilization itself They viewed fascism sa blood relative of slavery and imperialism, global systems rootednot only in capitalist political economy but racist ideologies thatwere already in place at the dawn of moderni As early as 1936lph Bunche, then a radical politicl science professor at HowrdUniversity, suggested at imperialism birth to fascism. Thedoctrine of Fascis," wrote Bunche, with its extreme jingoism, iexaggerated ltion of the ste and its comicopera gloricationof race, has given a n d ter impetus to the policy of worldperilism which had conquered ad subjected to systematic andrutle exploitaton vrtully ll of the darker populatons oftheearth Du Bois made some of the clearest statements tthis eect:I knew that Hitler and ussolini were ghting communism, and

using race prejuice to make some white people rich ad all coloredpeople poor But it was not until later tat relized that thecolonialism of Great Britain and France had ecty the same objectand methods s the fscists and the Nis were trying clearly to use"Later in The World and Afica (1947) he writes There ws noNzi atrocityconcentration camps, wholesale maiming and mur-

ROIN D.G KELLEY 21

der, delement of women or astly blasphemy of childhoodwhich Christian cilizaton or Europe had not long been practicinganst colored folk in ll parts of the world in the ne of and forthe defense of a Superior ace born to rule the world,,18

The very idea that there was a superior race lay at the heart of

e matter ad this is why elements of Dcourse also drew onNegriudes impulse to recover the history of Mricas accomplshments Takg his cue from Leo Frobeniuss injunction tat theidea of the barbaric Negro is a Europen invention" 19Csaire setsout t prove that the colonial mission to civilize the primitive isjust a smoke screenIf nyhing, coloniism results in te massivedestruction of whole socetiessocieties that not only nction atahigh level of sophist ication and complex, but that might oerthe West vuable lessons about how we mit l ive together ndremakethe modn wod Indeed sires insistence at precolonil Mrican and Asian cultures were not only antecapist butaso anticitalis" anticipated matc clms advanced by icannationalist leaders such as Jius Nyerere , Kenneth aun, ndSenghor himself, that mode ica can establish socilism on thebsis of precolonil village li fe

Discourse was not the rst place Csa re made the case for terbc West folog the pat of the cvlzed icn nh ntroduction to Victor SchoelchersEscvage e colonisaton, he rote

The men they took awy knew how to build houses goven empires,

erect cities cultivte elds mine for mets weve tton forge steeL

Their reigion hd its own beu bsed on mysticl connections

ith the founder of the city. Their customs were plesing built on

unikndness respe ct for ge


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OE O lOLOLlM

No cocon on mt tnc th jo of ng f ccp

tnc of dcpn

d 20Od-Entn-Pot nd F om

Reading this passage, and the book itsef, deeply aected one of

Csaire's brightest students, named Frantz Fanon. It was a reveation for him to discover cities in Arica and "accounts of learnedbac. A of that, he noted in Bck Skin, White Mks (1952)exhumed fro the pst, spread with its insides out made it possiblefor me to nd a valid histoical pace The white man ws wrong, I

was not a primitive, not even a haf-man, I belonged to a race thatad lready been woring in gold and silver two tousand yeas

2agoNegritude tued out to be a miracuous weapon in te strugge

to overhrow the barbaric Negro A. Cedric Robinson points out

in Bck Maism: The Making ofthe Bck ical Tradion thiswas no easy task, since the invenon of e Negroand by tension the fabrication of whiteness and te racial bounry poicingat cae with itrequired immense expenditures of psychic andinteectual energies of the West. enire generation of enightened European schoars worked hard to wipe out the cultural andinteecual contributions of Egpt and Nubia from Europeanhisy, to whiten the West in order to maintain te puriy of theEuropean race They so stripped l of Arica of any semblance

of cvization, using the printed page to eradicate their historyand us reduce a whoe continent and its progeny to litte morean bess of burden or brutish heathens The resut is the fabricaton of Europe as a discrete, raciy pure entity soely respo nsiblefor modeiy, on the one hand, and the fabrication of the Negroon e other.

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ROB D KELLE

Yet despite Csaires construction of precoloni Arica s naggregation of war counl societies, he never cls for a returnUnke is od friend Sengor Csares concept of Negritude sfutureoriented and odern His position in Discourse is unequivocl: For u s te probem is not to me a utopian and stere attempt

to repeat the past but to go beyond It is not a dead society tat wewant to revive We eave that t o hose wo go in for exoicism . It is a new socie that we must create, wih te hep of our broersaves a socie ric wih the productive power of modern times,

warmwith l the fraterni of oden daysThen comes he sockng nex ineFor some ampes showing that this is possibe, we can ook

to the Soviet UnionBy 950 of course Csaire ad been a leader in the Communist

Par of Martinique for about ve years. On the Communist ticket,he was elected mayor of FortdeFrance as we as Depu to theFrench Nation semby. Now given everthing he has writtentus far everying that he has lived, why woud he hod upSinism circa 1950s as an exempr of he new society? y wouda eat poet and major voice of surreaism and Negritude suddenlyjoin e Communst Par? Actually, once we consider te contextof the postwar word is decision is not socking at al First,remember tat Communist partes wordwide, especay in Europewere at eir eigt immediatey aer te war, and Joe Stlin spent

the war years as a n ally of iberal democracy. Second, several eadingwriters d art sts comitted to radicl social change pticuaryin the Cibbean and Latin America, became Communisinuding Csaires friends Jacques Romain, Nicolas Guin andRen Depestre Third, Csaire, who was reuctant to become in

voved in poitics, discovered early on that he could be eective.
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24 A POETICS OF ANTIOLOASM

Almt a n a he wa elected Caire et ut t change the tatuf Martinique Guadelupe Guiana and Runin fm clniet department wihin the French Repubic Departmentaliatin he inited wuld put thee areas n an equa fting withdepartment in metrplitan France. aire elquent and pa

inate gument led a law in 946 reulting in departmentaliatin. Hwever hi dream that aimilatin f the d clnie intthe republic wuld guarantee equal right tued ut t be a pipedream. In the end French cial were ent t the clnie ingreater number en diplacing me f the cl black Martinican bureaucrat By the time he drafted the ppularly knwn irdeditin f ioure in 955 he had becme an utpken critic fd I 2,epartmenta atn.

Thu given aire rle as Cmmunit leader we huld ntbe urpried by ioure'nd t e viet Unin r en the nacling line f the tet in which he nae petarian revlutina ur avir. What i arring hwever i hw incngu theetatements are in rlatin t the ret f the tt. er demntratingthat Eurpe i a dying civiliatin ne n the verge f efdetuctin (in which the chicken f clnial vilence and tyranny havecme hme t rt while the white wrking cla lk n in ilentcmplicity) he prpe pretian revlutin as the nal lutinYet thrughut the bk he nticipate Fann impying that therei nthing wr aving in Eurpe that the Eurpean wrking ca

ha t en ined frce with the Eurpean burgeiie in theirupprt f racim imperialim nd clnialim and that theupriing f the clnied mit pint the way fard Ultimatelyioure i a challenge t r reviin f Maim it draw nurrealim and e antiratinalit idea f Caire early petry andeplratin in egtude. It i fairly unmaterialit in the way it crie

ROBI DG KLEY 5

ut fr new piritual vaue t emerge ut f the tudy f whatclnialim ught t detry.

Caire pitin vivi Marxim becme even clearer lethan ne year aer the third editin f ioure appeared InOctber 956 Caire pen hi famu etter t Maurice Thre

ecretary General f the French Cmmunit Party tendering hireignatin frm the party. Beide it tinging rebuke f talinimthe heart f the leer dealt with the cnil quetinnt ut theParty plicie twad the clnie but he cnial relatinhipbeeen the metrplitan and the Martinican Cmmunit PartieArguing that peple f clr need t eercie efdeterminatin hewarned againt treating the cnial quetin a a ubidiarypart f me mre imprtant glbal mater Racim in therwrd cannt be ubrdinate t the cla truggle i letter i aneven blder mre direct asertin f ird wd unity than oure Althugh he till identie a a Mait and i till pen tlliance he cautin that there "are n alies by divine right. Ifflwing the Cmmunit Party " pilage ur mt viviing friendhip break the bnd that wed u t ther Wet Indian ilandever the tie that make u Africa child then I ay cmmunimha ered u il in having u trade a iving brtherhd fr whateem t be the cdet f al chi abtractin Mre impntCsaire invetment in a trdwrld revlt paving the way fr a nciety certnly anticipate Fann e had practically given up n

Eurpe and e ld humanim and it caim f univerality pingintead t redene the univeral in a way that did nt privilegeEurpe. Caire eplain Im nt ging t cnne myef t menarrw particularim. But I dnt intend either t becme lt in adiembdied univeralim . . I have a dierent idea f a univerl i a univeral rich with l that i particular rich with l the


14/52

26 A POETICS OF ANCOLONALSM

particulars r ar, th dpning of ach particular, th coistnc of thm all24

What Cesair articulats in Dscourse and mor xplcitly in hislttr to Thorz, distills spirit that swpt through Aicanintllctual circls in h ag of dcolonization This pasiv spirit

was what Nitud was all about hn; it was nvr a simpl mattrof raci ssntiaism Critic, scholar, and lmmakr ManthiaDiawara bautilly capturs h atmosphr of th ra and, implicily what ths radic critiqus of h colonia ordr, such asDscourse on Colonalsm, mnt to a nw gnration: "Th ia thatNgritud was biggr vn than Afri, that w wr part of anintrnation momnt whi hld h promis of univrsal mancipation, at our dsiny coincidd wih h univrsal dom ofworkrs an colonizd popl woldwid-all his gav us a biggrand mor impoant idnti than th ons prviously availabl to

us throu kinship, hniciy, nd rac Th awarnss of ournw historica mission frd us from what w rrdd in hos daysas th archaic idntitis of our fars and hir rligious ntrapmnts it frd us frm rac an banishd our far of th whitnssof Frnch idnity To b labd h saviors of humanity, whnonly rcnly w had bn coloniz and dspisd by h world, vus a fling of rightousnss, which brd contmpt for capitalism,racialism of al l origins, and tribaism 5

In ight of rcnt vnts-gnocid in East Africa, th collaps

of dmocracy throughout th continnt, h isolation of Cuba, hovrthrow of progrssiv movmnts throughout th socalld thirdworldsom mght argu hat th momnt of truth h aradypassd, at Cesair and Fanon's prdictions provd s W'rfacing an ra whr fools ar calling for a rnal of coonialism,whr dscriptions of violnc and instability draw on h vy

I

ROBN D.G KElLY 27

coloni languag of barbarism and bacardnss that esaircritqus in hs pags But this is all a mystication th fact is,whil colonialism in its form sns might hav bn ismantld,th colonial stat as not Many of h problms of dmocracy arprouc of th old colonial stat whos primary irnc is th

prsnc of black facs It has to do with h ris of a nw rulingclassth class Fanon warnd us about-who ar contnt wihmimiing h colonia mastrs, whr thy ar th oldschoolBritish or Frnch ocrs, th nw jackus. corporat rulrs, or thStalinists whos sympathy for th "backard countris on mirrord th vy colonial discours Cesair xposs

A th tru radics of postcolonial thoy will tll you, w arhardly in a "postcolonial momnt Th ocial apparatus mighthav bn rmovd, but th political conomic, and cultural linksstablishd by colonial domination still rmain wi som tra

tions. Dicourse is lss concrnd with th spcics of politicalconomy han with a way of thinkng lsson hr is thatcolonial domination rquird a whol way of thinking, a discoursin which vything that is advancd, good, and civilizd is dndand masurd in Europan trms Dicourse calls on th world tomov forard as rapidly as possibl, and yt lls for th ovrthrow

of a mastr css's idoogy of progrss, on built on violnc,dstruction, gnocid Boh Fanon and Cesair warn colordworl not to follow Europ's footstps, and not to go back to th

ancint way, but to ca out a n dirction altogthr What w'vbn witnssing, howvr (and hr I must inclu Cesairs ownblovd Martiniqu, whr h still hods forh as mayor of FortdFrc) hardly rc th imagination and vision capturd in thsbrif pags Th sam old politica partis, th sam armis, th sammthods of labor xploitation, th sam ducaon, sam tactics


15/52

28 A O O ATOLOALM

of incaceation exiling snung out atists and intellectuals whodaeto imagine a adically dieent way of liing who dare to inentthe marvelous befoe ou ery ey.

n the end, oure was nee intended to be a oad map or abluepint fo eolution t is poet nd theefoe eolt t is an act

of insuection dawn fom Csaies own miaculous weaponsmolded and shaped by his wok with Tropqueand i challenge tothe Vichy egime; by his imbibing of Euopean culture and his senseof ienation fm both Fance and his natie land I t is a ising ablow to the maste who appeas as owne and ule teacher andmade t is eolutiona grati painted in bold stokes acrossthe geat texts of Westen Ciilization it is a hand grenade tossedwith deadly accua earing the eld so that we might wite a newhisto with what's le standing oure is hardly a dead document about a dead ode If anything it is a cl for us to plumb the

depths of the imagination for a dieent way foward Jt as Csaiedrew on Lautamonts Chan de Maror to illuminate the can-niblistic natue of capitali sm and the powe of poetic knowledgeoure oes new insights into e consequens of loniismand a model for deaming a way out of ou postcolonia peamenthile we st need to oethowesges of the old colonial odedestoying the old is just hf the battle

DIOURE O OLOIALM

are

rante b Joan nka


16/52

DISOURSE ON OOSM

by Aime Cesair

A civilization that proves incapable of solving the problems it

creates is a decadent cvilization.

A cvilization that choos to close its eyes to its most crucial

problems is a s tricken cvilizaton

A civilization that uses its principles for trickey and deceit is a

dying civilization

The fact is that the so-called European civilization"Westerncivilizations it has been shaped by two centuries of bourgeois

rule, is incapable of solvng the two major problems to whi its

existence has given rise: the problem of te proletariat and thecolonial problem; that Europe is unable tjusti itself eiter before

the bar of reason or before the bar of conscience and tatincresingly it tkes rege in a ypocrisy whic is l te more

odious because it is less and less likely to deceive

3


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3

Ad I say tht betwee cooizo ad iviio there is a

iite distae that out of all the oloial peditios that hae

bee udertke out of all the oloial statutes that hae beedraw up out of ll the memorada that hae bee dispathed by

all the miistries there ould ot ome a sigle hum a alue

First we must study how oloizatio works to civiiz theoloizer to bti him i the true sese of the word to degrde

him to awke him to buried istits t oetousess iolee

rae hatred ad moral relatiism d we must show tht eah time

head is ut o or a eye put out i Vietm d i Fre theyaept the fat time a little girl is raped d i Frae they

aept the fat eah time Madags is tortured ad i Frae

they ept the fat iilizatio quires aother dead weight

uiers regressio tkes plae a gagree sets i a eter of

ietio begis to spread ad that at the ed of these treatiesthat hae bee iolated all these lies that hae bee propagted

these puitie peditios that hae bee tolerated all these pris

oers who hae bee tied up ad iterrogted ll these patriotswho hae bee tortured at the ed of all the ri pride that has

bee eouraged ll the boastless tht has bee displayed a

35


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36 IOR O OLONILM

poison has been dstlled nto the vens of Europe and, slowly butsurely, the contnent proceeds towardsaag

And then one ne day the bourgeose s awaened by a terrcboomerang eect: e gestapos are busy, the prsons fup, the torturersstandng around the racs nvent, rene, dscuss.

People are surprsed, they become ndgnant They say "Howstrge! But never mnd-t's Nazsm, t wll pass And they wat,

and they hope; and they hde te truth from themselves, that t sbarbarsm, the supreme barbarsm, the crownng barbarsm thatsums up all the daly barbarsms that t s Nzsm, yes, but tat

before they were ts vctms, they were ts accomplces tat theytolerated that Nazsm before t was ncted on them, that theyabsolved t, shut ther eyes to t, legtmzed t, because, untl then,

t had been appled only to nonEuropean peoples; that they havecultvated that Nazsm, that they are responsble for t, and that

before engulng the whole edce of Western, Chrstan cvlzatonn ts reddened waters, t oozes, seeps, and trckes from every crack

Yes, t would bworthwhle to sudy cnclly, n detal, the steps

taken by Htler and Htlersm and to reveal to te very dstngushed, very humanstc, very Chrstan b ourgeos of the tentethcentury at without hs beng aware of t, he has a Hter nsde

hm, that Htler inhaits hm, tat Htler s hs on that f herls aganst hm, he s beng nconsstent and that, at bottom, what

he cannot forgve Htler for s not th ri n tself, th ri against

an, t s not th huiliation oan suh t s te crme aganstthe whte man, the humlaton of the whte m, and the fact thathe appled to Europe colonalst procedures whch untl then hadbeen reserved clusvely for the abs of Algera, the "cool ofInda, and the ners of Mrca

AM SIR 37

And that s the great thng I hold aganst pseudohumansmthat r toO long t hs dmnshed the rghts of m that conceptof tho r h beennd nrrow and entary, ncomplete and based and, all thngs consdered, sorddly racst

I have talked a good dea about Htler Because he deseres t

he makes t possble to see thngs on a large scale nd to grasp thefact that captalst soce, at ts present stage, s ncapabe ofestablshng a concept of the rghts of all men, just as t has proved

ncapable of esbshng a system of ndvdul eth heter onelkes t or not, at te end of the blnd alley that s Europe, I mean e

Europe of Adenauer, Schuman, Bdault, and a few others, there sHer At te end of captalsm, whch s eager to outlve ts day,

there s Htler t the end of formal humansm and phlosophcrenuncaton, there s Htler

d ths beng so, cannot hep thnkng of one of hs state

ments We apre not to equalt but to domnaton The countryof a foregn race must become once agan a countr of serfs, ofagrcultural laborers, or ndustral workers t s not a queston ofelmnatng the nequaltes among men but ofwdenng them andmkng them nto a law

That rngs clear, hauty, and brut, and plants us sqrely nthe mddle of howlng savagery. But let us come down a step

Who s spekng? a ashamed to say t t s the Westernhuan the dealst phlosopher That hs name s Renan s an

accdent That the pssage s taken from a book enttled L Rrintu t oral that t wa wrtten n France ust aer a warwhch France had represented as a war of rght aganst mght, tellsus a great deal about bourgeos morls


20/52

38 DOE O OOIA

The regeneration of the inferior or degenerate races by the

superior races is part of the providential order of ings for humanity.

With us, the common man is neary always a dcass nobeman his

heavy hand is beter suited to handling the sword an the menia

tool Rather than work he chooses to ght that is he retus to his

rst estate Reee pe ppul that is our votion Pour forth this

all-consuming activiy onto countries which e China are cying

aloud for foreign nquest Turn he advenurers who dturb Euro

pean socie into a e a horde ike hose of the Franks he

Lombards, or the Normans, an d every man will be in his right role

Nature has made a race of workers the Cnese race, who have

wonderl manual dterity and amost no sense of honor; govern

them with justice levying from them in retun for the bessing of

such a govement an ample allowance for the conquering race and

they will be satised a race of tilers of the soil, the Negro treat him

with kindness and humanity and all w be as it should a race of

masters and soldiers the Eopean race Reduce s noble race toworing in the etul like Negroes and Chinese, and they rebel

In Europe every rebel is more or less a soldier who has missed his

calling a creature made for the heroic life before whom you are

setting tk tht ntr t h e a poor worker, too good a

soldier But the ife at which our workers rebel woud mae a Chinese

or a fellah happy, as th are not mitary creatures in the east Let

eh ne d wht he nd ll w be wel

Hitler? osenberg No enan.

But let us come down one step furer And it is te longwinded politician Wo protests? No one so far as know wenM Albert Sarraut te former goernorgeneral of ndocinaolding for o te students at e Ecole Coloniale teaces temtat it would be puerile to object to te European colonialenterprises in te name of "an alleged rigt to possess te land

AI AJE 39

one occupies and some sort of rigt to remain in erce isolationwic would leae unutilized resources to lie foreer idle in teands of incompeten

And wo is roused to indignation wen a certn e Bardeassures us tat if te goods of tis world "remained diided up

indenitely as tey would be witout colonization tey wouldaner neiter te purposes of God nor t e just demnds of teuman collectii

Since as is fellow Crist te Mller declares "Humaniy must not cannot llow te incompetence negligence andliness of te unciilized peoples to leae idle indenitely tewelt wic God as conded to tem carging tem to make itsere te good of all

No one mean not one establised writer not one academic not one

preacer not one crsader for te rigt and for religion not onedefender of te uman person.

And yet troug te mouts of te Sarrauts and te Bardes teMuers and e enans troug te mouts of ll ose oconsideredand considerit lawl to apply to nonEuropeanpeoples a kind of expropriation for public purposes for te benetof nations tat were songer d better equipped it was lreadyHitler speking

at am driing at? At tis idea at no one colonizes

innocently tat no one colonizes wit impuy eiter; tat a nationwic colonizes tat a ciilization wic justies colonizationand terefore force-is aready a sick ciilization a ciilion wiis morlly diseased wic irresistibly progressing from one consequence to anoter one denial to oter calls for its Hitler meanits punisment


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46 DSCOURE ON COLOIAM


24/52

46 DSCOURE ON COLOIAM

Europeanization of te non-European continents could ave beenaccomplised otherise tan under the hee of Europe; since thismovement of Europeanization was in progress since it was evensowed down; since in any case it was disorted byte Europeantkeover

The proof is that at present it is te indigenous peoples ofrica

and Asia wo are demanding scools and colonilist Europe wichrefuses tem tat it is te ican wo is sking for ports and roadsand coonilist Europe whic is niggary on is score; that it is the

colonized man who wants to move forard and te coonizer whoolds things back

To go rther I mke no secret of my opinion tat at the presenttime the barbarsm of Western Europe has reached an incrediblyhi level being only surpassedfar surpassed, it is trueby thebarbarism of the United States

And I am not tkng about Hiter, o r the prison guard, or te

adventurer but about te decent fellow across the way not aboutthe member of the SS or the gangster b about the respectablebourgeois. In a timegone by Lon Bloy innocenty became indignant over the fact hat swiners perjurers forgers thieves and

procurers were gven te responsibility of "bringing tothe Indieste example of Christianvirtues

We've made progress: today it i s te possessor of the Christianvirtues wo intrigueswi no sma successfor te honor ofadministering overseas territories according to the metods offorgers and torturers

47

48 DIRE A AI SAIRE 49


25/52

48 DIRE A

A sign that cruelty, mendaci, baseness, and corruption havesunk deep into e soul of the European bourgeoisie

I repeat that I a not talking about Hitler, or the 55, o r pogroms,or summary executions. But about a reacton caught unawes, arelex permitted, a piece of nicism tolerated And if evidence is

wanted, I could mention a sene of canniblistc hysteria that havebeen privileged to witness in the French Nationl AssemblyBy Jove, my dr colleagues (as they say), I te off my hat to

you (a cannibal's hat, of course)Think of it! Nine thousand dead in Madagascar! ndochina

trampled underfoot, crushed to bits, assassinated, tortures bughtback from the depths of the Middle es! And what a spectale Thedelicious shudder that roused e dozing deputies The wild upro!Bidault, loong like a communion wfer dpped in shit-unctuousand sanctimonious cannibalism; Moutete canniblism of shady

deals nd sonorous nonsee CosteFloret-the cannibalism of anunlicked bea cub, a blundering fool

Unforgettable, gentlemen! Wi ne phrases s cold nd solemnas a mummys wrappings they te up the Madagascan With a fewconventionl words they stab him for you The time it takes to wetyour whistle, they disembowel him for you Fine work! Not a dropof blood will be wsted

The ones who drink it straight, to the last drop The ones likeRamadier, who smear their faces with it in the manner of 5ilenus3

FontlupEsperaber, 4 who starches his mustache with it, the wlrusmustache of an anient Gaul old Desjardins bending over theemnations from he vat nd intoxiating himsefwith them s winew wine Violence! The violence of the weak A signiant thingit is not the head of a ivilizaton that begns to rot rst It is the hear

AI SAIRE 49

admt that as far as the heth of Europe and ivilization isconcerned, these cries of "Kill! kl and Lets see some blood,belched forth by trembling old men and virtuous young meneducated by the Jesuit Fathers, make a much more disagreeableimpression on me than e most sensation bank holdups that

occur in PsAnd that, mind you, is by no means an exeptionOn the contrary bourgeois inishness is the le Weve been

on its trail for a centuy We listen for it, we take it by surprise, wesni it out, we follow it, lose it, nd it ain, shadow it and eveyday it is more nauseatingly exposed Oh! the racism of theegentlemen does not bother me I do not beome indignant over it.I merely examine it I note it, and that is l I am almost gratefu toit for expressing ielf openly and appeaing in broad daylight as asign A sign that the intrepid clss which once stormed the Bastilles

is now hamstrung A sign that it feels itself to be mortl A sign thatit feels itself to be a corpse And when the orpse starts to babble,you get this sort of thing:

There was only oo muh ruh in his rs impulse of he

Europeans who in the centu ofColumb, resed to ecognize a thei

ow men th grad inhabitants ofthe new wol One annog upon he savage for an insan wihou reading he anahemawrien, I do no say upon his soul alone bu even on the exteal

ofh body.

And its signed Joseph de Maistre(Thats what is ground out by the mystcal mill)d then you get this

From he seleionis poin of view, I would look upon i as

unforunae if here should be a very grea numerial expanson of

50 OUR O COLOIALI AIM AR 5 1


26/52

50 OUR O COLOIALI

he yelow and back elements whch wod e di cl to emate

However if he sociey of he te s oganied o a dalistic bass

wih a ruing css ofdoichocephaic bon and a cass ofinrio ace

conned o he oughes bo, i is possibe ha his e o ou

o he yeow and bck eemen In ths case moeove the wod

no e an inconvenence fo the dochocephalic lods t a

advanage . . . I mus no begoen ha [slavery] is no moe abnoahan he domesicaion ofhe hose o he ox. It is herefoe possile that

i may reappea in the fe n one fom o anohe. I is poaby

even ineviae that this wl happen if the simpstc solto does

no come aot insead-hat of a snge speio ace leeled ot

y seection.

Thats what s round out by the scentc mll and t's snedLapoue

nd you also et ths (from the lterary mll ths tme):

I know that I mst eieve myself speo o he poo ayas of

he Mmbr. I kno ha I m ake p inmy bo Whe a speo

man ceases to eiee himself speio he actaly ceases to be

sperio . When a supeio ace ceases o beieve ise a chosen ace

i acua ceases o be a chosen ace.

nd t 's sned Pscharsolderofrca.Translate t nto newspaper jaron and you et auet:

The abaian s of he same ace afte all as the Roman ad the

Greek. He is a cosin. The yelow man the lack man s not o

cosin at all. Hee thee is a real diffeence a eal distance ad a very

grea one an ehnoogica distance. Ae a civiizion has neve ye

been made excep by whies . . . If ope becomes yellow thee wl

cerainly be a egession a new peiod of dakess ad confson that

is anohe Middle Ages.

AIM AR 5 1

nd then lower always ower to the bottom of the pt, lowerthan the shove can o .Jules Romans of the cadme Fran


27/52

5 DOR ON COON SM

problem is no o make a uopian and serie aemp o repea he

pas bu o go beyond I is no a dead sociey ha we wan o revive

We leave a o ose who go in for exoicism Nor is i he presen

colonial sociey a we wish proong, e mos purid carriona ever roed under he sun I is a new sociey ha we mus creae,

wi he hep of l our broer slaves, a sociey rich wih al heproducive power of modern imes warm wih lhe fraernity of

olden daysFor some examples showing ha his is poss ibe, we can ook o

he Sovie Union

Bu e us reurn o M Jules Romains:

One ano say a e p bourgeois has ner read anying

On e conra he has read everying, devoured evering.

Ony his brain funcions aer he fashion of cerain eemenry

types of digesive sysems I lers. Ad he ler les hrough only

wha can nourish e ick skin of he bourgeois's ear conscienceBefore he arriva of he French in eir counry, he Vienamese

were peope of a od culure exquisie and rened To recall is

fac upses he digesion of the Bnque dIndochine Sar e

forgeing machine!

These Madagascans who are being orured oday, less han a

cenury ago were poes ariss, adminisraors? Shhhhh Keep your

ips buoned! Ad sience falls silence as deep as a safe! Foru-

naely here are sill e Negroes ! e Negroes! t abou

he Negroes!All righ es k abou hem

Abou e Sudanese empires? Abou he bronzes of Benin?

Shango scupure? Thas lrigh wih me; i will us a change

from al e sensaionly bad ar a ados so many European

capils Abou frican music y no?

l M IR 53

Ad abou wha he rs exporers said, wha hey saw . No

hose who feed a he company mangers! Bu h dElbes, he

Marchais, e Pigafeas! Ad hen Frobenius! Say, you know who

he ws, Frobenius? Ad we read ogeher "Civiized o he marrow

of heir bones! The idea of he barbaric Negro is a Eurpean .

venonThe pe bourgeois doesn wan o hear y more Wih a

tich of his ears he icks he idea awayThe idea, an annoying y.

AIME CESAR 55


28/52

Therefore, comrade, you wi hold as enemieIoily ucidyconsistenty-not ony sadistic goveors and greedy bankers, notony prefects who torure and coonists who og, not only rrupt

cheickng poitians and subservient judges but ise and

for the same reon venomous ouaists goitrous academcs

wreathed in doars and stupidiy ethnographers who go n for

metaphysics presumptuous Begian theoogians chattering inteectuas born stinking out of the thigh of Nietzsche he paternalists

the embracers the corrupters the backslappers the lovers of

exoticism the dividers, the agrarian sociologists the hoodwinkersthe hoxers the hotair aists e humbugs and n genera a those

who performing their nctions in the sordid division of abor for

the defense ofWestern bourgeois society try in diverse ways and by

infamous diversions to spit up the forces of Progressven if it

means denying e ver possibility ofProgresal of them tools of

55

capitism al of them openy or secretly supporters of plundering

cooniaism a of them responsibe hateful savetraders

henceforth answerabe for the violence of revoluonar action.

And sweep out he obscurers the inventors ofsubterges

e charatans and tricksters e deers in gobbedygook. Ad donot seek to know whether personay hese gentemen are in goodor bad faith whether personly they have good or bad intentions

Wheer personayat is, in the private conscience of Peter or

Pauthey are or are not coonialists because the essentia thng is

that their highly probematic subjective good ith is entirey

irrelevant to the objective soci impications of the evil work they

perform as watchdogs of coloniaism.Ad in this connection, I cite as exampes (purposey ten from

very dierent disciplines):-From Gourou his book Les Pays topicau, in which amid

certain correct obsevations there is expressed the ndamentthesis biased and ucceptable that there has never been a great

tropica civiization, that great civilizations have exsted only in

temperate climates that in ever tropic countr the germ of

civiization comes and can ony come from some other paceoutside the tropics and that if the tropic countries are not under

the bioogica curse of he racists there at least hangs over hem

with the same consequences, a no ess effective geographica curse

-From the Re. Tempes missionary and Begian, his "Bantu

philosophy, as simy nd fetid one could wish but discovered

very opportunely as Hinduism wa discovered by others in orderto counteract the communistic mteriism which, it seems

threatens to tu the Negroes into mora vagabonds

-From the historians or noveists ofciviization (it's the se

thing)not from this one or that one but from l of them, or

56 DE LALM AMf fAE 57


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5

almost a-their fas objectivity, their chauvinism, their sly racism,their dpraved pssion for resing to acknowledge any merit in t enonwhite races, especially te blackskinned racs, their obsssionwith monopolizng all glory for their own race.

-From the psychologists, sociologists t a their views on

"primitivism their rigged invstigations, their selfserngalizations thir tendntious spculations, their insistn on themargina, "sparat character of t nonwhites, and-tough

ech of ths gentmn, in order to impugn on highr authoritthe wekness of primitive thought, claims that is own is based onthe rmest rationlismtheir barbaric repudiation, for the se ofthe cause, o f Descrtes's statement, the chartr of universaism, tat"reason is found whole nd enre in each man, and that "wherendividus of the same species are conceed, ther may be drsin respct of their accidental qualities, but not in of teir

,,7lOrms or naturesBut let us not go too quicky. It is worthwhil to follow a fw of

ths gntemenI shal not dwll upon the case of the istorians, neither th

istorians of colonzation nor th Egyptologists The case of thformer is too obvious and as for the latter, the mechanism by whichth delude their raders hs been denitivly taken apart by Sheta Diop in his book Nato n t the most daringbook yt written by a Ngro d one which will wthout question

pay an importt part n the awning of Mrica8

Lt us rathr go back. To Gourou, t o b exactNeed I say tat it is from a ofty heigt that the minnt scholar

sureys th native populations, wic "hav takn no part in thedvlopment of modern science? And tat it is not from te ortof these populations, from teir liberting struggl, from thir

57

concret ght for fe, freedom, and culture that he expects thesavation of the tropical countris to com, but from the good

colonzr-sinc the law stats catgoricaly that "it is culturalelements developed in nontopical regions wic ar nsuring nd

will ensure the progress of th tropical regions toward a largr

population and a hghr civlization have said that Gourous book contains som correct obsrvations: "The tropical environment and the indigenous soeties,e writes, drawing up the balance sheet on colonization, havesured from the introduction of tecniues that are ill adapted tem, from cors, porter srice, forced labor, slavery, from thetransplting of workrs from on region to nothr, sudden cages

in te biologica environment, and specia new conditions that areless favorable

A ne record! Th e look on th universi rctors face! Th loo

on the cabinet ministers face wen he reads that! Our Gourou hasslipped his leash; now wre in for it hes going to tll everthings beginning "The typic hot countrs nd themselvs facedwith th following diemma: economic stagnation and protectionof the natives or tmporary economic development and regrssionof th natives "onsiur Gourou, is is very srous! Im givingyou a solemn warning: in tis ge it is your carer wich is atstake So our Gourou chooss to back o ad refrain from spcing that, if the dlemma sts, it exists only within the framework

of the esting regime that if ths paradox constituts an iron law,it is only the iron law of coloniist capitalism, therefore o f a socetythat is not only peshable but ready in the process of perishing.

Wat impur and worldly gography!f ther is nhing better, it is te Tmpels Let tem

plunder and tortur in th Congo, let the Belgi colonizer seize all

58 DSCOURSO COONIALS AIM CSARE 59


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58 DSCOURS O COONIALS

e natural resources, let him stamp out all freedom, let him crushl pride-let him go in pce, the Reverend Faher T empesnsents to l hat. Bu ake care! You are going o e Congo?RespecI do no say native property (the grea Belgan companiesmit take tat as a dig at them), I o not say he freedom of the

naives (the Belgian colonists mi hink that was subversive talk) ,I do not say the Congolese nation (e Belgian government mighttake i much amiss)I say: You are going to the Congo? Respectthe Bantu philosophy!

"It would be rlly ourageous, wries the Rev Tempels, "if thewhite educaor were o insist on destroying the black man's own,particular human spirit, which is the only realiy at prevens usfrom considering him as an inferior being It wou be a crimeagains humani, on the par of the coonizer, to emancipate theprimitive races from that which is vid, from that which constitutes

a kernel of ruth in their raditional hough, ecWha generosi, Faher nd wha ze!Now ten, ow that Bantu hough is essenially ontoloc;

that Ba ntu onolo is based o n the truly fundamenal notions of alife force and a hierarcy of life forces and that for the Banu eontological order which denes he world comes from God and, asa ivine decree, must be respeced9

Woner! Everybody gains: the big compaies, the colonists,the governmenerybody except the Bantu, naturally

Since Bantu hought is onological, he Bantu only ask forsatisfaction of a ontologic nature Decen wages! Coorblehousing! Food! These Bantu are pure spirits, I tell you hat theydesire rst of al and above l is not he improvement of theireconomic or maerial situaion, but te white mans recognition ofand respec for their dignity as men, their l human value

AIM CSARE 59

In short, you tip your ha o the Bantu life force, you give a winkto the immortal Banu soul d thats all it costs you! You ave toadmit youre getting o ceap!A for the government, why should i compain Since, the Rev

Tempels noes with obvious sasfacton, om their rs conac wih

the white men, the Banu considered us from he only poin of viewthat was possible to em, the poin ofvew of their Batu pilosophyand"nteatedunto thr herarchy oflrces at a ve hgh ve"

In other words, arrge it so that the whie man, and particularlythe Belgian, and even more particularly Albert or Leopold takes hisplace at the hea of the hierarchy of Bantu life forces, an you havedone the rick You wi have brought this miracle to pass: the Bantugod w take respons bl r the Beian colonal st ord, and anyBantu who res to rase hs hand aganst t w be l ofsage.A for M Mannoni, in view of his book and s observations on

the Madagascan soul, he deserves o b e tken very seriouslyFollow him sep by step trough the ins and outs of his ittle

conjuring tricks, and he will prove to you as clear s day hatcolonization is based on psychoogy, hat here are in this worldgroups of men who, for unknown reasons, suer from what musbe caled a dependency compl, at these groups are psychologicy made for dependence that they need dependence, at heycrave i, ask for it, demand it that this is the case with mos of thecolonized peoples an with the Madagascans in pcuar

Away racism! Away with coonism! ey smack too muchof barbarism M Mnoni has someting better: psycoanysisEmbelished with existentiism, it gives asonishing resus: themost downattheheel cichs are resoled for you and made goodas new the most absurd prejuices are pained and justied and,as if by magic, he moon is turned into green cheese

6 ICRE N CI C RE 6


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ut liten to him

It te detny f te Occdental t ace te blgat lad dw

by te candent Thou shalt lav ty ftr and ohr.

blgatn ncpreenble te Madagacan. At a ge tme

n deelpent eery Eurpea dcer el te dere

t break te bnd depeden t bece e equl ater e Madagacan neer! He de t eperence ralry wt

e pate aur "mly prtet r Adlern nerr-rl

trug wc te Eurpean ut pa nd wc are lke clze

r f te ntatn rte by wc e acee and

Dont let the ubtletie of oabulary the new terminologyfrighten you You now the old refrain TheNegroearebighildren They ae it they dre it u for you tangle it u for youThe reult i Manno ni One again be reured t the tart of thejourney it may eem a bit diult bu one you get there youllee, you will nd all your baggage again Nothing will be miingnot een the famou wht man urdn Therefore gie ear"Through thee ordeal (reeed for the Oidentl "one triumh oer the infantile fear ofabandonment and aquire freedomand autonomy whi are the mot reiou oeion and lothe burden of the Oidental

nd the Maga? you lying rae ofbondmen Kilingwould ay M Mannoni mae hi diagnoi The Madagaandoe not een try to imagine uh a ituation of abandonmet

He deire neither eronl autonomy nor free reonibility(Come on you now how it i Thee Negroe ant een imaginewhat freedom i They dont want it they dont demand it It thewhite agitator who ut that into their hea And if you gae it tothem they wouldnt now what to do with it

If you oint out to M Mannoni that the Madagan haeneerthele reolted eerl time ine e Frenh ouation andagain reently in 947 M Manoni faithful to hi remie willexlain to you that that i urely neuroti behaior a olletiemadne a running mo that moreoer in thi ae it not a

uetion of the Madagaan etting out to onquer rel objetiebut a imaginary eurity whih obiouly imlie that theoreion of whih they omlain i an imaginary o reion Solearly o inanely imaginary that one might een ea ofmontrou ingratitude aording to the lai exale of teFijian who burn the dryinghed of the atain who ha uredhim of hi wound

If you ritiize the olonilim that drie the mot eaeableoulaon to deair M Mannoni will lain to you that aerll the one reonible ar not th onalt whts but te olo

nized Madagaan Damn it a , they too the white for god andexeted of them eeything one exet of the diinity

If you thin the treatment alied to the Madagaan neuroiw a trile ough M Mannoni who ha an aner for eehingwill roe to you that e famou brutlitie eole t about haebeen ery greatly exaggerated that it i a neuroti fabriation thatthe torture were imaginary torture alied by imaginary exeutioner for the Frenh goernment it howed itelf ingulalymoderate ine it wa ontent to arret the Madagaan deutie,when it hould haeard them i f it had wanted to reet thelaw of a helthy yholo

I am not exaerating It i M Mannoni eing

readg ery clacl pat tee Madaca tranfrmed

ter ant nt artyr ter ar nt pegat; tey wanted t

62 DISCORS O COOIAIS I CSAIR 63


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wah heir imaginar in in he bood of heir own godThe were

prepared even a thi price or raher t th pie o revere heir

aiude once more One feaure of hi dependen pchoo woud

eem o be ha ince no one can erve wo maer one of he two

houd be edo he oher The mo agiaed of he cooniait

in Tananarive had a coned underanding of he eence of hi

pchoo of acrice and he demanded heir ctim Th begedhe High Commiioner oce auring him ha if he were

graned he bood of a few innocen everone woud be aied

Thi attitude digrace fro a human poin of view wa ed

wht w the whle i ute peepi the il

diue tht the pputi the high plte w gig thugh.

Obvousy, t s only a step from ths to absolvng the bloodthrsty

coonals M. Mnnon's "pcholog' s as dsntested as ee,

as M Gourou's geography or the Tempe msona theolo!

nd the strng thing they lhave n common s the persstentbourgeos attempt reduce the most human probems to comfortabe, hoow notions the ia of the dependency complex n Mannon the oooa n theR.Tempe, e aof opcalin Gouou What h become of the Banque d'Indoce in that

nd the Bque de Madagascar d e buwhp nd the txes?nd the hand of rce to the Madagascan or the nhaqu?O dthe martyrs nd the nnocent people murdered nd the boodstaned money png up n your coffers gentemen They haveevaporated! Dsappeared ntermngled become unrecognzable n

the realm of ple ratocnatonsBut there s one unfortunate thng for these gentemen It s that

ther bourgeos msters are less and ess responsve to a trcargument and e condemned increasngy to tu away from them

and appaud others who are less subte and more brutal That s

precsey what gve M Yves Forenne a chance nd ndeed, here,neaty arrnged on the tray of the newspaperLe Monde are hs ttleoers ofserce No posbe surprses Competey guaranteed, wthproven ecacy ly tested wth concusve resu, here we have a

form of racism, a French racsm stll not ver sturdy t s true butpromsng Lsten the man hmsef

"Our reader (a teacher who has had the audacit to contradcte racibe M Forenne), contemplatng two young halfbreed

grs, her pups, hasa ene ofi at theeing that thee i a owingeue ofinteaon with ou Fenhi. Would her responebe the same f she saw, n reverse, France beng ntegrated nto theblack fmy (or the yeow or red, t me no derence), that s say, becomng duted dsappearng

It s cear at for M Yves Forenne t s bood that mes France,and the undatons of the naton are bologcl Its peope, ts

genus, are made of a thousandyearod equbrum that s at thesame tme vgorous and decate and cern alarmng dsturbance of ths equbrum concde wth the massve and oendangerous nson of foregn blood whch t has had to undergo

over the at thrt yearsIn short, cross-breedngthat s the enemy No more socal

crses! No more economc crse! l that s e are rac cses! Ofcourse, humsm loses none of ts prestge (we are n the Weste

word) but et us understnd each other:It s not by osng tsef n the human unverse wth bood

and ts sprt, that Frnce wl be unversal, t s by remanng e

That s what the French bourgeose ha come to, ve years aer the

defeat of Her! d t s precsey n that that ts hstorc punshment les to be condemned returnng to t though drven by avce to chew over Her's vomt

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Becaue after a M Yve orenne wa till ing over peaantnovel dra of he land" and torie of the evil eye when witha far ore evi e than he rutic hero of oe tle of witchcraHiter wa announcing he upree goal of he Peopletate ito preee he original eleent of the race which y preadingculture create the eau and dignit of a uperior huani"

M ve Forenne i aware of thi direct decentnd he i far fro eing earraed y itine hat' hi ght it i not our right to e indignant aout itBecaue aer all we ut reign ourelve to he inevitale nd

ay to oureve once and for al hat the ourgeoiie i condenedto ecoe eve day ore narling ore openy ferociou orehaee ore uaiy ararou hat it i an iplacale lawthat eve decadent cla nd itelf turned into a receptace into

which there ow ll the dir water of hito hat it i a univerlaw that efore it diappear ever cla ut rt dice ielfcopletely on a front and hat it i wih heir hd uried in hedunghil that dying ocietie utter their wan ong

doier i indeed overwheling eat that y he eleentar exercie of it vitlit pill loodand ow deathyou reeer that hitoriclly it wa in he forof thi erce archetpe that capitalit ocie rt revealed itef tothe et ind and concience

ince hen the anil ha ecoe aneic i t i loing i hair ithide i no longer gloy ut the ferociy ha reained arely ixedwith adi It i e to lae it on Hiter On Roenerg OnJngerand he other On e

But what aout hi Everhing in thi word ree of crie

the npaper the wll the countenance of an"Baudeaire aid hat efore Hier wa orn!Which pve that the evil ha a deeper ourcend Iidore Ducae Cote de Lautraont1

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AI A AR 7


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In this connection, it is high time to dissipate e atmosphere ofscandl that has been created around te Chan d ao

Monstrosity? Literry meteorite? Deirium o a sick imagination?Come, ow! How convenient i t is

The truth is that Latramont had oy to ook the iron manforged by capitalist society squry in the eye to perceive temon the everyday moster, his hero

No one denies the veci of BlzacBt wait moment: take Vutrin, et him be just back rom te

tropics give him the wings of the archage and the shivers ofmlria, et him be accompaied through the streets o Paris by anescort o Urguya vampires and carnivorous ants, nd you whave Madoror12

The settig is changed, bu t it is th e same word, the same man,hrd, inexibe , uscrupuou s, od, if ever a man was of "the esh

o other menTo digress or moment within my digression, I beieve that the

daywi come when, with al the eements gaered together, tesorces anazed, the circumstaces of the work eucidated, itwi be possibe to give the Chan d aoo a materialistic ndhistorica iterpretatio which wi bring to ight an altogetherunrecogized aspect o this rezed epic, its impacabe denunciaton of a very particuar form o society, as it cod ot escape thesharpest eyes around the 1865

Beore that of course, we wi have hd to cear awy the occtistand metphysical commentaies that obscure the path; to re-estabish e importnce o certain negected stnzasor exampe, thatstragest passage of a, the oe cocerning the mie oice, in wichwe wi consent to see nothig more or ess than the denuncitionof the evi power o god and the hoarding up of moey to restore

to its true pace te dmirabe episode o f the omnibu s, and be wiigt nd i it very simpy what is there, to wt, the scarcey legoricalpicture o a socie in which the prvieged, comortaby setedreuse to move coser together so as to make room or e new rrivalAdbe it said in passingwho wecomes the chid who has beencalosy rejected? The ppe Represented here by the ragpickerBaudeaire's ragpicker

Paing o heed o he ie o he o h hras

He or hi hear o i edo heme

He ke grea oah d diae bime aw

Ca do he wiked aids he iim ase 13

The it wi be understood, wi it not, t e enemy whomLatramont has mde h nmy the cannibaistic, brandevouringCreator, the sadist perched on a trone mde o hman excre

met and god, the hypocrite, the debauchee, the ider who eatste bread o oters nd who rom time to time is ond dead drnk,drunk as a bedbug that has swaowed tree barres of bood durigthe night, it w be uderstood at it is ot beyod the couds thatone must ook for that creator, but that we are more ikey to ndhim in esossss business drectory and on some comfortabeexecutive board

But et that beThe moraists can do nothig about itWeter one ikes it or ot, the boroisie, as cass, is codemned

to take responsibiit for l the brbarism of history, the tortures o fte Midde Ages ad e Inquisition, wmongering and the appeato the aon d racism nd savery, in short everything againstwhich it protested in unforgettbe terms t the time whe as eattacking cass, i t was e incarnation o hman progress

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The moralis do nothing about it. There is a law ofproriv dhumanizon in accordance wi wch henceforth onthe agenda of the bourgeoisie there is-there can bnothng butviolence, corruption, and barbarism

I almost forgot hatred, lying, conitI almost forgot M Roger Caillois14Well ten: M Clois, who om me immemoal has been given

the mssion to tea a lx and slipshod ge gos ought and iiedstyle, M Caillois, therefore, has just en moved to migh wrath

Why?Because of the great berayal of Western ethnography which,

wi a deplorable deterioration ofits sense ofresponsibility, has beenusing all its ingenuiy of ate to cast doubt upon he overall superiority of Weste cilization over te exotic civilizations

Now at last M Caillois takes e eld

Europe has this capacity for raising up heroic saviors at e mostccal momentsIt is unpardonable on our part not to remember M Mssis who,

aund 1927 embared on a crusade for the defense of the WestWe want to make sure that a better fate is in sre for M Caillois,

who in order to defend the same sacred cause ansforms his peninto a good oledo dagger

What did M Massis say? He deplored e fact that "e destinyof Western civilization, and indeed the destiny of man, were nowreatened; that an attempt ws being madeon l sides"to appeto our axieties, to challenge theams made for ourculture, to cinto question the most essentil part of what we possess," and hesworetomakewar uponthese "disastrous prophe.

M Callois identies the enemy no dierently It is those"uropean intellectuals who for the last years because of

exceptionally sharp disappointment and bitterness, have relentlessly repudiated te vaious idels of their culure, and who byso doing maintin "especially in Europe, a tenacious malaise.

It is this malaise this anxety which M Caillois, for his part,d 15means to put to an en

And indeed no personage since the Englishman of the Victorianage has ever surveyed histo with a conscience more serene and lessclouded wh doubt

His doctrine? It hs the virtue of simpliciThat the West invented science That the West one nows how

to thi; at at the borders of the Weste world there begins heshadowy rlm of prmitive inkng, which, dominated by he notonof partcipaon, incapable oflogc he ve model offatynkng

At this point one gives a start One reminds M Caillois that thefamous law of parcipation inented by LvyBruhl was repudiated

by LBruhl himsel that in he evening of his life he prclaimedto he world tat he had been wong in ting to dene a characteristic that was peculiar to he primitive mentality so far as logcwas concerned that on the contray, he had become convincedthat "tese minds do not dier from ours at all from the point of of logic Therefore [that hey] cannot tolerate a formalcontradiction y more than we Therefore, [at they] rejectas we do by a knd of mental rex hat whch is logically 'bl 16mposs e

A waste ofme! M Callois considers he rectication to be nulland void For M Callois te tue LBruhl only be eLvyBruhl who sas t at primitive man talks ravng noense

Of course, there reman a f small fac that resist this doctrneTo wit, he invenon of arithmec and geomet by the gptians.To wit te discove of stronomy by he ssyrians To wit, the

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birth of chemistr among the Arabs. To wit the appearace ofrationlism i Islam t a time when Weste thought had a furiouslypre-logica cast to it But M Cailois soon puts the impertietdeils in eir place since it is a strict principle that "a discovery

which does not t into a whole is precisely oly a detail at is

to say a eliible nothing

you c imagine once o to such a goo start M Cailoisdoesn't stop halfway

Havin annexed science hes goig to claim ethics tooJust hink of it M Caillois has never eaten anyone! M Caillois

has never dreamed of nishing o a invalid! It has never occurredto M Caois to shoren e days of his aged paren! Wel ere youhave it the superiori of the West: That discipline of life which

tries to ensure that e huma person is sucieny respected so hatit is not considered normal to eiminate the old ad the im

The conclusion is inescapable compred to the cannibals thedismemberers a oer lesser bres Europe an the West are theincaration of respect for human igit

But le t us move on and quicky lest our thoughts wander toAiers Morocco, an other paces where as I write these verywords so many vaiat sons of the West in the semiress ofeos are laishing upo their inferior rican brothers withsuch tireess attention those authentic mars of respect for humn

digit which are caled in technic terms electricity thebathtub d the boteneck

Let us press o M Caillois has not yet rched the ed of hislist of outsdg aievements er scientic superioriy an

moral superiority comes religious superioriHere M Caillois is careful ot to let himself be eceived by the

empt prestige of e Orient mother of gods perhaps Ayay

Europe mistress of rites nd see how wonderl it is: on the one

hanutside ofEuropeeremonies ofthe voodoo tpe with alltheir luicrous masquerade heir colective frenzy their wildalcoholism their crude exploitation of a nve fervor and on the

other handin Europethose authentic vlues which Chateaubri

and was aready celebrating in his Gie du hisanisme hedogmas nd mysteries of the Catholic religion its litur thesymbolism of its sculptors an the glor of the plaisog

Lastly a al cause for satisfactionGobieau said The oly history is white M Cail lois in tur

observes The only ethnography is white It i s the West that studiesthe ethnoraphy of the others ot the others who study the

eography of the West

cause for the greatest jubilation i s it ot?And the museu ofwhich M Cailois is so proud not for one

minute does it cross his mind that ll thigs cosidered it woudhave been better not to needed them; that Europe would havedone better to tolerate the nonEuropea civilizatios at its side

leaving them alive dynamic and prosperous whole and not mutilated that it would have better to let them develop and lllthemseves than to present for our admiration duly labelled their

dead and scattered parts that anyway the museum by itself isnothing that i t means nothing that i t can say nothing when smug

selfsatisfaction rots the eyes when a secret contempt for otherswithers the heart when racism admied or not dries up sympahy

that it means nothing if its only purpose is to feed the delights ofvanit that after all the honest contemporar of Saint Louis who

fought Islam but respected it ha a better chance ofknowinit thando our contemporaries (even if they have a smattering of ethno

graphic literature) who despise i t

DCR CLM M CR


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N in the scaes knwedge a the msems i n the wrd winever weigh s mch as ne spark hman sympathy

d what is the cncsin that?Let s be air M Cais is mderateHaving estabished the speririty the est in a eds and

having ths reestabished a whesme ad extremey vabe

hierarchy M Caiis gives immediate pr this speririty bycncding that n ne shd be terminated ith him theNegres are sre that they wi nt be ynched the Jews that theywi nt eed new bnres There is st ne thing it is imprtantr it t be cey nderstd that the Negres Jews and Astraians we this terance nt t their respective bt t themagnanimity M. Caiis nt t the dictates scien whichcan er ny ephemera trths bt t a decree M Caiisscnscience which can ny be abste that this terance hs n

cnditins n garantees ness it be M Caiiss sense his dtyt himsePerhaps science wi ne day decare that the backward ctres

d retarded pepes which cnstitte s many dead weights andimpedimenta n hmanitys path mst b e ceared away bt we areassred that at the critic mment the cnscience M Caiistransrmed n the spt rm a cear cnsence int a nbecnscience wi arrest the exectiners arm and prnnce thesalus ss

T which we are indebted r the wing i nte

For me he qeso of he eqay of raes peopes or lres

has meag o f we are akg abo a eqal aw o a

eqa he same way me who are bd mamed sk

feebemded gora or poor (oe od hardly be er o he

oOdeas) are o respeve eqa he maera sese of

he word o hose who are srog earsghed hoe heah,

elge red or rh. he aer have greaer apaes whh,

he wa do o gve hem more rghs b ol more des

marly wheher for bologal or hsorl reaos here exs a

pese derees lel power ad vale amog he varos

res hese derees ea a eq fa he o

wa s a eqaly of rghs favor of he soalled sperorpeoples as rasm wold have Raher hey ofer po hem

addoal asks ad a reased resposby

Additi tass What are thnt the tass ring the wrdIncreased respnsibiity hat is it i nt respnsibiity r

the wdAd CaisAas charitaby pants his eet rmy in the dst

d nce again raises t his stdy shders the inevitabe whitemans brden

The reader mst excse me r having taked abt M Caiisat sch ength It s nt that I verestimate t any degree whateverthe intrinsic vae his phisphy reader wi have beenabe t dge hw serisy ne shd take a thinker wh whiecaiming t be dedicated t rigrs gic sacrices s wingy tpreudice and waws s vptsy in cichs Bt his views arewrth speci attentin becase they are signicant

Signicant whatO the state mind thands pn thsads Erpeans

r be very precise the state mind the estern pettybrgeisie

Signicant whatO this at at the very time when it mst en mths the

wrd the est has neer been rther rm being abe t ive a trehmanisma hmanism made t the measre the wrd


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39/52 DSORE O COLOIA


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itslf of its last chanceand with its own hands, drawn up ovr itslfth pall of orta darnss.

Which cos down to sayin that th slvation of Europ is n ota attr of a rvolution in thods It is a attr of th voltionth on which until such ti s thr is a clsslss sotywill substitt for th narrow rny of a dhuanid bouroisith prpondranc of th only class at still has a univrsal issionbcas it srs in its sh fro all th wrons of history fro alth univrsl wrons: th proltariat

EEW WH SE

Conductd by Rn Dpstr


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Theowg tervew th Am Csare w coducted Haapoet ad mltat Re Depese at the Cultural Coess o Havaa 96 It rst appeared Poeiaa atho oCare wrtgspublshed by Casa de l Amc It has be ated om theSpah by Maro oaos.

RN DPSTR: The critic Lilan Keteoot ha written that

Retur to My Natve Lad i an auto biographial book. I thiopinion wel founded?

AIME CSR Certain It i a autobiographic book but at

e ame time it i a book in which I tried to gain aundertandng of melf In a certain ene i t i coer to the

truth than a biograph You mut remember that it i a oungperon' book I wrote it jut aer I had nihed m tudie

and had come back to Mainique Thee were m rt

contact with m count er an abence of ten ear, o Irea found melf aauted b a ea of impreion and

image At the ame time I felt a deep anguih over thepropect for Martinique

R.D.: w wr u whn u wrt t b

AC.: I mut ha been arun tent-x

RD vrtele wat i trng abut it i it great maturit

8 1

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A.C: t was my rst published work, but actually it contans poems

that I had accumulated, or done progressivey. I remember hav

ing written quite a few poems before these.

RD.: But they have never been publshed.

AC They haven't been publshed because wasnt very happy with

them. he friends to whom showed them found them inter

esting, but they didnt sats me.

RD.: Why?

A.C: Because dont think I had found a form that was my own. I was

still under the inuence of the French poets In short, if My Nv L took the form of a prose poem, it was trulyby chance. Even though I wanted to break with French literary

traditions, I did not actually free myself from them until the

moment decided to turn my back on poetry In fact, you could

say that becme a poet by renouncing poetry. Do you see what

mean? Poetry was for me the only way to break the strangleholdthe accepted French form held on me.

RD In her introduction to yo ur selected poems published by Editions

Seghers, Lilyan Kesteloot nmes Mallarm, Claudel, Rmbaud,

and Lautrmont mong the poets who have inuenced you.

AC Lautramont and Rmbaud were a great revelation for many

poets of my generation. must also say that I dont renounce

Claudel. His poetry, in T 'O for example, made a deepimpression on me.

RD.There is no doubt that t is great poetry.C Yes, truy great poetry, very beautiful. Naturly, there were many

things about Claudel that irritated me, but I have always consid

ered him a great crasman with language.

RD: Your My Niv L bears the stmp of personalexperience, your experience as a Martinican youth, and it also

dels with the tineraries of the Negro race in the Antilles, where

French inuences are not decsive.

C dont deny French nuences myself. Whether want to or not,

as a poet epress myself in French, and eary French literature

has i

Aime Cesaire, Robin D.G. Kelley Discourse on Colonialism 2001

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