First we must study how colonization works to decivilize the
colonizer, to brutalize him in the true sense of the word, to degrade
him, to awaken him to buried instincts, to covetousness, violence,
race hatred, and moral relativism; and we must show that each time
a head is cut off or an eye put out in Vietnam and in France they
accept the fact, each time a little girl is [assaulted] and in France they
accept the fact, each time a Madagascan is tortured and in France
they accept the fact, civilization acquires another dead weight, a
universal regression takes place, a gangrene sets in, a center of
infection begins to spread; and that at the end of all these treaties
that have been violated, all these lies that have been propagated, all
these punitive expeditions that have been tolerated, all these prisoners who have been tied up and “interrogated,” all these patriots
who have been tortured, at the end of all the racial pride that has
been encouraged, all the boastfulness that has been displayed, a poison has been distilled into the veins of Europe and, slowly but
surely, the continent proceeds toward savagery.
And then one fine day the bourgeoisie is awakened by a terrific
boomerang effect: the gestapos are busy, the prisons flll up, the torturers
standing around the racks invent, refine, discuss.
People are surprised, they become indignant. They say: “How
strange! But never mind-it’s Nazism, it will pass!” And they wait,
and they hope; and they hide the truth from themselves, that it is
barbarism, the supreme barbarism, the crowning barbarism that
sums up all the daily barbarisms; 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; that they have
cultivated that Nazism, that they are responsible for it, and that
before engulfing the whole edifice of Western, Christian civilization
in its reddened waters, it oozes, seeps, and trickles from every crack.
This basically more eruditely says exactly what I started thinking when I read this post. That imperialism is a self-reinforcing loop that seems to make imperialist countries’ citizens into worse people.
That imperialism is a self-reinforcing loop that seems to make imperialist countries’ citizens into worse people.
I will never get over a neo-liberal post some idiot made about how it was okay for Algeria to be colonized because of Algeria’s culture; he was upset his (Bi?) Algerian girlfriend was suddenly speaking up against the French colonization of Algeria, basically deciding she was too foolish to understand what she was saying; he mocked the idea that the Algerians fought for freedom because Algerian culture isn’t a free culture.
The reality always at the end of the day is the colonized will never verbally convince imperialists to leave them alone, you have to force them out; Viva the Haitian revolution, viva the Cuban revolution, viva the Irish revolution, viva the South African revolution, viva the Zimbabwean revolution, and so on
But I’m feeling such a crippling laziness I can’t read this right now; this post looks like something I’d enjoy greatly, and I hate that I’m feeling too lazy to read it (might be cause I had a very heavy, greasy lunch, so could be it’s knocking my senses out)
https://files.libcom.org/files/zz_aime_cesaire_robin_d.g._kelley_discourse_on_colbook4me.org_.pdf
This basically more eruditely says exactly what I started thinking when I read this post. That imperialism is a self-reinforcing loop that seems to make imperialist countries’ citizens into worse people.
I will never get over a neo-liberal post some idiot made about how it was okay for Algeria to be colonized because of Algeria’s culture; he was upset his (Bi?) Algerian girlfriend was suddenly speaking up against the French colonization of Algeria, basically deciding she was too foolish to understand what she was saying; he mocked the idea that the Algerians fought for freedom because Algerian culture isn’t a free culture.
The reality always at the end of the day is the colonized will never verbally convince imperialists to leave them alone, you have to force them out; Viva the Haitian revolution, viva the Cuban revolution, viva the Irish revolution, viva the South African revolution, viva the Zimbabwean revolution, and so on
I have:
Nothing better to do than read this post
Much fascination with this post
But I’m feeling such a crippling laziness I can’t read this right now; this post looks like something I’d enjoy greatly, and I hate that I’m feeling too lazy to read it (might be cause I had a very heavy, greasy lunch, so could be it’s knocking my senses out)
I need to come back and read this later
As someone with similar executive dysfunction let me encourage ya: it looks like a lot but it reads smooth and simple.