Discourse on Colonialism

Césaire declares once again that the worst offending colonizers are not only corrupt administrators and politicians but also academics and thinkers who operate as “tools of capitalism” (54-55). It does not matter whether their intentions are well-founded or not as they ultimately support the violent work of colonization. He cites examples from several academics and thinkers whose views are emblematic of this disguised violence. There is Pierre Gourou whose book Les Pays tropicaux argues that there has never been a successful tropical civilization. There is also Placide Tempels, a Belgian missionary whose Bantu philosophy argues that the “communistic materialism” of black people make them “moral vagabonds” (55). Césaire also implicates historians, writers, psychologists, and sociologists who propagate views of colonized people’s “primitivism” (56) and whose social categorizations of colonized people create the idea that they are less developed than Europeans.

Césaire points out the flawed logic in Gourou’s book. Gourou argues that tropical countries must rely on non-tropical countries to introduce cultural elements to help them advance as a civilization. However, Gourou also shares that colonization has introduced forced labor, slavery, and other ill conditions to tropical countries, creating conditions that would inhibit the advancement of a civilization. Césaire uses this logic to illustrate that the struggles of tropical countries are not inherent to their indigenous properties but can be attributed to the interventions of colonization.

Césaire also critiques Tempels’s Bantu philosophy, which makes the claim that the Bantu desire “the white man’s recognition and respect for their dignity as men, their full human value” (58) more so than material and economic stability. Even though Tempels seems to act in defense of the Bantu, he as a white man ultimately “takes his place at the head of the hierarchy of Bantu life forces” (59).

Césaire also discusses the psychoanalytic work of French thinker, Octave Mannoni. Using psychoanalysis, Mannoni argues that the colonized people are predisposed to a “dependency complex” (59) where they are dependent upon their colonizers, illustrating this co-dependent relationship through the example of Madagascans and their European colonizers. Césaire counters this idea of dependency by pointing out that Madagascans have revolted many times since French occupation.

By discussing Gourou, Tempels, and Mannoni, Césaire wants to illustrate how the bourgeoisie tend to interpret the violence of colonization as “comfortable, hollow notions” (62). The hollowness of these ideas create room for more brutal forms of colonial violence, such as French writer, Yves Florenne’s claim that “cross-breeding” (63) leads to cultural dilution for Europeans. Césaire points out that Florenne’s ideas against cultural mixing echo Hitler’s radical sentiments against miscegenation.