lecture 12, "french imperialism"
charles keith (john merriman's course)
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topic of lecture: French imperialism from 1871-1914
citing a novel from an army officer who speaks about his expedition to Sudan as compensation/consolation for the anger at Alsace-Lorraine's annexation.
during the period we're discussing, the French empire exploded: at the outset, had been little more than outposts in Algeria, military presence in parts of North Africa, Southeast Asia, few "small spits of land" in the Pacific and the Carribean--exploded to include large swathes of North Africa, West Africa, most of mainland Southeast Asia, parts of the Middle East, and territories in the Pacific/Carribean.
by the end of WWI, the French Empire exercised sovereignty over 100 million inhabitants--twice as many people as lived in metropolitan France at that time, roughly.
the passage captures the two central themes at this juncture in French imperial history
(1) serving in the army to recapture prestige lost in the disastrous war with Prussia. officer sees the site of revenge overseas--French nationalism, in this sense, became increasingly inseparable from the idea of a strong, healthy French empire. the fusion of a more modern, French nationalism was new to French history at this period.
(2) the passage comes from a novel, a part of popular culture--during the late 19th century, Empire became something that more and more French people experienced directly, either through popular culture, serving in the army or colonial administrations, or settling lands for the motherland.
take-away from the lecture: Empire, during the Third Republic, became central to French nationalism--it was in the national curriculum, in the national newspapers, and in political discussion. in many ways, it became a "common experience." Empire was a central part of making people French, in sum.
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Empire, of course, had a long past in French history.
during the 17th and 18th centuries, French had a colonial history in the Caribbean and in North America, though many of these possessions were lost around the time of the French revolution. one of the revolution's powerful legacies, in fact, was a conviction to carry the revolution across French borders--to bring the rights of man to the monarchies of the continent. Napoleon of course, continued this--who carried the reach of the Empire across Europe, all the way to Russia.
at the turn of the 19th century, in fact, Napoleon even tried to colonize Egypt--an event which spoke to his messianic belief in science/progress and French civilization. an absence of any real knowledge, of course, about the non-Western world (and a predisposition to the idea of non-Western inferiority). This potent combination, the mission civilizatrice, was to drive French empire until the end.
at the birth of the Third Republic, however, the various tumult in French history prior meant that the Empire was pretty small. it was, correspondingly, fairly marginal in national imaginary. in the years before the French defeat to Prussia, the main urge to expand often came from soldiers/sailors and/or missionaries. even the bulk of Algerian expansion after 1830 was largely the work of Generals, who defied the national government in Paris. at this stage, in a way, the French empire was a giant system of relief for the French military (something to "occupy" them).
BUT: after the loss to Prussia, an acute sense of national inferiority prevailed. Critics attacked the Republic as a cesspool of corruption, etc. Emasculated militarily, slumping economically, shrinking demographically--at this juncture, many people obviously turned to colonial expansion. Jules Very was perhaps the most prominent advocate of this belief.
in his words, "colonial policy was the daugher of industrial policy... export is an essential factor in public prosperity" -- colonies were essential to a strong national economy. France needed exclusive access to new markets and raw materials. furthermore, closely tried to these objectives were political-strategic ones--a policy of abstention was "the road to decadence". Expansion in Africa and Asia was necessary to make France great in the panoply of nations, according to Very.
he also believed in the civilizing mission: "superior races have a right, but also a duty" to bring civilization to other nations. it was the colonial empire that would save France, and elevate their subjects.
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So: colonial objectives were brought into national politics, big-time, especially after Very and the Republicans came to power in 1879.
first attempt to expand was in Vietnam, where the endeavored to take over what is now its Northern half (then called Tonkin--had failed on several occasions before). on the pretext of protecting catholics and prosecuting pirates; the campaign was unpopular and failed. general's head ended up on a pike-staff.
nevertheless, this prefigured Empire's future prominence--colonial expansion accelerated from this point on, as France rushed to compete with Britain and Germany.
debates over colonial policy would become a standard part of French political discourse in the 1890s. every government after Jules Very presided over a steadily expanding colonial Empire.
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this new prominence was, in many ways, due to the influence of a growing colonial lobby in French society--this lobby was very influential in spreading the idea of Empire as national redemption. it was a diverse group of individuals, who put forth the idea for expansion in many different ways (it was not particularly organized)--included men like informal group of explorers/geographers, shipbuilders, railway magnates, factory owners (path to material wealth), missionairies (converts in the heathen races--declining religiosity in the homeland, don't forget), writers and journalists.
so they weren't united by the same interests--but it is precisely their diversity that shows how compelling Empire had become, for France.
the assumption had become, indeed, that Empire served France, as a whole. Empire as a solution to domestic, national problems ("colonies as a laboratory for modernity"). before the Third Republic, the social value of colonies was little more than a way to get rid of people that the State considered undesirable (French penal colony in New Colony, where over 4,000 of the communards had been sent). but toward the end of the 19th century, this began to change--a potential home for landless peasants, unemployed workers, etc, even.
French engineers, and social planners, came to see colonies as a vast work-site--building from scratch, in a sense. Colonies:France, as what Far West:America (says a colonial administrator in Morocco). a "training ground", for many of these bureaucrats.
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in popular culture: schoolchildren began reading about colonies in textbooks (Ministry of Education directive: "it must not be forgotten that France is a world power... Let us not have any scruples about...giving them as rich an image of their country... the mother country and her distant daughters"). the urban middle-classes visiting the Museum of Natural History began to see objects collected in the colonies. and in the massive expositions (in 1900, colonies given their own staging grounds--entire buildings were transported from the Empire).
the Empire was more than a periodic spectacle--crept into the most mundane forms of everyday life. in newspapers, day-in day-out--articles focused on military encounters, of course (vs. a "savage enemy"). captured in novels, as well.
the French encountered an Empire in cafes, dance halls, etc. even goods that people bought evoked the Empire (the yellow "banana" box). even in Church--the last third of the 19th century was a time of intense missionary activity, and people heard financial pleas from these missionaries.
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of course, no better way to experience it than go there. though, by the late 1880s and 1890s, there were few Frenchpeople in the colonies (with the exception of Algeria: 300,000 French settlers in 1871)--little more than administrators and garrison--gradually, though, more and more came.
the most drastically affected, of course, were soldiers in the military, as France attempted to expand, and consolidate her Empire (in the face of fierce resistance). long sea journeys, tropical diseases, and miserable pay.
missionairies, too, went overseas more and more.
settlers went to the colonies in order to stay--often committed for life. took to the colonies whatever Capital and possessions they may have had. distance from home, hostility from natives, etc., were all serious obstacles. many were drawn by inducements from people who owned large tracts of land (land-owners also sought Italian and Spanish immigrants, when they couldn't find enough Frenchfolk).
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as Empire grew, life in the colonies became more regularized. administrators/civil service generally took over from soldiers/military, and started to collect taxes, keeping law and order--often having to sanction violence against deviants and those who resisted. increasingly, these people came not from the military, but from civilians who were trained at specific schools in the metropole (Ecole Colonial, for example--founded in 1877).
French government also did its best to draw professionals to the colonies (lawyers, doctors, etc.). Paris offered subsidies.
more and more women came, as well, to these places. in a way, this reflected the taming and the "making domestic" of the colonies--the regularization. women going to seek husbands, etc. many women worked in humanitarian capacities, which is ironic considering what their husbands would be doing.
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by WWI, there would be almost 500,000 French citizens scattered throughout the French empire. what was life like? few people found adventure, of course. disease took a large toll (malaria, yellow fever, etc.). attack/accidents were almost always a concern. medical care was often inadequate. colonial goods were often susceptible to rapidly changing market conditions, meaning that settlers didn't always thrive. social life, in the colonies, was fairly limited--in many places (presumably rural), some citizens might even spend months without seeing other Europeans (!).
most never relinquished their sense of superiority. these attitudes were reinforced by French laws and institutions, and well-established spatial and social segregation.
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to WWI--when "Guns of August" began to roar in 1914, the French empire was at its peak (second only to the British). colonial promoters lauded the benefit of the colonies: (1) prestige, (2) secure site of investment, (3) captive markets, (4) raw materials/cheap labor, (5) reserve army of soldiers. Empire had become a popular part of popular culture. in short, Empire had become a fundamental part of national identity/hubris (as in the rest of Europe).
few French people in 1914 could see few things that might threaten this happy equilibrium. for many people, France had recovered from the loss of Alsace-Lorraine (and Empire was central to this national revival). "The renewal of France," in the words of a colonial official in 1912.
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of course, not all was well in the Emipre. haven't spoken about the effect of French colonialism on those in the colonies. needless to say, French imperialism didn't coincide with the "best of French civilization"
few accepted French expansion without struggle; but few, of course, could match the technology of the French, at the same time.
as French police, legal systems, etc., replaced the overtly military presence of the earlier age--occupation and repression paraded as "integration"/"assimilation"
by 1914, cracks began to appear in the edifice. not everyboy had been swept up by French dreams. a small anti-colonial lobby in the homeland began to appear. for some, expansion seemed a dangerous overextension of French power. others, seeing that promised financial concerns were underwhelming, began to criticize it practically. others yet protested on moral grounds--at a protest in 1906, the famous novelist Anatole France thundered, "whites do not communicate with blacks and yellow men but through arms... the people we call barbarians know us through" our barbarism. Jean Jaures went even further--refuting the mission of the civilizing mission (in this case, in Morocco)--arguing that a civilization existed, in Morocco, that had hope for the future. "And I cannot pardon those who have crushed this hope."
during the 1920s and 1930s, anti-colonialism would become a more potent voice in the metropole. (in 1931, a famous anti-colonial exposition would be organized, in opposition to the colonial expo--nothing similar had happened in 1900).
however: it was not the French themselves who would eventually succeed in crumbling the edifice of Empire. ultimately, it collapsed, first and foremost, because of the many forms of resistance waged by those under their yoke.
in many ways, WWI was a tipping point--the myths sustaining French rule had been very powerful, many in the colonized world had asked themselves whether colonial power was unchallengable and inevitable (and, for some intellectuals, maybe a "good thing"). during the war, about a half a million colonial subjects were conscripted--donning the blue uniform and fighting for France. many others came to the metropole to work. those who came saw religious, economic, political rifts at the home--and they saw a war that gave the lie to French civilization.
for countless people across the world, the Great War showed that France could not and did not correspond to its lofty myths. it dealt a terrible blow to their moral standing; Europeans savagely killing each other, for four years. the contrast between savagery and civilization was now reversed.
after WWI, for growing numbers in France, Emipre seemed to expensive (especially during the depression), immoral, and unwieldy to retain. what had been a source of unification became a source for disunion.
the opposite was true in the colonies. in the 1930s and 1940s, an anti-colonial nationalism was born--in the years after WWI, this would culminate in widespread liberation.
Showing posts with label barbarism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label barbarism. Show all posts
Monday, March 30, 2009
Saturday, May 24, 2008
culture conundrum:
Ever since the early 19th century, culture or civilisation has been the opposite of barbarism. Behind this opposition lay a kind of narrative: first you had barbarism, then civilisation was dredged out of its murky depths. Radical thinkers, by contrast, have always seen barbarism and civilisation as synchronous. This is what the German Marxist Walter Benjamin had in mind when he declared that "every document of civilisation is at the same time a record of barbarism". For every cathedral, a pit of bones; for every work of art, the mass labour that granted the artist the resources to create it. Civilisation needs to be wrested from nature by violence, but the violence lives on in the coercion used to protect civilisation - a coercion known among other things as the political state.
Ever since the early 19th century, culture or civilisation has been the opposite of barbarism. Behind this opposition lay a kind of narrative: first you had barbarism, then civilisation was dredged out of its murky depths. Radical thinkers, by contrast, have always seen barbarism and civilisation as synchronous. This is what the German Marxist Walter Benjamin had in mind when he declared that "every document of civilisation is at the same time a record of barbarism". For every cathedral, a pit of bones; for every work of art, the mass labour that granted the artist the resources to create it. Civilisation needs to be wrested from nature by violence, but the violence lives on in the coercion used to protect civilisation - a coercion known among other things as the political state.
Thursday, May 10, 2007
more insanity in afghanistan:
At least 40 civilians were killed in an air strike in Afghanistan by foreign forces, witnesses said on Thursday, but the U.S.-led coalition said only rebels were hit and it knew of no other casualties.
(...) "Foreign troops are killing Afghans every day, but our government has closed its eyes and does not see our casualties," local resident Haji Ibrahim said.
(...) Helmand governor, Assadullah Wafa, said earlier 21 civilians, including women and children, were killed in Tuesday's air strike in Sangin district -- a major opium-growing area and the scene of a large anti-Taliban operation by foreign troops.
(...) Residents disputed that Taliban fighters were involved. "There were no Taliban in our area," Mohammad Rahim, a resident of Sangin, told Reuters by phone, adding he had seen 24 bodies in three houses.
At least 40 civilians were killed in an air strike in Afghanistan by foreign forces, witnesses said on Thursday, but the U.S.-led coalition said only rebels were hit and it knew of no other casualties.
(...) "Foreign troops are killing Afghans every day, but our government has closed its eyes and does not see our casualties," local resident Haji Ibrahim said.
(...) Helmand governor, Assadullah Wafa, said earlier 21 civilians, including women and children, were killed in Tuesday's air strike in Sangin district -- a major opium-growing area and the scene of a large anti-Taliban operation by foreign troops.
(...) Residents disputed that Taliban fighters were involved. "There were no Taliban in our area," Mohammad Rahim, a resident of Sangin, told Reuters by phone, adding he had seen 24 bodies in three houses.
Monday, April 16, 2007
on unraveling the logic of ¨collateral damage¨:
Foundational to the concept of collateral damage is the Doctrine of Double Effect (DDE). First developed by Catholic casuists during the Middle Ages, the DDE morally differentiates the intended effects of an act from those that are unintended, though foreseen. Further, by focusing upon the moral significance of intention and its relevance to moral agency and responsibility, the DDE morally distinguishes killing as an unintended, secondary effect - - collateral damage - - from murder, claiming only the latter as absolutely prohibited.
(...) While the instances of collateral damage are myriad, I will consider, as representative, the April, 8, 2003 US attack on the al-Sa’ah restaurant. According to American intelligence sources, Saddam Hussein and his two sons, Uday and Qusay, had been meeting with key aides in a bunker deep beneath the al-Sa’ah restaurant located in the densely populated Mansour district of Baghdad. Shortly after 3pm, an American B1 aircraft dropped four satellite guided bunker-buster bombs on the restaurant. Unfortunately, all four bombs missed their target, destroying homes and turning at least fourteen innocent people, three of them children, into what the US military refers to as a “pink mist.”
(...) If the Iraqi civilians had become aware that an attack was immanent and could not escape, would they have been within their rights to respond defensively – to shoot down the aircraft (killing the pilot) in self-defense. I think the answer is clearly that they would. Human beings do not loose their right to defend themselves because others have deemed their deaths to be inconsequential – necessary for some greater good. It is not the case, by the way, as a consequence of now being threatened by an Iraqi defensive response, that the pilot could have morally targeted and killed the Iraqi defenders – claiming self-defense. The Iraqis do not forfeit the very right they are justified in asserting. What is irrelevant in this hypothetical is whether the pilot has agency, whether the threat to the Iraqis is directly intended or unintended, and whether the Iraqi deaths are the primary or secondary effect of the act of bombing the restaurant. In other words, what is irrelevant is the application of the DDE. ...Clearly, the pilot’s liability is a consequence of his bombing (or threatening to bomb) the restaurant and killing (or threatening to kill) the Iraqis. Since acting morally and permissibly ought never warrant such sanctions, i.e., being the victim of the justifiable use of violence/deadly force in self defense, the Iraqi’s right to kill the pilot indicates the failure of the DDE to do the moral work alleged, that is, to render the bombing of the restaurant morally and legally permissible and the deaths of the Iraqis trivialized as collateral damage.
(...) The responders kill innocents knowingly and with free will and consent in order to achieve the goal or objective of ending terrorism (or eliminating the Iraqi leadership). In such cases, therefore, killing noncombatants is not accidental, but what I will term an “act of collateral violence.” That is, an act, motivated by military necessity, in which noncombatants are harmed or killed, perhaps not with direct intent nor as the primary goal or purpose of the act, but, nevertheless, knowingly and with as high a degree of probability as is the harming or killing of the terrorists. Consequently, the fact that a responder claims only to be targeting the terrorists (or Saddam and his sons) does not absolve him of causal and moral responsibility.
(...) A DDE justification in such cases and the alleged distinction between terrorism and a collaterally violent response to terrorism, between the attacks of 9/11 and the bombing of the al-Sa’ah restaurant, is misguided and merely a pretense or rationalization for retaliation and revenge. Both acts knowingly kill noncombatants to achieve some goal or objective. Both terrorists and responders violate the right to life of their innocent victims and fail to fulfill their obligation to respect such rights. Consequently, there is no moral difference between acts of terrorism and of collateral violence. They are morally equivalent. Neither are acts of war but of murder. Neither the terrorists nor the responders in such cases are combatants but brigands and murderers.
Foundational to the concept of collateral damage is the Doctrine of Double Effect (DDE). First developed by Catholic casuists during the Middle Ages, the DDE morally differentiates the intended effects of an act from those that are unintended, though foreseen. Further, by focusing upon the moral significance of intention and its relevance to moral agency and responsibility, the DDE morally distinguishes killing as an unintended, secondary effect - - collateral damage - - from murder, claiming only the latter as absolutely prohibited.
(...) While the instances of collateral damage are myriad, I will consider, as representative, the April, 8, 2003 US attack on the al-Sa’ah restaurant. According to American intelligence sources, Saddam Hussein and his two sons, Uday and Qusay, had been meeting with key aides in a bunker deep beneath the al-Sa’ah restaurant located in the densely populated Mansour district of Baghdad. Shortly after 3pm, an American B1 aircraft dropped four satellite guided bunker-buster bombs on the restaurant. Unfortunately, all four bombs missed their target, destroying homes and turning at least fourteen innocent people, three of them children, into what the US military refers to as a “pink mist.”
(...) If the Iraqi civilians had become aware that an attack was immanent and could not escape, would they have been within their rights to respond defensively – to shoot down the aircraft (killing the pilot) in self-defense. I think the answer is clearly that they would. Human beings do not loose their right to defend themselves because others have deemed their deaths to be inconsequential – necessary for some greater good. It is not the case, by the way, as a consequence of now being threatened by an Iraqi defensive response, that the pilot could have morally targeted and killed the Iraqi defenders – claiming self-defense. The Iraqis do not forfeit the very right they are justified in asserting. What is irrelevant in this hypothetical is whether the pilot has agency, whether the threat to the Iraqis is directly intended or unintended, and whether the Iraqi deaths are the primary or secondary effect of the act of bombing the restaurant. In other words, what is irrelevant is the application of the DDE. ...Clearly, the pilot’s liability is a consequence of his bombing (or threatening to bomb) the restaurant and killing (or threatening to kill) the Iraqis. Since acting morally and permissibly ought never warrant such sanctions, i.e., being the victim of the justifiable use of violence/deadly force in self defense, the Iraqi’s right to kill the pilot indicates the failure of the DDE to do the moral work alleged, that is, to render the bombing of the restaurant morally and legally permissible and the deaths of the Iraqis trivialized as collateral damage.
(...) The responders kill innocents knowingly and with free will and consent in order to achieve the goal or objective of ending terrorism (or eliminating the Iraqi leadership). In such cases, therefore, killing noncombatants is not accidental, but what I will term an “act of collateral violence.” That is, an act, motivated by military necessity, in which noncombatants are harmed or killed, perhaps not with direct intent nor as the primary goal or purpose of the act, but, nevertheless, knowingly and with as high a degree of probability as is the harming or killing of the terrorists. Consequently, the fact that a responder claims only to be targeting the terrorists (or Saddam and his sons) does not absolve him of causal and moral responsibility.
(...) A DDE justification in such cases and the alleged distinction between terrorism and a collaterally violent response to terrorism, between the attacks of 9/11 and the bombing of the al-Sa’ah restaurant, is misguided and merely a pretense or rationalization for retaliation and revenge. Both acts knowingly kill noncombatants to achieve some goal or objective. Both terrorists and responders violate the right to life of their innocent victims and fail to fulfill their obligation to respect such rights. Consequently, there is no moral difference between acts of terrorism and of collateral violence. They are morally equivalent. Neither are acts of war but of murder. Neither the terrorists nor the responders in such cases are combatants but brigands and murderers.
Sunday, April 15, 2007
the 'barbarism' of the 'civilising' mission(aries):
A preliminary U.S. military investigation indicates that more than 40 Afghans killed or wounded by Marines after a suicide bombing in a village near Jalalabad last month were civilians, the U.S. commander who ordered the probe said yesterday.
(...) The troops continued shooting at perceived threats as they traveled miles from the site of the March 4 attack, he said. They hit several vehicles, killing at least 10 people and wounding 33, among them children and elderly villagers.
A preliminary U.S. military investigation indicates that more than 40 Afghans killed or wounded by Marines after a suicide bombing in a village near Jalalabad last month were civilians, the U.S. commander who ordered the probe said yesterday.
(...) The troops continued shooting at perceived threats as they traveled miles from the site of the March 4 attack, he said. They hit several vehicles, killing at least 10 people and wounding 33, among them children and elderly villagers.
on third world theories of imperialism (thomas hodgkin):
[along what lines have these theorists criticised the presuppositions of western imperial historians and apologists in general?] ...against the classic Western (particularly Western missionary) thesis that imperialism has meant the substitution of ´civilised´for ´barbarous´ systems of government, society, values, etc., these theorists asserted the antithesis that imperialism has in fact meant the destruction of valid African, or non-Western, civilisations and the substitution of new forms of Western barbarism. (103)
(...) A second element in this reinterpretation of the civilisation/barbarism antithesis is the proposition that there is no necessary connection between the level of a people´s technological development and the quality of its civilisation. This is, essentially, the cultural relativist view, which Blyden did much to foster, that terms such as ´higher´and ´lower´can be applied to levels of technological or economic development but not to civilisations that no set of criteria exists on the basis of which one can rationally argue that the civilisation of the French bourgeoisie under the their republic was qualitatively superior to, say, the civilisation of the Segu empire under Ahmadu Shehu... This view can be pushed further and developed into a Narodnik theory of the nastiness and undesirability of ´high´ civilizations in general [see Emile Faure] (105)
(...) [How far do the dominant ideas of these African and third-world theorists fit with the broad lines of Marxist, and more specifically Leninist, theory?] One [of 4 themes of disagreement/contributions] is their emphasis on the communal, anti-capitalist (and not merely precapitalist), cooperative, democratic, fraternal values and institutions of African, or non-Western, precolonial societies, ´systematically destroyed by imperialism´; their rejection of theories which assert or imply the idea of unilinear progress from ´lower´to ´higher´stages of social organisation, and thus of those interpretations (or distortions or vulgarisations?) of Marxism which fall within this category. [see Aimé Césaire] (109-110)
(...) A second theme is the notion of the dehumanising effects of imperialism on the colonised societies and the reimportation of the ideas and attitudes and institutions and techniques which have been used by the bourgeoisie of the colonising countries to impose and maintain their domination over the colonised into the metropolitan societies for use against their own people. This idea, of the specially corrupting effects of imperialism on the social and political life of the imperialists, was of course present and important in Marx and his successors... But for third-world theorists like Césaire and Fanon the idea of the terrible feedback effects of imperialism has a new and pivotal significance. (111)
(...) A third theme is the idea of a necessary, continuing, irreconcilable antagonism (in the context of a world in which imperialism remains a dominant force) between the interests of the advanced, Western, and predominantly ´white´, colonising societies and the interests of the proletarian, non-Western, and predominantly ´non-white, colonial and semicolonial societies. In a sense this means taking the contradiction between the imperialist countries and the colonial peoples and insisting that it has priority over all other contradictions, blurring (from a more ´orthodox´ Marxist point of view) the internal contradictions within both colonising and colonised societies. Thus Sultan Galiyev argued that ´since almost all classes in Muslim society have been oppressed formerly by the colonialists, all are entitled to be called proletarian... The Muslim peoples are proletarian peoples.´
(...) Towards the [Leninist conception of the essential interdependence of the interests of the working classes in the advanced capitalist countries and the exploited masses in the colonial and semicolonial countries]...these third-world theorists have tended to take up and attitude of methodical doubt... [expressing] a belief in the necessity for the colonial and former colonial peoples of the world to recover the historical initiative, and for the direction, character, pace and methods of change within the third world to be primarily their responsibility, not the responsibility of even the most radical or revolutionary sectors of the populations of the advanced countries; a new emphasis on the importance of the idea of creating wider alliances among the peoples of the third world. (113)
[in Studies in the Theory of Imperialism, eds. Roger Owen and Bob Sutcliffe, 1972]
[along what lines have these theorists criticised the presuppositions of western imperial historians and apologists in general?] ...against the classic Western (particularly Western missionary) thesis that imperialism has meant the substitution of ´civilised´for ´barbarous´ systems of government, society, values, etc., these theorists asserted the antithesis that imperialism has in fact meant the destruction of valid African, or non-Western, civilisations and the substitution of new forms of Western barbarism. (103)
(...) A second element in this reinterpretation of the civilisation/barbarism antithesis is the proposition that there is no necessary connection between the level of a people´s technological development and the quality of its civilisation. This is, essentially, the cultural relativist view, which Blyden did much to foster, that terms such as ´higher´and ´lower´can be applied to levels of technological or economic development but not to civilisations that no set of criteria exists on the basis of which one can rationally argue that the civilisation of the French bourgeoisie under the their republic was qualitatively superior to, say, the civilisation of the Segu empire under Ahmadu Shehu... This view can be pushed further and developed into a Narodnik theory of the nastiness and undesirability of ´high´ civilizations in general [see Emile Faure] (105)
(...) [How far do the dominant ideas of these African and third-world theorists fit with the broad lines of Marxist, and more specifically Leninist, theory?] One [of 4 themes of disagreement/contributions] is their emphasis on the communal, anti-capitalist (and not merely precapitalist), cooperative, democratic, fraternal values and institutions of African, or non-Western, precolonial societies, ´systematically destroyed by imperialism´; their rejection of theories which assert or imply the idea of unilinear progress from ´lower´to ´higher´stages of social organisation, and thus of those interpretations (or distortions or vulgarisations?) of Marxism which fall within this category. [see Aimé Césaire] (109-110)
(...) A second theme is the notion of the dehumanising effects of imperialism on the colonised societies and the reimportation of the ideas and attitudes and institutions and techniques which have been used by the bourgeoisie of the colonising countries to impose and maintain their domination over the colonised into the metropolitan societies for use against their own people. This idea, of the specially corrupting effects of imperialism on the social and political life of the imperialists, was of course present and important in Marx and his successors... But for third-world theorists like Césaire and Fanon the idea of the terrible feedback effects of imperialism has a new and pivotal significance. (111)
(...) A third theme is the idea of a necessary, continuing, irreconcilable antagonism (in the context of a world in which imperialism remains a dominant force) between the interests of the advanced, Western, and predominantly ´white´, colonising societies and the interests of the proletarian, non-Western, and predominantly ´non-white, colonial and semicolonial societies. In a sense this means taking the contradiction between the imperialist countries and the colonial peoples and insisting that it has priority over all other contradictions, blurring (from a more ´orthodox´ Marxist point of view) the internal contradictions within both colonising and colonised societies. Thus Sultan Galiyev argued that ´since almost all classes in Muslim society have been oppressed formerly by the colonialists, all are entitled to be called proletarian... The Muslim peoples are proletarian peoples.´
(...) Towards the [Leninist conception of the essential interdependence of the interests of the working classes in the advanced capitalist countries and the exploited masses in the colonial and semicolonial countries]...these third-world theorists have tended to take up and attitude of methodical doubt... [expressing] a belief in the necessity for the colonial and former colonial peoples of the world to recover the historical initiative, and for the direction, character, pace and methods of change within the third world to be primarily their responsibility, not the responsibility of even the most radical or revolutionary sectors of the populations of the advanced countries; a new emphasis on the importance of the idea of creating wider alliances among the peoples of the third world. (113)
[in Studies in the Theory of Imperialism, eds. Roger Owen and Bob Sutcliffe, 1972]
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