Book Club

The colonist and the colonized are old acquaintances. And consequently, the colonist is right when he says he “knows” them. It is the colonist who fabricated and continues to fabricate the colonized subject.

This struck me as an important concept. A person cannot see themselves as above another person without first making up a story about them. We know that the concept of whiteness exists to justify the exploitation those defined as non-white and to divide those who should have solidarity with each other. The colonizer will view themselves as superior to the colonized and thus do the work of the state to enact violence, extract resources, etc.

In capitalist societies, education, whether secular or religious, the teaching of moral reflexes handed down from father to son, the exemplary integrity of workers decorated after fifty years of loyal and faithful service, the fostering of love for harmony and wisdom, those aesthetic forms of respect for the status quo, instill in the exploited a mood of submission and inhibition which considerably eases the task of the agents of law and order.

Isn't it this respect for the status quo and appeal to harmony that stops people from seriously considering Land Back, the abolition of the prison industrial complex and even speaking out against the current wave of blatant fascism worldwide? Isn't this still why we are told that we should vote and work within the system?

The colonist is aware of this as he catches the furtive glance, and constantly on his guard, realizes bitterly that: “They want to take our place.”

This is very much what is said about the Land Back movement and reconciliation with indigenous nations in canada. Despite being build on stolen land and stolen resources, the demand for reparations, reconciliation, and the ability to self govern is viewed as being driven by greed and jealousy by people who have no right to these things because they didn't build them or work for them (which is of course nonsense).

It is not the factories, the estates, or the bank account which primarily characterize the “ruling class.” The ruling species is first and foremost the outsider from elsewhere, different from the indigenous population, “the others.”

I want this on a little card to hand out. I (currently) work primarily with white men in the skilled trades. They are so resistant to the concept of white privilege because they work with their hands unlike the privileged knowledge workers who sit at their desks all day. They don't understand that despite depending on a wage they are in fact part of a privileged class within these colonized lands. They live in places with clean drinking water and their children can go to schools. They generally have access to doctors, at least without leaving their community to access it. They can't see that there should be solidarity with the knowledge workers and that they must actively decolonize.

Colonized society is not merely portrayed as a society without values. The colonist is not content with stating that the colonized world has lost its values or worse never possessed any. The “native” is declared impervious to ethics, representing not only the absence of values but also the negation of values.

I understand this to be serving two purposes, to justify the colonization and genocide in the first place, and also to create fear of decolonization. How can those people who are dependent on the government for everything (because their self determination, their social fabric, their economy were systemically destroyed) be trusted to self govern?

During the period of decolonization the colonized are called upon to be reasonable. They are offered rocksolid values, they are told in great detail that decolonization should not mean regression, and that they must rely on values which have proved to be reliable and worthwhile.

I'm putting this here because I can't quite make out how this applies to canada. In my mind, the country is not decolonized. It's no longer directly british, but the indigenous communities are still under control (and "care"????) of the "crown". When the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (which looked specifically to the legacy of the residential school system) published its findings, there were a lot of calls to be reasonable and not disrupt the status quo too much. I don't know what the various nations see as the final state of decolonization. I know that the commission focused on integration into canadian society. I will have to re-read the 94 calls to action after finishing this book.

The intellectual who, for his part, has adopted the abstract, universal values of the colonizer is prepared to fight so that colonist and colonized can live in peace in a new world. But what he does not see, because precisely colonialism and all its modes of thought have seeped into him, is that the colonist is no longer interested in staying on and coexisting once the colonial context has disappeared. - page 74 of the PDF

I would like to understand two things around this passage: 1. What does the intellectual think the colonizer wants and 2. What does this look like in canada? Initial thoughts are that it doesn't mean physically leaving or giving up stolen resources, but rather refusing to have nation-to-nation relationships with the colonized groups and at the same time abandoning all "responsibility" towards the colonized communities, such as not providing infrastructure.

This colonized intellectual, pulverized by colonialist culture, will also discover the strength of the village assemblies, the power of the people’s commissions and the extraordinary productiveness of neighborhood and section committee meetings. Personal interests are now the collective interest because in reality everyone will be discovered by the French legionnaires and consequently massacred or else everyone will be saved. In such a context, the “every man for himself” concept, the atheist’s form of salvation, is prohibited. - Page 76 of the PDF

I think it is very easy for the colonizer who has interest in decolonization to fetishize cultures that do not praise individualism. Growing up I would hear about wise and (maybe?) just indigenous cultures were. The key word is were, past tense. It at the same time makes it clear that this type of society cannot exist in modern times and places unrealistic expectations on current indigenous communities. If you have been robbed of your connection to your culture and the world has changed around you over generations, how can you simply flip a switch and go back? And all communities have conflict. But when indigenous communities disagree or act in a way that doesn't fit this stereotype it's seen as evidence that integration (genocide) is the only option.

The colonist makes history and he knows it. And because he refers constantly to the history of his metropolis, he plainly indicates that here he is the extension of this metropolis. The history he writes is therefore not the history of the country he is despoiling, but the history of his own nation’s looting, raping, and starving to death.

This reinforces the idea that the colonialist saved the colonized from a void, a time before history.

The muscular tension of the colonized periodically erupts into bloody fighting between tribes, clans, and individuals.

I don't want to comment on the section prefaced by this sentence too much because it is not really something I can understand or experience except for possibly around the idea of class and how people will fight each other, often triggered by living a life of struggle and stress, but not think about fighting back against the ruling classes.

These colonial subjects are militant activists under the abstract slogan: “Power to the proletariat,” forgetting that in their part of the world slogans of national liberation should come first.

I think this is an important thing to keep in mind as a member of the colonizer group. I have seen (and myself been guilty of) judgment of colonized groups for not enthusiastically jumping on board anti-capitalist movements or organization. When people downplay the issue of race or colonization and instead say it's all based on class they committing an colonial act. They are imposing the world view of the colonizers on these groups.

They introduce a new notion, in actual fact a creation of the colonial situation: nonviolence. In its raw state this nonviolence conveys to the colonized intellectual and business elite that their interests are identical to those of the colonialist bourgeoisie and it is therefore indispensable, a matter of urgency, to reach an agreement for the common good.

I am a non-violent person. But I have never had the force of colonial violence acted upon me. I can't understand what that means to live under.

A blind domination on the model of slavery is not economically profitable for the metropolis. The monopolistic fraction of the metropolitan bourgeoisie will not support a government whose policy is based solely on the power of arms. What the metropolitan financiers and industrialists expect is not the devastation of the colonial population but the protection of their “legitimate interests” using economic agreements.

I thought this was very interesting because people often say things like, "It's so much better now" because force is not used as openly. But the violence is different now. If people don't work for wages they cannot survive. State violence is for the protection of capital which indirectly forces the colonized sell their labour.