Therefore, comrade, you will hold as enemies—Ioftily, lucidly, consistently—not only sadistic governors and greedy bankers, not only prefects who torture and colonists who flog, not only corrupt, check-licking politicians and subservient judges, but likewise and for the same reason, venomous journalists, goitrous academics, wreathed in dollars and stupidity, ethnographers who go in for metaphysics, presumptuous Belgian theologians, chattering intellectuals born stinking out of the thigh of Nietzsche, the paternalists, the embracers, the corrupters, the back-slappers, the lovers of exoticism, the dividers, the agrarian sociologists, the hoodwinkers, the hoaxers, the hot-air artists, the humbugs, and in general, all those who, performing their functions in the sordid division of labor for the defense of Western bourgeois society, try in diverse ways and by infamous diversions to split up the forces of Progress--even if it means denying the very possibility of Progress—all of them tools of capitalism, all of them, openly or secretly, supporters of plundering colonialism, all of them responsible, all hateful, all slave-traders, all henceforth answerable for the violence of revolutionary action.

And sweep out all the obscurers, all the inventors of subterfuges, the charlatans and tricksters, the dealers in gobbledygook. And do not seek to know whether personally these gentlemen are in good or bad faith, whether personally they have good or bad intentions. Whether personally—that is, in the private conscience of Peter or Paul—they are or are not colonialists, because the essential thing is that their highly problematical subjective good faith is entirely irrelevant to the objective social implications of the evil work they perform as watchdogs of colonialism.

And in this connection, I cite as examples (purposely taken from very different disciplines):

• From Gourou, his book Les Pays tropicaux, in which, amid certain correct observations, there is expressed the fundamental thesis, biased and unacceptable, that there has never been a great tropical civilization, that great civilizations have existed only in temperate climates, that in every tropical country the germ of civilization comes, and can only come, from some other place outside the tropics, and that if the tropical countries are not under the biological curse of the racists, there at least hangs over them, with the same consequences, a no less effective geographical curse.
• From the Rev. Tempels, missionary and Belgian, his “Bantu philosophy,” as slimy and fetid as one could wish, but discovered very opportunely, as Hinduism was discovered by others, in order to counteract the “communistic materialism” which, it seems, threatens to turn the Negroes into “moral vagabonds.”
• From the historians or novelists of civilization (it’s the same thing)—not from this one or that one, but from all of them, or almost all—their false objectivity, their chauvinism, their sly racism, their depraved passion for refusing to acknowledge any merit in the non-white races, especially the black-skinned races, their obsession with monopolizing all glory for their own race.

• From the psychologists, sociologists et al., their views on "primitivism," their rigged investigations, their self-serving generalizations, their tendentious speculations, their insistence on the marginal, "separate" character of the non-whites, and—although each of these gentlemen, in order to impugn on higher authority the weakness of primitive thought, claims that his own is based on the firmest rationalism—their barbaric repudiation, for the sake of the cause, of Descartes's statement, the charter of universalism, that "reason ... is found whole and entire in each man," and that "where individuals of the same species are concerned, there may be degrees in respect of their accidental qualities, but not in respect of their forms, or natures."⁷

But let us not go too quickly. It is worthwhile to follow a few of these gentlemen.

I shall not dwell upon the case of the historians, neither the historians of colonization nor the Egyptologists. The case of the former is too obvious, and as for the latter, the mechanism by which they delude their readers has been definitively taken apart by Sheikh Anta Diop in his book Nations nègres et culture, the most daring book yet written by a Negro and one which will without question play an important part in the awakening of Africa.⁸

Let us rather go back. To M. Gourou, to be exact.

Need I say that it is from a lofty height that the eminent scholar surveys the native populations, which "have taken no part" in the development of modern science? And that it is not from the effort of these populations, from their liberating struggle, from their concrete fight for life, freedom, and culture that he expects the salvation of the tropical countries to come, but from the good colonizer—since the law states categorically that "it is cultural elements developed in non-tropical regions which are ensuring and will ensure the progress of the tropical regions toward a larger population and a higher civilization."

I have said that M. Gourou's book contains some correct observations: "The tropical environment and the indigenous societies," he writes, drawing up the balance sheet on colonization, "have suffered from the introduction of techniques that are ill adapted to them, from corvées, porter service, forced labor, slavery, from the transplanting of workers from one region to another, sudden changes in the biological environment, and special new conditions that are less favorable."

A fine record! The look on the university rector's face! The look on the cabinet minister's face when he reads that! Our Gourou has slipped his leash; now we're in for it; he's going to tell everything; he's beginning: "The typical hot countries find themselves faced with the following dilemma: economic stagnation and protection of the natives or temporary economic development and regression of the natives." "Monsieur Gourou, this is very serious! I'm giving you a solemn warning: in this game it is your career which is at stake." So our Gourou chooses to back off and refrain from specifying that, if the dilemma exists, it exists only within the framework of the existing regime; that if this paradox constitutes an iron law, it is only the iron law of colonialist capitalism, therefore of a society that is not only perishable but already in the process of perishing.

What impure and worldly geography!

If there is anything better, it is the Rev. Tempels. Let them plunder and torture in the Congo, let the Belgian colonizer seize all the natural resources, let him stamp out all freedom, let him crush all pride—let him go in peace, the Reverend Father Tempels consents to all that. But take care! You are going to the Congo? Respect—I do not say native property (thegreat Belgian companies might take that as a dig at them), I do not say the freedom of the natives (the Belgian colonists might think that was subversive talk), I do not say the Congolese nation (the Belgian government might take it much amiss)—I say: You are going to the Congo? Respect the Bantu philosophy!

"It would be really outrageous," writes the Rev. Tempels, "if the white educator were to insist on destroying the black man's own, particular human spirit, which is the only reality that prevents us from considering him as an inferior being. It would be a crime against humanity, on the part of the colonizer, to emancipate the primitive races from that which is valid, from that which constitutes a kernel of truth in their traditional thought, etc."

What generosity, Father! And what zeal!

Now then, know that Bantu thought is essentially ontological; that Bantu ontology is based on the truly fundamental notions of a life force and a hierarchy of life forces; and that for the Bantu the ontological order which defines the world comes from God and, as a divine decree, must be respected.⁹

Wonderful! Everybody gains: the big companies, the colonists, the government—everybody except the Bantu, naturally.

Since Bantu thought is ontological, the Bantu only ask for satisfaction of an ontological nature. Decent wages! Comfortable housing! Food! These Bantu are pure spirits, I tell you: "What they desire first of all and above all is not the improvement of their economic or material situation, but the white man's recognition of and respect for their dignity as men, their full human value."

In short, you tip your hat to the Bantu life force, you give a wink to the immortal Bantu soul. And that's all it costs you! You have to admit you're getting off cheap!

As for the government, why should it complain? Since, the Rev. Tempelsnotes with obvious satisfaction, "from their first contact with the white men, the Bantu considered us from the only point of view that was possible to them, the point of view of their Bantu philosophy" and "integrated us into their hierarchy of life forces at a very high level."

In other words, arrange it so that the white man, and particularly the Belgian, and even more particularly Albert or Leopold, takes his place at the head of the hierarchy of Bantu life forces, and you have done the trick. You will have brought this miracle to pass: the Bantu god will take responsibility for the Belgian colonialist order, and any Bantu who dares to raise his hand against it will be guilty of sacrilege.

As for M. Mannoni, in view of his book and his observations on the Madagascan soul, he deserves to be taken very seriously.

Follow him step by step through the ins and outs of his little conjuring tricks, and he will prove to you as clear as day that colonization is based on psychology, that there are in this world groups of men who, for unknown reasons, suffer from what must be called a dependency complex, that these groups are psychologically made for dependence; that they need dependence, that they crave it, ask for it, demand it; that this is the case with most of the colonized peoples and with the Madagascans in particular.

Away with racism! Away with colonialism! They smack too much of barbarism. M. Mannoni has something better: psychoanalysis. Embellished with existentialism, it gives astonishing results: the most down-at-the-heel clichés are re-soled for you and made good as new; the most absurd prejudices are explained and justified; and, as if by magic, the moon is turned into green cheese.

But listen to him:

It is the destiny of the Occidental to face the obligation laid down by the commandment Thou shalt leave thy father and thy mother. This obligation is incomprehensible to the Madagascan. At a given time in his development, every European discovers in himself the desire . . . to break the bonds of dependency, to become the equal of his father. The Madagascan, never! He does not experience rivalry with the paternal authority, "manly protest," or Adlerian inferiority-ordeals through which the European must pass and which are like civilized forms . . . of the initiation rites by which one achieves manhood . . .

Don't let the subtleties of vocabulary, the new terminology, frighten you! You know the old refrain: "The-Negroes-are-big-children." They take it, they dress it up for you, tangle it up for you. The result is Mannoni. Once again, be reassured! At the start of the journey it may seem a bit difficult, but once you get there, you'll see, you will find all your baggage again. Nothing will be missing, not even the famous white man's burden. Therefore, give ear: "Through these ordeals" (reserved for the Occidental), "one triumphs over the infantile fear of abandonment and acquires freedom and autonomy, which are the most precious possessions and also the burdens of the Occidental."

And the Madagascan? you ask. A lying race of bondsmen, Kipling would say. M. Mannoni makes his diagnosis: "The Madagascan does not even try to imagine such a situation of abandonment. . . . He desires neither personal autonomy nor free responsibility." (Come on, you know how it is. These Negroes can't even imagine what freedom is. They don't want it, they don't demand it. It's the white agitators who put that into their heads. And if you gave it to them, they wouldn't know what to do with it.)

If you point out to M. Mannoni that the Madagascans have nevertheless revolted several times since the French occupation and again recently in 1947, M. Mannoni, faithful to his premises, will explain to you that that is purely neurotic behavior, a collective madness, a running amok; that, moreover, in this case it was not a question of the Madagascans' setting out to conquer real objectives but an "imaginary security," which obviously implies that the oppression of which they complain is an imaginary oppression. So clearly, so insanely imaginary, that one might even speak of monstrous ingratitude, according to the classic example of the Fijian who burns the drying-shed of the captain who has cured him of his wounds.

If you criticize the colonialism that drives the most peaceable populations to despair, M. Mannoni will explain to you that after all, the ones responsible are not the colonialist whites but the colonized Madagascans. Damn it all, they took the whites for gods and expected of them everything one expects of the divinity!

If you think the treatment applied to the Madagascan neurosis was a trifle rough, M. Mannoni, who has an answer for everything, will prove to you that the famous brutalities people talk about have been very greatly exaggerated, that it is all neurotic fabrication, that the tortures were imaginary tortures applied by "imaginary executioners." As for the French government, it showed itself singularly moderate, since it was content to arrest the Madagascan deputies, when it should have sacrificed them, if it had wanted to respect the laws of a healthy psychology.

I am not exaggerating. It is M. Mannoni speaking:

Treading very classical paths, these Madagascans transformed their saints into martyrs, their saviors into scapegoats; they wanted to wash their imaginary sins in the blood of their own gods. They were prepared, even at this price, or rather only at this price, to reverse their attitude once more. One feature of this dependent psychology would seem to be that, since no one can serve two masters, one of the two should be sacrificed to the other. The most agitated of the colonialists in Tananarive had a confused understanding of the essence of this psychology of sacrifice, and they demanded their victims. They besieged the High Commissioner's office, assuring him that if they were granted the blood of a few innocents, "everyone would be satisfied." This attitude, disgraceful from a human point of view, was based on what was, on the whole, a fairly accurate perception of the emotional disturbances that the population of the high plateaux was going through.

Obviously, it is only a step from this to absolving the bloodthirsty colonialists. M. Mannoni's "psychology" is as "disinterested," as "free," as M. Gourou's geography or the Rev. Tempels' missionary theology!

And the striking thing they all have in common is the persistent bourgeois attempt to reduce the most human problems to comfortable, hollow notions: the idea of the dependency complex in Mannoni, the ontological idea in the Rev. Tempels, the idea of "tropicality" in Gourou. What has become of the Banque d'Indochine in all that? And the Banque de Madagascar? And the bullwhip? And the taxes? And the handful of rice to the Madagascan or the nhaqué?#¹⁰ And the martyrs? And the innocent people murdered? And the bloodstained money piling up in your coffers, gentlemen? They have evaporated! Disappeared, intermingled, become unrecognizable in the realm of pale ratiocinations.

But there is one unfortunate thing for these gentlemen. It is that their bourgeois masters are less and less responsive to a tricky argument and are condemned increasingly to turn away from them and applaud others who are less subtle and more brutal. That is precisely what gives M. Yves Florenne a chance. And indeed, here, neatly arranged on the tray of the newspaper Le Monde, are his little offers of service. No possible surprises. Completely guaranteed, with proven efficacy, fully tested with conclusive results, here we have a form of racism, a French racism still not very sturdy, it is true, but promising. Listen to the man himself.

"Our reader" (a teacher who has had the audacity to contradict the irascible M. Florenne), "... contemplating two young half-breed girls, her pupils, has a sense of pride at the feeling that there is a growing measure of integration with our French family. ... Would her response be the same if she saw, in reverse, France being integrated into the black family (or the yellow or red, it makes no difference), that is to say, becoming diluted, disappearing?"

It is clear that for M. Yves Florenne it is blood that makes France, and the foundations of the nation are biological: "Its people, its genius, are made of a thousand-year-old equilibrium that is at the same time vigorous and delicate, and ... certain alarming disturbances of this equilibrium coincide with the massive and often dangerous infusion of foreign blood which it has had to undergo over the last thirty years."

In short, cross-breeding—that is the enemy. No more social crises! No more economic crises! All that is left are racial crises! Of course, humanism loses none of its prestige (we are in the Western world), but let us understand each other:

"It is not by losing itself in the human universe, with its blood and its spirit, that France will be universal, it is by remaining itself." That is what the French bourgeoisie has come to, five years after the defeat of Hitler! And it is precisely in that that its historic punishment lies: to be condemned, returning to it as though driven by a vice, to chew over Hitler's vomit.

Because after all, M. Yves Florenne was still fussing over peasant novels, "dramas of the land," and stories of the evil eye when, with a far more evil eye than the rustic hero of some tale of witchcraft, Hitler was announcing: "The supreme goal of the People-State is to preserve the original elements of the race which, by spreading culture, create the beauty and dignity of a superior humanity."

M. Yves Florenne is aware of this direct descent.

And he is far from being embarrassed by it.

Fine. That's his right.

As it is not our right to be indignant about it.

Because, after all, we must resign ourselves to the inevitable and say to ourselves, once and for all, that the bourgeoisie is condemned to become every day more snarling, more openly ferocious, more shameless, more summarily barbarous; that it is an implacable law that every decadent class finds itself turned into a receptacle into which there flow all the dirty waters of history; that it is a universal law that before it disappears, every class must first disgrace itself completely, on all fronts, and that it is with their heads buried in the dunghill that dying societies utter their swan songs.

Notes

7. From the opening pages of Descartes' Discours de la methode, as translated by Arthur Wollaston in the Penguin edition (1960). (Trans.) ↩
8. See Sheikh Anta Diop, Nations negres et culture, published by Editions Presence Africaine (1955). Herodotus having declared that the Egyptians were originally only a colony of the Ethiopians, and Diodorus Siculus having repeated the same thing and aggravated his offense by portraying the Ethiopians in such a way that no mistake was possible ("Plerique omnes," to quote the Latin translation, "nigro sunt colore, facie sima, crispis capillis," Book III, Section 8), it was of the greatest importance to mount a counterattack. That being granted, and almost all the Western scholars having deliberately set out to tear Egypt away from Africa, even at the risk of no longer being able to explain it, there were several ways of accomplishing the task. Gustave Le Bon's method, blunt brazen assertion: "The Egyptians are Hamites, that is to say, whites like the Lydians, the Getulians, the Moors, the Numidians, the Berbers"; Maspero's method, which consists of making a connection, contrary to all probability, between the Egyptian language and the Semitic languages, more especially the Hebrew-Aramaic type, from which follows the conclusion that originally the Egyptians must have been Semites; Weigall's method, geographical this time, according to which Egyptian civilization could only have been born in Lower Egypt, and that from there it passed into Upper Egypt, traveling up the river… seeing that it could not travel down (sic). The reader will have understood that the secret reason why this was impossible is that Lower Egypt is near the Mediterranean, hence near the white populations, while Upper Egypt is near the country of the Negroes. In this connection, it is interesting to oppose to Weigall's thesis the views of Scheinfurth (Au coeur de l Afrique, vol. 1) on the origin of the flora and fauna of Egypt, which he places "hundreds of miles upriver." ↩
9. It is clear that I am not attacking the Bantu philosophy here, but the way in which certain people try to use it for political ends. ↩
10. The name given by the French to the people of Indochina (cf. U.S. "gook"). ↩