Session Four: Discourse on Colonialism
Book cover of Discourse on Colonialism
Please join us for the fourth session of our study group series on Zionism! Everyone is welcome. Send us your email, and we will send you a link to the Jitsi video meeting.
When: Sunday, May 4th at 1:30PM ET
Materials:
Discourse on Colonialism by Aimé Césaire
PDF (Section: pg. 31 - 78)
Discussion Questions:
What is colonization? How does it differ from civilization?
What are the power dynamics between the colonizer and colonized world? Where is there hope for the colonized? Are there current manifestations of this?
What are the origins of Nazism according to Césaire?
What is the role of intellectuals, journalists, academics etc. in both upholding colonialism and in its destruction?
Césaire wrote that Hitler “applied to Europe colonialist procedures which until then had been reserved exclusively for the Arabs of Algeria, the coolies of India, and the blacks of Africa.” What do you make of this quote?
Césaire writes that Europeans “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 cultivated that Nazism, that they are responsible for it, and that before engulfing the whole of Western, Christian civilization in its reddened waters, it oozes, seeps, and trickles from every crack.” What do you think Césaire might say today to liberals who speak of a “rise” in or “emergence” of fascism in occupied Turtle Island/the “United States”?
Césaire contends that “no one colonizes innocently, that no one colonizes with impunity either; that a nation which colonizes… a civilization which justifies colonization - and therefore force - is already a sick civilization.” In what ways does this apply to the situation in Palestine or elsewhere in the world today?