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.