Fariha’s Reviews > Discourse on Colonialism > Status Update

One of the values invented by the bourgeoisie in former times and launched throughout the world was man - and we have seen what has become of that. The other was the nation.
It is a fact: the nation is a bourgeois phenomenon.

"the destiny of Western civilization, and indeed the destiny of man," were now threatened; that an attempt was being made on all sides "to appeal to our anxieties, to challenge the claims made for our culture, to call into question the most essential part of what we possess," and he swore to make war upon these "disastrous prophets."

No one denies the veracity of Balzac.
But wait a moment: take Vautrin, let him be just back from the tropics, give him the wings of the archangel and the shivers of malaria, let him be accompanied through the streets of Paris by an escort of Uruguayan vampires and carnivorous ants, and you will have Maldoror.

It is easy to blame it on Hitler. On Rosenberg. On Jünger and the others. On the SS.
But what about this: "Everything in this world reeks of crime: the newspaper, the wall, the countenance of man.

"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."

...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.

M. Mannoni has something better: psychoanalysis. Embellished with existentialism, it gives astonishing results: the most down-at-heel cliches 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.

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.

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."

But take care! You are going to the Congo? Respect - I do not say native property (the great 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!