Discourse On Colonialism Analysis

Prompt #3

In “Discourse on Colonialism,” Aimé Césaire points out the similarities between Nazism and colonization. He takes the approach that the main difference between the two is that one happened to Africa and the other happened to Europe. In the Congo, brutality that took a different form than, but that can quite easily be compared to the holocaust took place under the rule of King Leopold II. Similarly, black South Africans were forced to abide by pass laws and were massacred at peaceful demonstrations. While the discriminatory violence was carried out differently in South Africa, the Congo, and through Nazism, all are comparable in that they involved one society dominating another society due to a sense of superiority.

As Césaire bluntly

states, “Colonialism…is nothing less than the prelude to Nazism. Hitler was the logical outcome of the colonial process. A civilization which justifies colonialism and colonization is a sick civilization, one which calls for Hitler, I mean its punishment” (Césaire 73-74). In the Congo, over ten million people were killed under colonial rule, and few people seem to know about it. Belgium took over the Congo because it was seen as a lesser culture and society. They wished to spread western power to countries that could be overtaken. Under the rule of King Leopold II, Congolese men and women were threatened with death, amputation, and rape if they did not reach certain work quotas on natural resources such as rubber. In order to ensure that the bullets were not “wasted” by Belgian soldiers, they were required to provide proof that the bullets were used to kill a Congolese man, woman, or child. Soldiers often cut the hands off of live people in order to avoid punishment.
This kind of brutal mutilation is almost more devastating than the gas chambers in Nazi Germany because it is more personal.

In World War II, there was a great deal of dehumanization and a separation between the victims and the perpetrators. In the Congo, physically cutting off the hand of someone else is extremely personal. Apart from treating the Congolese people as subhuman, it is difficult to separate the person to whom one is causing pain and mutilation from the act of cutting off someone’s hand as a trophy. The biggest difference in how the two acts of violence are treated in history is that one despicable act affected white Europeans and the other affected black

Africans.
Many claim that Adolf Hitler would have been much more successful had he refrained from encroaching into other countries, if he had help true to the idea of sovereignty; however, colonialism by definition rejects sovereignty. It “is not crime in itself, the crime against man, it is not the humiliation of man, it is the crime against the white man, the humiliation of the white man, and the fact that [Hitler] applied to Europe colonial procedures which until then had been reserved exclusively for the Arabs of Algeria, the coolies of India, and the blacks of Africa” (Césaire 77). It is without a doubt an issue of race that separates Nazism and colonialism in many minds today, whether it is intentional or unintentional.
In South Africa, the separation between whites and black may be one of the most drastic in history due to apartheid.

Those who opposed colonial rule were often arrested and tortured or starved until they died. The cause of death was not always reported truthfully. Additionally peaceful protests over injustices such as the pass laws ended in bloodshed. For example, “on 21 March 1960police in Sharpville, a black township fifty miles south of Johannesburg, opened fire on a crowd of PAC demonstrators, killing 69 and wounding 186. Most of the casualties were shot in the back as they fled the gunfire” (Meredith 122). The retreating Africans were massacred without a second thought just as the Jewish people were killed in Germany with little to no hesitation. When a group of people are dehumanized and separated into a “them” rather than remain part of the “us” it can easily lead to discriminatory action and

violence.
Both Nazism and colonialism stemmed from a sense of superiority. Both parties believed in what they were doing, even if the motives were not pure or with good intent. “Colonization: bridgehead in a campaign to civilize barbarism, from which there may emerge at any moment the negation of civilization, pure and simple” (Césaire 79). It is impossible to attempt to bring civilization to barbarism without falling into some form of barbarism. This can be seen in the brutality of the colonial powers as well as the violence of Nazi Germany.