Thoughts inspired by ´The Colonizer and the Colonized´

A classical book read from a new perspective. Some writings do maintain their availability thanks to their capacity of being adapted to new contexts and situations. Although they may prove obsolete in their initial application, the frame offered might be operational in a completely different area. The intellectual sparkle ensued...

After so many years, I stole some time to re-read again The Colonizer and the Colonized by Albert Memmi. My initial aim was to refresh some of the ideas and try to connect the dots of a project I am working on aimed at featuring intellectual voices from North Africa and the Middle East who wrote against colonialism and about social revolution. Voices like Fanon, Memmi and - the least known Ali Shariati - are some of the authors I am interested to (re)discover in various contexts.

Born in Jewish La Hara suburb of Tunis, Memmi analysed in this beautifully written book the dynamics between the colonizer and the colonized, with a specific interest for North Africa, particularly Tunisia. My edition was published in 1965, with an introduction by J.P.Sartre and a new introduction by Nadine Gordimer. 

There are two main parts of the book, figuring out the ´Portrait of the colonizer´, followed by the ´Portrait of the colonized´. The colonizer mostly speaks French and comes from Europe, while the colonized is usually described as ´lazy´, ´cheap labor´ and ´kept away from power´. I really appreciated the good balance between the economic and social aspects projected against a very complex intellectual background. Thus, Memmi is overcoming the usual Marxist perspective typical for the times of writing the book.

However, although the description of both elements of the power binome is accurate, it does not reflect the realities of the globalization, for instance. In some hot spots in the Middle East, Europeans are moving in search of tax heavens and a high - yet rewarding - salary. They will never be accepted as citizens of their respective countries and not even able to purchase properties there, however, they stay there for the advantages that were built especially for attracting their skills and knowledge to contribute to building societies they will never be part thereof. 

Another thought that inspired me a further development of the ideas exposed in The Colonizer and The Colonized has to do with the power dynamics within a specific - non-democratic - society. A dictatorship - of the proletariat, military, religious elites - is operating as a colonizer against its own people, particularly those who are excepted from the ruling elite. For them too, ´(...) the colonized means little to the colonizer´. They are also presumed unreliable, thieves as well, and often evicted from their own history - as the history of the internally colonized country is constantly re-written in order to answer the expectations - of self-agrandisement too - of the elites. The colonized should as well resemble the colonizer, in an effort of uniformization and brain washing on behalf of the colonizer. 

´Colonization distrusts relationships, destroys or petrifies institutions, and corrupts men, both colonizers and the colonized´, said Memmi. This thoughts can be easily apply to any dictatorship whose terrific impact on the society damages on long terms the chances of a healthy return to normality of an post-democratic new world.

To be continued...