Sent: Friday, November 13, 2009 6:35:04 PM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern
Subject: RE: conference AMAROM,18 novembre : REPLY

These arguments appear directed at the growth of modern nationalistic movements
under colonial rule by European or Western powers. How would you frame the
colonial experience of the first half of the nineteenth century as transformed
by the French Revolution? From Haiti to Columbia to Mexico to the United
States, all seem to have been affected by the revolutionary concepts of
nationalism and equality. I think that before an appreciation of mid-twentieth
century colonial claims at civilization, it would pay to examine the colonial
experience at the beginning of the modern political era.

Keith Midkiff

-----Original Message-----
From: H-Net Network on the History of the French colonialism
[mailto:H-FRENCH-COLONIAL@H-NET.MSU.EDU] On Behalf Of Thomas Lappas
Sent: Friday, November 13, 2009 1:04 PM
To: H-FRENCH-COLONIAL@H-NET.MSU.EDU
Subject: Fwd: conference AMAROM,18 novembre : REPLY

From: "Benjamin Thomas White" <bw5@princeton.edu>
Sent: Thursday, November 12, 2009 8:54:07 PM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern
Subject: Re: conference AMAROM,18 novembre : REPLY

Dear list members,

I'd like to make a contribution to this debate. My apologies for a
longish posting--I hope it's interesting to those of you who read it.

First, to reiterate the point already made by Francis Simonis: the
original paper abstract nowhere argues that the colonial state was
not violent (consubstantially or otherwise). The words quoted by
Ibra Sene to suggest that it does--"L'État colonial s'est voulu tout
sauf violent"--refer only to the way colonial states perceived and
presented _themselves_: quite different. The violence of colonial
states is not in question, though we might very well question whether
colonial states are categorically more violent than non-colonial
states. That's what the rest of this message is about.


> I had in mind the theory of the state monopoly of legitimate
> violence. But, in my opinion, it is not applicable in the colonial
> context, simply because the colonial state was not the emanation of
> the colonized people (the majority). Rather, it was imposed on them
> by a foreign minority whose enterprise was destructive in every
> sense of the word.

This argument is based on an assumption, which I find troubling, that
there is a categorical distinction between colonial and non-colonial
states. The grounds for the distinction are that colonial states are
'foreign' and 'not the emanation of [...] the majority'.

However, 'foreign' is rather hard to define. If you only look at,
say, British India, then it's easy to see how the rulers were
'foreign' to most of the population. But in pre-colonial India, a
Muslim dynastic empire ruled over a population that largely differed
from the state in language and religion; while in independent India,
a national state that uses about 14 Indian languages plus English
rules over a population that speaks many more languages. (I'm
leaving aside the question of religion.) What stops the state from
being 'foreign' here? At times--as is normal in most states,
including much smaller ones, such as Britain--parts of the population
no doubt feel that it is.

Again, if we take French Algeria then it is easy to see how the
colonial state was 'foreign' to the non-settler population. But the
deys of pre-colonial Algiers were culturally Ottoman. In the
colonial period, many if not most of the settlers who arrived in
Algeria and benefited from full French citizenship at the expense of
the colonized were Italian, Spanish, Maltese: this did not stop them
viewing the state as legitimate. But in the later colonial period,
many settlers came to view the metropolitan state as 'foreign'
because, so they thought, it had failed to defend their interests--
this is why the OAS took up arms against the French state as well as
against Algerian Muslims. (The history of Algeria's Jews under
colonialism also demonstrates the mutability of 'foreignness'.) In
independent Algeria, one official language has been standard Arabic,
which is distant from the Arabic that most Algerians speak at home
and which some of them feel to be, effectively, a foreign language.
At independence, schoolteachers had to be imported from Egypt to
teach it. The other official language is French. I'm leaving aside
the Kabyles, with their wide range of views on whether the Algerian
state is 'foreign' or not (and wide range of competences in Arabic,
French, and Kabyle). I'm also leaving aside the obvious fact that
cultural identity--what makes you 'foreign' to one person but not to
someone else--is also unstable.

I'm not making an argument _for_ colonialism, here, or against the
independence of formerly colonized states: merely pointing out that
'foreign' is not an objective category, and that the notion that the
colonial state is foreign _and therefore illegitimate_ is an artefact
of the anti-colonial struggle. 'Foreignness' or otherwise, in terms
of official languages and other cultural markers, does not define
whether states are viewed as legitimate or not. Politics does.
The claim that colonial states were inherently violent and inherently
illegitimate because they were 'foreign' does not stand up. It might
serve as a basis for nationalist rhetoric, but it isn't much use as a
basis for historical inquiry.
Again, this is _not_ to argue that colonial states weren't violent,
or 'were' inherently legitimate.

I could make a similar argument, at similar length, about the term
'majority': like 'foreign', it sounds objective, but isn't. However,
to stop this message getting _too_ long I'll simply point out that
few states, historically, have felt much need to justify themselves
by reference to a 'majority' of their populations; that the notion
that they _should_ do so is a very modern one, dependent on modern
forms of state power shaped by modern technologies; and that even
today, even in functioning democracies, states' claims to represent a
'majority' of their populations are as likely to be a rhetorical
strategy as they are to be a description of actual practice. Gauging
the legitimacy of a state by whether or not it represents a majority
of its population may be useful today, when (many) states intrude on
the lives of their populations down to the level of individuals--
though if we do make such a measurement it needs to be of measurable
things (like the political rights exercised by individual citizens,
or the extent to which individuals who disagree with the current
_government_ of their state nonetheless accept the legitimacy of the
state itself), and not by unmeasurable rhetorical claims made by the
state. But it would be a mistake for us to assume, as historians,
that this is an adequate way of accounting for states' legitimacy or
otherwise in the eyes of their population in earlier periods. (Note
for French readers: for 'modern', read 'contemporain'.)

My point here is that it's a mistake to assume, a priori, a
categorical distinction between colonial and non-colonial states. I
would suggest that the characteristic violence of colonial states in
the modern period is the characteristic violence of _states_ in the
modern period, and the assumption that there's a categorical
distinction between colonial and non-colonial states can blind us to
the development and operation of state power in _all_ states over the
last couple of hundred years. I'd be happy to list some of the ways
in which this mistake can lead to flawed historical analysis, if
anyone wants them. But for now I'll stick to one of the political
problems that it poses: if, on the basis of this assumption, we
accept that the independent states established by anticolonial
nationalist movements are _inherently_ more legitimate than the
colonial states whose inheritors they are, we may be offering
ideological support to states which in some cases have shown
themselves to be just as ready to resort to violence against their
populations as the colonial state ever was, and just as closed to
genuine representation of a 'majority'.

Do I need to stress again, in closing, that I am _not_ justifying,
legitimizing, or in any way defending the violence inflicted by
colonial states on colonized populations? To judge from the initial
spur to this discussion, possibly yes. Thanks for your time, and
apologies for any typos or other problems arising from the (fairly)
rapid composition of this message. I'd be interested to have your
views, on- or off-list.

Yours,

Ben White

Postdoctoral Research Associate
Near Eastern Studies
110 Jones Hall
Princeton, NJ 08544
USA

(+1) 609-258-6722

bw5@princeton.edu

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