X-Posted from H-NET List for African History and Culture
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From: Jeremy Rich <jrich@MTSU.EDU>
Subject: legimitization of violence and the French colonial state
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Date: Friday, 13 November 2009
From: Aldwin Roes <aldwinroes@yahoo.com>


I like this quote, which seems to sum up the modernizing colonial ethos quite
nicely. Colonialism was above all a process of creative destruction, and its
desire to foster (presumably progressive) social change often lay at the root
of its violence.

In this, the colonial state was similar to other modernizers, be it in Russia,
China or Germany, who were willing to accept great loss of life and human
suffering as the inevitable costs of transcending 'traditional' backwardness
and entering a utopian, modern age with its proclaimed benefits, not just to
the colonizer, but to humanity at large. The colonial state found its
(self-)legitimization in the encouragement and management of this transition,
partially by combating 'barbaric' customs (slavery, cannibalism, polygamy,
etc.) but mostly through imposing tough labour regimes (the value of labour as
a civilizing force was, conveniently but not necessarily insincerely, held in
very high esteem). The greater good to be achieved (the 'enlightenment' of the
'black race') could, for example, lead to the acceptance by colonial officials
of astonishing worker mortality rates in Africa's copper and gold mines, since
shielding African workers from the industry
would not only affect revenues but also allow them to sink back into their
assumed state of barbarity. It was, apparently, better to be a dead miner than
a healthy savage.

During the high era of European colonialism in Africa there was little dissent
on the fact that such a transition was both inevitable and desirable, but there
was considerable debate as to the speed and manner in which it was to be
carried through. Broadly speaking, it would seem that before the First World
War a radical approach was favoured (with wild and unhampered labour
recruitment causing widespread disruption and suffering), while after the First
World War, experience had taught the colonial state that for practical as well
as humanitarian reasons it was often desirable to proceed more cautiously (as
the maintenance of social order with the meagre resources of the colonial state
depended on it). It is however worth remembering that the pace or manner of
social change in colonial Africa as it actually occurred often eluded its
control.

As attempting to write this in French would involve just as serious an act of
violence against the French language, I hope my English response will do.

Aldwin Roes
University of Sheffield

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