Colonialism

Colonialism Memmi's main idea is that colonialism is built on the psychological perception of the situation by the two groups of a society -- colonized and colonizer. Memmi states that collapse of colonialism is inevitable and that the only means for this eventual collapse will come through revolt. Memmi describes the influences of the colonial atmosphere on the ultimate psychological make-up of colonizers and colonized, and their reactions to colonialism. All his theories and descriptions lead to the conclusion that colonialism is doomed for destruction. I agree with Memmi that colonialism is doomed to fail. According to Memmi, the colonial system is fundamentally unstable and will lead to its own destruction, due to the mere rigidity of the system. The vivid example is our entire history where every empire was destroyed from within or from without. Soviet Union or Roman Empire or British and French colonies collapsed because of their own inner structure. To prove his point, Memmi describes psychological basis for a certain behavior of both groups, colonized and colonizers. The colonizers assume the behaviors inherent in his role -- brutality, oppression, exploitation, and bigotry. After they arrive in the colony, their actions are already determined by the institutions and social rules that already exist there. Because of the driving economic force, colonizers develop a big distance between themselves and the colonized. Memmi describes a mythical portrait of the colonized, as seen through the eyes of the colonizer. The colonizers attribute many negative traits such as laziness, corruption and lack of civility to the colonized. Central to this discussion is the issue of racism, which Memmi defines as "the substantive expression, to the accuser's benefit, of a real or imaginary trait of the accused." It is the colonizer's supreme ambition to turn the colonized into an object existing only as a function of the needs of the colonizer. All social institutions and relations between the two groups are shaped by the colonizers' constructed mythical portrait of the colonized. Memmi also argues that there is a negative correlation between the brutality employed by colonizers and the humanism and other positive attributes found in the colonized. However, colonialism not only serves to brutalize the colonized but also to instill in them inferiority and submission complexes that prevent them from acting to reverse colonialism sooner. Memmi shows why colonialism can only end through revolt. To dismiss any hope of colonialism ending through the initiative of the colonizers, Memmi points to left-wing Europeans refusing to accept the status quo and hence acting in discordance with it, going as far as to support the quest for freedom of the colonized. While serving to alienate them from the other colonizers, their actions are largely meaningless from the perspective of the colonized, who continue to group them with other colonizers and show no intention of advancing leftist doctrines once liberated, to the disillusionment of the left-wingers who then abandon their cause. According to Memmi, the options thus remaining to bring about the end of colonialism are either assimilation of the colonized or revolt. Assimilation can never occur because inherent in it is the overthrow of the colonial status quo, and as such it will never be tolerated by colonizers. Subsequently, the only tool left to the colonized is to reclaim their liberty by force. Sociologist Benjamin Ringer has also discussed the issue of colonialism and its relation to slavery in the American society. According to him, the British, Spanish, and other European conquests of the Americas created here two different groups -- colonizers and colonized. The Whites created a mythical portrait of the African Americans ant other ethnicities as inferior group. Rebelling from British colonialism, colonial rebels sought a more egalitarian society. Yet, as an expanding culture based on private ownership and white, male citizenship, Indian tribes, Mexicans, African Americans, and Asians were considered unworthy. Everyone who was non-Protestant and non-white, was considered inferior. Each ethnic-racial group entering New York may have had a different language and history, but all encountered being excluded from the mainstream. In secular Protestant Anglo-America, to own property conferred power and rights--the rights of a citizen and the power to vote. The promise of "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" was a social contract meant for white men. Inferior races and women were not believed by many elite white Protestant men to be capable of making rational and independent judgments. According to Ringer this duality has deeply rooted in the American society. The slavery stood like on the pillars on the psychological believe of the Whites that they were superior to all other races. It also explains the negative effects of the Reconstruction - the Whites did not want to give up their place of a superior race. Racism was built into the very foundations of the society. With the same ideas of colonialism deals movie Battle of Algiers. It represents the final hours of the colonial system, being destroyed by the revolt of the colonized as predicted by Albert Memmi's The Colonizer and the Colonized. The Algerians, unable to assimilate, turn to revolution and violence which the French are rather willing to return. As a consequence, the vicious cycle of mutual degradation and hate predicted by Memmi continues. Battle of Algiers presents, according to Memmi, the only two possible choices of assimilation and rebellion. As the three women are preparing to bomb civilian targets in the heart of European Algiers, they dye their hair, remove their veils, and create as far as possible the illusion of being "white." Memmi claims that "the first ambition of the colonized is to become equal to that splendid [European] and to resemble him to the point of disappearing in him." While the terrorists are successful in creating the illusions of being European, they are not assimilated. The French work against them to prevent integration into French culture - the checkpoints consciously remind them of their place, making their usurped identity more of a crime. Yet the women cannot assimilate into French culture, as they only awkwardly enter into the soda parlor and the dance hall. They cannot interact with the patrons for fear of being discovered. Despite their implicit acceptance into society, they still realize that they are different, and must carry out their plan of destruction. Thus, the racism that makes such emulation necessary creates the violence that will fuel the racism to grow on each side. When assimilation fails Memmi contends that, "the day has come when it is the colonized who must refuse the colonizer." Now that assimilation has failed and violent rebellion is the means of resistance, Memmi sees the struggle as a cycle of hate and repression, each act of repression contributing to the next. This is the embodiment of the central theme of Memmi's work - the mutual corruption of both the colonizer and the colonized. The initial degradation is the state of colonization, which turns the Algerians from and independent people to an oppressed populace. Albert Memmi contends that the cycle of mutual hatred that stems from colonization is unavoidable, and that a colony cannot continue indefinitely - either the colony ceases to exist because of extermination or assimilation, or revolt occurs. The movie shows the attempts at assimilation of the Algerians and their subsequent failure, which Memmi contends is a result of the unwillingness of the colonizer to allow assimilation and thus the end of the colony. The result is violence poured upon violence, and the mutual corruption of both the colonizer and the colonizer. This revolt is clearly seen in the movie, although the aftermath is not. The question is not whether the colonized will throw off their shackles, but if they can overcome the violent means that they have adopted in their struggle and reform their personal identity that was usurped by the French. I think that slavery is very similar to colonialism. They have the same psychological foundation. In my opinion, Memmi's concepts and ideas are sufficient to comprehend the essence of colonialism and why it is doomed to collapse.