Decolonize_Sartre.md 1.9 KB
Sartre
An existentialist writing during the structuralist era at the cusp of post-structuralism. He and Derrida weren't particularly friends. Sartre was openly quite Marxist.
Here, he writes to Europe from a dysmal gnostic mindset saying "You need to listen to France Fanon". Sartre wants to tell you what he thinks is coming (Europe is dead, violence is coming).
He talks about what is brought out of the colonized.
"There is one duty to be done, one end to achieve: to thrust out colonialism by every means in their power. The more far-seeing among us will be, in the last resort, ready to admit this duty and this end. But we cannot help seeing, in this ordeal by force, the altogether inhuman means that these less-than men make use of to win the concession of a charter of humanity."
He has ready Fanon and says that we Europeans have dehumanized the Colonized, who are less than men in our eyes, and they will use inhuman means to thrust out colonialism by every means in their power - including violence.
"Accord it to them at once, then, and let them eneavour by peaceful undertakings to deserve it. Our worthiest souls contain racial prejudices."
You're all racists. Give up your pride and resources, Europe! We've made these people less than men, so they'll do anything to get their humanity back.
"They would do well to read Fanon, for he shows clearly that this irrepressible violence is neither sound and fury, nor the resurrection of savage instincts, nor even the effect of resentment. It is Man recreating himself. It is rebirth. It is death and rebirth." It is man re-creating himself. It is death and rebirth. It is the process of being born again as something humanized and, in this case, through irrepressible violence. Sartre is asking Europeans to admit they are terrible, and to have Colonial Guilt and give the option for the colonized to destroy their countries and heritage by peaceul means necessary
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