Colonialism

What Dominique Pagani says

Dominique Pagani starts from his own experience. Raised in a colonialist milieu, he discovered the class relation when he heard his mother suspect a plumber just as she suspected the African "boys"1. He also recounts that a boy made him discover his colour "in the social sense", which awakened him to political consciousness2. He analyses colonisation as the art of dividing in order to rule. He draws on Rousseau, for whom the Corsicans' divisions are an artifice of their masters that has become a character trait, and he compares this text with colonial practices in Madagascar, the Congo and Algeria3. In Rwanda, the opposition between Hutus and Tutsis was kept alive by the colonisers4. He criticises social democracy for being colonialist, down to the tribute it pays to Jules Ferry5. In his view, neocolonialism is more rapacious than colonialism6. He approves of the toppling of Cecil Rhodes's statues, while refusing to let race struggle replace class struggle7. Finally, he asks why Corsicans succeeded in the colonies, and links this to a culture of orality2.

1. 1G comme Gauche21 Dec 2014
2. 2Le voyage de la fanfare - de Dominique Memmi6 Dec 2019
3. 310#5 La figure d'Antigone, telle qu'en elle-même enfin...24 Nov 2021
4. 4P comme Peuple30 Dec 2014
5. 5Radio Galère - Michel Clouscard - 27 Jul 2012
6. 69 #17 La métaphore géopolitique • Planck • Descartes • Clouscard • Dominique Pagani17 Mar 2021
7. 7#10 • Retour aux logiques du sujet11 Jun 2020

Introduction produced automatically from the 9 sessions on this theme, to be reviewed; the numbers link to the sessions.