An excellent treatment of the classic dialectic

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	• The Colonizer and the Colonized Albert Memmi Beacon Press, 1991 - 169 pages average customer review:based on 6 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

One of the top books of all time

Memmi captures the contradictions and destructive forces of colonialism from an individual perspective, but more importantly he provides us with a work that transends his subject matter and allows for greater understanding of the manner in which structural and institutional forces of other forms of oppression and inequality affect us today. A classic statement pertaining to the human condition and the potential for liberation.

A relic with insights

THis book is a wonderful example of what passed for scholarship in the 1960s. The author who grew up in Tunisia describes the hypothetical positions of the colonizer and the colonized, trying to discern what are the options open to them. In this anlysis several important realizations are made, such that the left discourages terrorism at home but supports it when 'suppressed non europeans' engage in it. But beyond a few insights the book lacks almost any grip on reality. Certain platitudes are taken for granted, for exmaple "The colonized is presumed a thief". or the colinizer is racist. Or the colonized has no choice over his desinty and "is not a man". But this is just not acurate for all colonial situations. In many situations the native inhabuitants did retain many of their rights and their soviergnty, the Rajas in India might come to mind. It may be true of Tunisia however which the book is coming out of, but little experience is given in the book, no facts are included as if the book applies to all situations. Rather this book applies to the situation in the ALgeria and Tunisia, and that is about it. Despite the vast generalizations, this book is mostly a museum piece of the kind of works that passed as 'academic' in the 1960s when anything that siad "Europe is evil" was gobbled up by the unsuspecting deluded public.

Nevertheless The book makes many startling and suprisingly accurate preditions and critiques. Of most importance is the illustration that most rebels against colonial governments in N. Africa became heavily relgiious, and the 'rebels' turned to religion and tradition as sources of pride. Also revolutionary in this is account is the pointing out of the hypocrisy of the left and its relations with terrorism. WOnderful points are made as the leftists of europe tried to straddle the question of why the 'good' anti-colonialist rebels became 'religious fanatics'. The leftists shuddered when one of two points adopted at Bandung was religion, not simply freedom and communism as the left predicted. Memmi's other works and his later statements regarding the situation of minorities under Islamic rule are sobering and honest. This is a good introduction.

Seth J. Frantzman

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Prophetic Work

Memmi's text, written in the midst of the colonial war in Algeria,is a powerfully useful text for examining later colonial insurrections (unlike the previous reader's claim), including the present Israel-Palestine conflict in which a clear line divides the homeland and the colony. Just as the war in Algeria drained France's economy, divided its society, and destroyed its moral fabric (and merely delayed the inevitable!) so too have the last two rounds of Intifadas (large numbers of both Israelis and Palestinians live in poverty for the sake of elite and unnecessary settlements). Memmi's words still resonate.

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An excellent treatment of the classic dialectic

Where Hegel discussed the psycho-social relations between the 'master' and the 'slave,' Memmi turns toward the relations between Colonizer and Colonized. Like Aime Cesaire, Malcolm X, Franz Fanon, Gandhi, Martin Luther King, and so many others of the mid 20th century anti-colonial movements, Memmi is interested in exposing the crippling psychological effects of the colonial relationship for all involved. His standpoint as a Jew in the middle of French North Africa allows him an inside/outside perspective which helps him to interpret the worlds of both colonizer and colonized. An exceptional work of anti-colonial theory, this book can open even stubbornly shut eyes.

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reviews: page 1, 2

First published in English in 1965, this timeless classic explores the psychological effects of colonialism on colonized and colonizers alike.

"Confiscated by colonial police throughout the world since its 1957 publication, THE COLONIZER AND THE COLONIZED is an important document of our times, an invaluable warning for all future generations."--The Los Angeles Times

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