Philosophy 10

“Yes, it would be worthwhile to […] reveal to the very […] humanistic […] bourgeois of the twentieth century that […] he has a Hitler inside him […] and […] that its concept of those rights [= rights of man] has been […] sordidly racist.”

Quote: Aimé Cesairé (1972): Discourse on Colonialism. New York and London: Monthly Review Press, p. 3. Picture: Jean Baptiste Devaux, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia. Creative Commons.

Aimé Césaire (1913-2008) was an Afro-Caribbean-French politician and author. He was a co-founder of Négritude and part of the anti-colonial movement.

The quote comes from Césaire's published speech "On Colonialism". He criticizes the self-image of enlightened Europe. He shows that human rights do not apply to everyone in a colonized world. Many people only became aware of human rights violations by Europeans through National Socialism, when they took place within Europe. Césaire's criticism of colonialism is important, but he fails to recognize the specific nature of racialized anti-Semitism when he turns Jews into white Europeans. To this day, Césaire is an important reference in discussions about the relationship between colonialism and the Shoah. Some see Césaire's ideas as a way of understanding the relationship between colonialism and the Shoah. Others see him as a pioneer in relativizing the Shoah.

*Amy M Cools (26.06.2019): Happy Birthday, Aimé Césaire! *Philip Kaisary (2012): Human Rights and Radical Universalism: Aimé Césaire’s and CLR James’s Representations of the Haitian Revolution. Law and Humanities, 6 (2), p. 197–216.

1950 / 1955 (?)