Knowing Yourself As The Colonised

How does one become ‘the colonised’? Not in terms of a historical fact or political status, although they are certainly important elements, but in terms of an experience. If we think of being ‘the colonised’ as a way of experiencing one’s life, how does one become it? 

In his book, “Black Skin, White Masks”, Frantz Fanon explores the themes of racism and colonialism, partly based on personal experience, emphatically arguing that these are social, systemic problems and not merely individual instances of prejudice. Why is this important? Because by recognising the roots of the problem accurately – in this case, as threads woven into the very fabric of society – we have a realistic chance of finding solutions and improving the situation.      

Fanon describes the ‘colonised people’ as those “in whom an inferiority complex has taken root”. Before exploring the reasons for such development, it is crucial to pause and realise it is a development. It is part of a gradually acquired way of experiencing one’s life, sometimes stretching across several generations worth of social reality. However, it is not something one is born with. Contrary to a variety of narratives with outright or more inconspicuous colonising dispositions (some colonisers prefer to style themselves as ‘liberators’), it is not the case that certain peoples are inherently inferior and naturally prone to and waiting to be colonised. In fact, such narratives are part of the problem.

Fanon explains that colonised people are not colonised because of their allegedly inherent inferiority. Instead, part of the experience of being colonised is the development of an inferiority complex. It occurs because the relationship between the colonised and the colonisers is that of the inferior and the superior. Referring to his personal experience and observations of racism in the relationships between white mainland French citizens and the people of colour from France’s overseas colonies (written in the middle of the 20th century), Fanon speaks of an image of inferiority created by the whites where the people of colour are imprisoned and shown kindness only as long as they stay prisoners to that image. It is not the sort of hospitality that can be refused. The person of colour is expected to assimilate the idea of inferiority with all the submissive gratitude for the white’s benevolence that it entails. 

On this patronising relation and the importance of language to sustain it, Fanon writes, “Making him speak pidgin is tying him to an image, snaring him, imprisoning him as the eternal victim of his own essence”. Here we get to the roots of the problem that serves as a sad but paradigmatic example of the fundamental importance of relations to our sense of self. In the words of the philosopher Susan J. Brison:

“Without the belief that one can be oneself in relation to others, one can no longer be oneself even to oneself, since the self exists fundamentally in relation to others”.    

_{Susan J. Brison}

The systematic way of relating to the other as somehow inferior, be it in an actively hostile or patronisingly ‘caring’, ‘civilising’, ‘liberating’ manner, is what the feminist philosopher María Lugones refers to as the arrogant perception problem. In her 1987 article, “Playfulness, “World”-Traveling, and Loving Perception”, she explains arrogant perception as thinking of others as being for oneself, not as subjects in their own rights. Lugones connects this problem with failing to identify with and appreciate the other person. She writes: 

“To the extent that we learn to perceive others arrogantly or come to see them only as products of arrogant perception and continue to perceive them that way, we fail to identify with them – fail to love them – in this particular way”. 

_{María Lugones}

By “this particular way”, Lugones means her suggested antidote to the problem of arrogant perception: playful ‘world’-travelling that constitutes the identification with another person as a subject, an openness that enables understanding the other. In other words, the problem of arrogant perception is that it robs the other of the integrity of their selfhood while leaving one’s own sense of self intact:

“Their [white/Angla women] “world” and their integrity do not require me at all. There is no sense of self-loss in them for my own lack of solidity. But they rob me of my solidity through indifference, an indifference they can afford…”.

_{María Lugones}

Thus, given that the sense of self is fundamentally relational, treating entire peoples as collectively inferior – perceiving them arrogantly – is what makes the colonised ‘the colonised’. It takes ‘a coloniser’ to become ‘the colonised’ – a systemic social relation that shapes individual identities on both sides because each positions and understands itself in relation to this structure. Recognising it as the problem of the system puts us on the path, however long and winding, of decolonising our societies and respecting the fundamental relationality of each self.

“We are fully dependent on each other for the possibility of being understood and without this understanding we are not intelligible, we do not make sense, we are not solid, visible, integrated; we are lacking.”

_{María Lugones}

keep exploring! 

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_{Image credit: Photo by GR Stocks on Unsplash}