The Implacable Dependence Toward Decomposition#
The colonial relationship is a moving form that manufactures its own destruction. It chains the colonizer and the colonized into an “implacable dependence” that eventually dictates its own decomposition. Events in Algeria confirmed Memmi’s hypothesis that the coherence of the system leads inexorably to its explosion. The rigidity of the colonial apparatus, which “atomizes” the native populations, makes it impossible for the society to integrate them without self-destructing.
The Secret of the Subhuman Revolt#
The “secret” of the colonized is that they bear within them the destruction of the colonial society. When a people is given only the “gift of despair,” they have nothing to lose. The misfortune of the people becomes their courage, transforming the endless rejection of colonialism into an “absolute rejection of colonization”. The excluded human beings affirm their exclusivity through national selfhood, creating a “patriotism of the colonized” as a direct reaction to the system.
The Logic of the National Renaissance#
The struggle for liberation takes on a nationalistic form because the colonized has been excluded from universality. The “young intellectual” who once broke with religion begins to fast with ostentation as a way to affirm solidarity with their people. This return to tradition is a “reactive drive of profound protest” against the colonizer’s deception. Even if the heritage is “moribund” or “rusted,” the colonized accepts it as a whole to rebuild their unity.
The Crucible of Post-Colonial Residue#
The end of military occupation does not immediately end the “colonization of the mind”. Murad Hofmann observes that the “colonized brains” often continue to follow the errors of their former masters, fascinated by Western ideologies long after they have lost credibility in the West. This “globalization” is not about geography but about “control of the minds”. The post-independence leaders often remain “Westernized” in their management of the state, continuing the cycles of dependency.
The Cascade of Modern Systemic Failure#
The modern “void of the self” reflects a technological boastfulness but human inadequacy. The sickness of the world cannot be healed by the “traditional masters” alone. The economic aspect remains fundamental; former colonies find their resources bought low and sold high in a new form of neocolonialism. The $241,770 cost of raising a child in a high-consumption society is a metric of a system that has replaced structural subjugation with “structural addiction” to pleasure.
The Final Affidavit of the Colonial Drama#
The colonial situation is “impossible” and “unacceptable” by virtue of its internal contradictions. It is a disease of the European from which they must be cured. The former colonized must cease defining themselves through the categories of the colonizer to become “a man like any other”. The liquidation of colonization is merely the prelude to a self-recovery that requires both the oppressor and the oppressed to annihilate the “colonized being” within.
