Chapter 2
The Colonizer and the Colonized
Short Answer Questions
1. What are the false statements forming part of the myth of the Negro?
Acording to Fanon the false statements forming part of the myth of the Negro are they are savages, brutes, illiterates. And he felt that this myth of the Negro had to be destroyed at all cost.
2. According to Fanon what do the black men do when the white men consider themselves as superior?
Fanon says in his book Black Skin White Mask that whenWhite men consider themselves superior to black men, the black men internalize this inferiority and don white masks. He then speaks of his own experience as a black man, he was tormented disturbed and angered by his own black skin.
3. How did Gandhi respond to Fanon’s binaries of white/black or oppressor/oppressed
Gandhiji responded to Fanon's Manichean-binaries of white/black, oppressor/oppressed in two ways: one, by placing both the colonizer and the colonized on the same plane in their search for truth. Two, Gandhi believed in entering into rational negotiations with the opponent.
4. How does Taisha distinguish between the dialectics of Marx and Gandhi?
According to Taisha the dialectics of Marx spoke of a 'dialectical materialism' that led to an alternative model of economic equality while Gandhiji spoke of a dialectics that related to the notion of Truth which enlarged upon the Hindu notion of individual freedom or Moksha to include social and political emancipation.
5. What does Ashis Nandy mean when he says that the ideology of colonialism existed in India even prior to the arrival of the British?
Nandy believes that even prior to the arrival of the British, the ideology of colonialism existed in India in various forms of social oppression and it continues even after the end of British rule in the country. It represents a certain cultural continuity and carries a certain cultural baggage. Colonialism, for Nandy is 'a psychological state rooted in earlier forms of social consciousness in both the colonizers and the colonized.
6. How does Ashis Nandy differentiate the second wave of colonizers from the first?
According to Ashis Nandy the first wave of colonizers comprised of plunderers, while the second wave consisted of groups like the missionaries who, although better intentioned colonized both the bodies and the minds of the people.
7. How does Ashis Nandy show that Gandhi fought colonial racism using the very qualities the West had de-legitimized?
According to Nandy, Gandhi was the first person to fight 'colonial racism' by upholding femininity, nurturance, interest in indigenous cultures and pre-modern way of living thereby legitimizing the very qualities that had been de-legitimized by the West.
8. Why does Nandy call the intellectual/political elite ‘ornamental dissenters’?
Nandy calls the intellectual/political elite 'ornamental dissenters' because like Gandhiji and Fanon he distrusted them as they had their own personal interests in supporting the colonizer. Gandhiji believed that the moneyed men' could not be relied upon for India's freedom because they supported British rule; Fanon too distrusted them because they were maintaining the interests of the colonizers for petty personal gains and they did not represent the people.
Answer each of the following in about 100 words:
1. Why do Frantz Fanon’s ideas on postcolonialism become more popular than that of actual anti-colonial leaders like Gandhi?
According to Young, Frantz Fanon’s ideas on postcolonialism became more popular than that of actual anti-colonial leaders like Gandhi for two reasons: one, the historical legacy of liberation struggles' highlighted its violent aspect where freedom has been forcibly won from the colonizers through bloody revolutions. Two, the Marxist orientation of postcolonial scholarship fore grounded and critiqued the material conditions of colonialism rather than diffusing these through a 'spiritualization of polities' that Gandhi attempted to do. This is why Gandhi's 'spiritual alternative' as a 'form of anti-western political and cultural critique' did not appeal to the secular, materialist perspective of postcolonial theorists.
2. Which were the two events that radicalized the politics of Fanon?
The first was Fanon’s introduction to issues of institutionalized race and class while he was campaigning for his mentor Aime Cesaire, a communist and the founder member of the Negritude movement. The second event was his introduction to the ideology of violence when he joined the Algerian Front de Liberation Rationale (FLN), in its war for the liberation of Algeria from the French. These were the two events that radicalized the politics of Fanon
3. How according to Fanon did the colonizers picture the natives?
According to Fanon the colonizer envisaged the colonial world as a Manichaean world, a world of binaries –good/evil, white/black, colonizer/colonized. So the colonizer delimited the natives physically with their army and police force. Not satisfied they also painted the natives as the negative other- the quintessence of evil and their society as totally lacking in value. The native according to the colonizer is the enemy of values, and in this sense he is the embodiment of evil. He is the corrosive element that destroys, deforms and disfigures all that has to do with beauty or morality and is the depository of maleficent powers.
4. Why did Gandhi remark that ‘it is truer to say that we gave India to the English than that India was lost’?
Gandhi believed that colonialism was not achieved by force alone but by the willingness in Indians to be colonized. He says in Hind Swaraj that the British came to India for trade but Indians 'encouraged' them to stay on by giving them power. The post of the Company Bahadur is an example in point. The Indian officers also created the possibility for their continued stay by buying their products and being lured by their 'silver'. The East India Company benefited from all this and opened more warehouses. To protect these warehouses they kept a standing army. Therefore, Gandhi states, that the English have not taken India; we have given it to them.
5. How does Ashis Nandy prove that colonialism had its adverse effects on both the colonizers and the colonized?
Colonialism, for Nandy, had its adverse effects on both the colonizers and the colonized. The external battle between the ruler and the ruled is redefined by Nandy as 'a battle between the de-humanized self and the objectified enemy - the technologized bureaucrat and his victim, the pseudo-rulers and their subjects. But, he believed, that the colonizers were worse affected by it. Accordingly the 'White Sahib' emerges as a 'self-destructive co-victim with a reified life style and a parochial culture, caught in the hinges of history he swears by.' For Nandy any theory on colonialism that does not recognize this degradation in the colonizer conspired in recognizing the superiority of the oppressor.
6. What is the alternative Fanon, Gandhi and Nandy advocate to the Eurocentric notion of capitalist development?
Fanon, Gandhi and Nandy were convinced that leadership for freedom from colonial rule rested with the rural masses. So they point to an alternative to the Eurocentric notion of capitalist development that marginalizes the disadvantaged across race, class, caste and gender. They advocate a subaltern perspective, the demonstration of his/her superior understanding of his/her oppressor as a human, over the limited understanding of the slave as a 'thing', by the oppressor. They believed it might be the way to that 'higher order of Universalism,' which includes the other.
The Colonizer and the Colonized
Short Answer Questions
1. What are the false statements forming part of the myth of the Negro?
Acording to Fanon the false statements forming part of the myth of the Negro are they are savages, brutes, illiterates. And he felt that this myth of the Negro had to be destroyed at all cost.
2. According to Fanon what do the black men do when the white men consider themselves as superior?
Fanon says in his book Black Skin White Mask that whenWhite men consider themselves superior to black men, the black men internalize this inferiority and don white masks. He then speaks of his own experience as a black man, he was tormented disturbed and angered by his own black skin.
3. How did Gandhi respond to Fanon’s binaries of white/black or oppressor/oppressed
Gandhiji responded to Fanon's Manichean-binaries of white/black, oppressor/oppressed in two ways: one, by placing both the colonizer and the colonized on the same plane in their search for truth. Two, Gandhi believed in entering into rational negotiations with the opponent.
4. How does Taisha distinguish between the dialectics of Marx and Gandhi?
According to Taisha the dialectics of Marx spoke of a 'dialectical materialism' that led to an alternative model of economic equality while Gandhiji spoke of a dialectics that related to the notion of Truth which enlarged upon the Hindu notion of individual freedom or Moksha to include social and political emancipation.
5. What does Ashis Nandy mean when he says that the ideology of colonialism existed in India even prior to the arrival of the British?
Nandy believes that even prior to the arrival of the British, the ideology of colonialism existed in India in various forms of social oppression and it continues even after the end of British rule in the country. It represents a certain cultural continuity and carries a certain cultural baggage. Colonialism, for Nandy is 'a psychological state rooted in earlier forms of social consciousness in both the colonizers and the colonized.
6. How does Ashis Nandy differentiate the second wave of colonizers from the first?
According to Ashis Nandy the first wave of colonizers comprised of plunderers, while the second wave consisted of groups like the missionaries who, although better intentioned colonized both the bodies and the minds of the people.
7. How does Ashis Nandy show that Gandhi fought colonial racism using the very qualities the West had de-legitimized?
According to Nandy, Gandhi was the first person to fight 'colonial racism' by upholding femininity, nurturance, interest in indigenous cultures and pre-modern way of living thereby legitimizing the very qualities that had been de-legitimized by the West.
8. Why does Nandy call the intellectual/political elite ‘ornamental dissenters’?
Nandy calls the intellectual/political elite 'ornamental dissenters' because like Gandhiji and Fanon he distrusted them as they had their own personal interests in supporting the colonizer. Gandhiji believed that the moneyed men' could not be relied upon for India's freedom because they supported British rule; Fanon too distrusted them because they were maintaining the interests of the colonizers for petty personal gains and they did not represent the people.
Answer each of the following in about 100 words:
1. Why do Frantz Fanon’s ideas on postcolonialism become more popular than that of actual anti-colonial leaders like Gandhi?
According to Young, Frantz Fanon’s ideas on postcolonialism became more popular than that of actual anti-colonial leaders like Gandhi for two reasons: one, the historical legacy of liberation struggles' highlighted its violent aspect where freedom has been forcibly won from the colonizers through bloody revolutions. Two, the Marxist orientation of postcolonial scholarship fore grounded and critiqued the material conditions of colonialism rather than diffusing these through a 'spiritualization of polities' that Gandhi attempted to do. This is why Gandhi's 'spiritual alternative' as a 'form of anti-western political and cultural critique' did not appeal to the secular, materialist perspective of postcolonial theorists.
2. Which were the two events that radicalized the politics of Fanon?
The first was Fanon’s introduction to issues of institutionalized race and class while he was campaigning for his mentor Aime Cesaire, a communist and the founder member of the Negritude movement. The second event was his introduction to the ideology of violence when he joined the Algerian Front de Liberation Rationale (FLN), in its war for the liberation of Algeria from the French. These were the two events that radicalized the politics of Fanon
3. How according to Fanon did the colonizers picture the natives?
According to Fanon the colonizer envisaged the colonial world as a Manichaean world, a world of binaries –good/evil, white/black, colonizer/colonized. So the colonizer delimited the natives physically with their army and police force. Not satisfied they also painted the natives as the negative other- the quintessence of evil and their society as totally lacking in value. The native according to the colonizer is the enemy of values, and in this sense he is the embodiment of evil. He is the corrosive element that destroys, deforms and disfigures all that has to do with beauty or morality and is the depository of maleficent powers.
4. Why did Gandhi remark that ‘it is truer to say that we gave India to the English than that India was lost’?
Gandhi believed that colonialism was not achieved by force alone but by the willingness in Indians to be colonized. He says in Hind Swaraj that the British came to India for trade but Indians 'encouraged' them to stay on by giving them power. The post of the Company Bahadur is an example in point. The Indian officers also created the possibility for their continued stay by buying their products and being lured by their 'silver'. The East India Company benefited from all this and opened more warehouses. To protect these warehouses they kept a standing army. Therefore, Gandhi states, that the English have not taken India; we have given it to them.
5. How does Ashis Nandy prove that colonialism had its adverse effects on both the colonizers and the colonized?
Colonialism, for Nandy, had its adverse effects on both the colonizers and the colonized. The external battle between the ruler and the ruled is redefined by Nandy as 'a battle between the de-humanized self and the objectified enemy - the technologized bureaucrat and his victim, the pseudo-rulers and their subjects. But, he believed, that the colonizers were worse affected by it. Accordingly the 'White Sahib' emerges as a 'self-destructive co-victim with a reified life style and a parochial culture, caught in the hinges of history he swears by.' For Nandy any theory on colonialism that does not recognize this degradation in the colonizer conspired in recognizing the superiority of the oppressor.
6. What is the alternative Fanon, Gandhi and Nandy advocate to the Eurocentric notion of capitalist development?
Fanon, Gandhi and Nandy were convinced that leadership for freedom from colonial rule rested with the rural masses. So they point to an alternative to the Eurocentric notion of capitalist development that marginalizes the disadvantaged across race, class, caste and gender. They advocate a subaltern perspective, the demonstration of his/her superior understanding of his/her oppressor as a human, over the limited understanding of the slave as a 'thing', by the oppressor. They believed it might be the way to that 'higher order of Universalism,' which includes the other.