The political vitality and vital politics of Césaire’s Discourse on Colonialism: A reading in light of contemporary racism

Abstract

This article offers a contemporary reading from Latin America of Discourse on Colonialism, one of Martinican writer and political leader Aimé Césaire’s most important works, which is not well known in the Latin American context, despite the great relevance that his politics have in that region. It is one of the strongest interpellations of colonialism and racism as inherent vectors of capitalism and Western modernity and even could be considered as a precursor to critiques of international development thinking and practices. The article includes a short biography of Césaire, and goes on to address how Discourse offers a non-Eurocentric reading of European history, arguing that Nazism is not an outgrowth of or an exception in European history but the ultimate effect of a civilization that justifies colonization. It then describes Césaire’s post-war aspirations for decolonization as a possible third way forward for Europe, breaking with the binarism of capitalism/communism, and outlines questions involving the tensions in the demands for equality and recognition of differences, which stemmed from his involvement in the departmentalization of Martinique in 1946, and the problems that French universalism caused for this process. Rereading Discourse today, there is a distinct blind spot in its androcentrism, and in Césaire’s ignoring of Black women thinkers who were his contemporaries. However, the text still offers original and creative proposals that subaltern groups in Latin America (racialized groups, women, LGBTQ+) can use to observe elements of reality that colonizers and dominant groups are reluctant to acknowledge.