Mistakes and Marigolds

Aime Cesaire, in Discourse on Colonialism offers an insight into the many ways in which Europe has tried but failed to justify its actions. With this, when reflecting on what Dr. Taymiya Zaman had to say, I was able to also understand that redemption for Europe will most likely mean an acceptance of things. Things that have not only come to constitute the aftermath of its empire, but in the process have become unrecognizable to it.

In order to redeem oneself, there has to be a certain voluntarism attached to the endeavor. Cesaire describes Europe as a civilization that found “itself obliged”. That is, it felt it was bound to exercise its “trickery and deceit”, almost as a duty it could not have escaped. Here it is useful to pause and consider that violence and the creation of the colonies were not seen as mistakes. The entire enterprise was seen as a respectable and “dignified” step towards “Europeanization”. Europe has always thought of itself to be the redeemer of the world. It has walked on this Earth, shaking its head trying to look concerned so that it is applauded for picking up a “burden”. Perhaps for anyone to murder and to steal the feeling that it is a crime is too much to bear. It is fair to think then that colonialism has always been a reality made up of deflections. A need to “hide the truth” has been at the core of it. It was an “idea” that consistently tried to make itself feel like “fact”. Europe might be able to redeem itself, in the sense that it can leave  colonization as something in the past, but it can never acquit itself of its crimes. It can never escape the idea it has set loose into the world. Europe’s redemption must mean more than one redemption then; it must mean many efforts, perhaps never-ending to understand the “social implications” it has produced. Most of all, it must still want redemption despite these conditions.

Redemption here then must also mean having to accept that what one is recovering from is part of the present. This brings me to Dr. Taymiya Zaman’s talk, specifically when she spoke about marigold flowers and their significance in both Mexico and Pakistan. Brought to the colonies by the British, the flowers although remnants of a dark history, have become comforting companions during times of grief and celebration. Distributed across oceans and continents, the presence of these flowers cannot be ignored by Europe. If it says the “corpses do not prove anything” then whatever has been able to live despite the plunder, is what counts as evidence. For Cesaire too, the only “consolation is that…peoples remain” and in this I am reminded of the peculiarity of colonialism. That in its intellectual thinking and its belief in the universal applicability of theories it has left no room for the “proletariat” to breathe. The oppressed must “go beyond” but it takes this leap from the colonized land. The future only makes sense if the past is seen as its complete opposite. That is to say, the colonized is always linked to its oppression, even if it is liberating itself from it. What does this have to do with redemption? Well, for the colonist, for Europe, there now rests a responsibility. To be saved from its “barbarism” it must delve deeper into its sins, like it has never done so before. It must see the world as being at the service of healing the colonized. This is a different kind of service for Europe, not one about civilizing but about seeing “civilization” as already existing.

To conclude, Europe is indeed redeemable. In the sense that, to deny it this possibility would be to deny it its humanity. Whether or not it will succeed at this is another question. The colonist although an “animal” for Cesaire, has not always been one. For the colonist to be a “savage” is to say it has forgone what it might have been. These terms are not purely descriptive, they help define what is being negated in man. Europe can only be saved if it recognizes that its saving is not only for itself, but also proves to be consequential. Its redemption can never be a personal one. It must accept that it cannot write a “monologue” for the world, and that it is forever connected to those very same people it has always been embarrassed to accept relation with.“The salvation of Europe is… a matter of the Revolution”, that is, as simple as it may sound, Europe must see that there is a life greater than its “methods”.