Voices of the Colonized: Rereading Memmi in the Iranian Context

Mehemmed Azadgar - August 3, 2010

Before the 1979 Revolution in Iran, a small book titled The Colonizer and the Colonized written by Albert Memmi, a Tunisian author, was published in translation by Homa Nategh. Of course, considering Ms. Nategh's positions and views on the national question in Iran, her interpretation of Memmi's writings is entirely different from ours. She translated this book from an anti-"Westoxification" and "Iranian nationalism" perspective, perhaps even influenced by the views of Jalal Al-e-Ahmad. Ms. Homa Nateq translated this book in memory of Jalal.

At the time of its publication, this book sparked discussions among circles of non-Persian intellectuals, particularly Azerbaijanis, about colonialism and whether it was possible to label Azerbaijanis as colonized and the central government as a colonial power. Earlier, Jalal Al-e-Ahmad, under the influence of Gholam Hossein Saedi and Reza Baraheni, who were his close and intimate friends, had said that "Azerbaijan is a cultural colony of the central government."

In our rereading of Memmi’s book, we will see that Azerbaijan is in every sense a colony.

The Legacy of Oppression and Colonial Conditions of Azerbaijan in Iran

What is often depicted as the image of the colonizer in people’s minds is a creation of the colonizers themselves and Hollywood movies. Albert Memmi, in the very first paragraph of his book, refers to this: "We sometimes enjoy picturing the colonizer as a tall man, bronzed by the sun, wearing Wellington boots, proudly leaning on a shovel-as he rivets his gaze far away on the horizon of his land. When not engaged in battles against nature, we think of him laboring selflessly for mankind, . attending the sick, and spreading culture to the nonliterate. In other words, his pose is one of a noble adventurer, a righteous pioneer" (p. 47).

Of course, we are also familiar with another image of the colonizer: Lawrence of Arabia, where an English nobleman leaves his home to fight the Ottoman caliphs in defense of the Arabs!

However, if our perception of the colonizer remains the one we’ve been fed, then there are no colonizers or colonized people in Iran. But if we look at the reality of Iranian society and compare the position of oppressed nationalities with the dominant nation and the central government, we will see that the peoples living in Iran are colonies of the central government. Let’s engage our imagination for a moment and picture Mohammad Reza Shah in the Sa’dabad Palace, with his index fingers tucked into the pockets of his vest, pacing on the expensive Tabriz-woven carpets in his office, issuing the order to attack the autonomous national government of Azerbaijan (1945-1946). What does this Shah lack compared to the British or French colonizers, who slaughtered indigenous peoples in their colonies? Or imagine for a moment Khomeini or Khamenei in the Jamaran Palace, issuing orders to attack Kurdistan, Azerbaijan, Turkmen Sahra, Khuzestan, and Baluchistan. Who are the people giving the orders to imprison and torture Azerbaijani Turks for defending their mother tongue, which is on the brink of extinction? And if they persist in defending their identity, they either die under torture in prison or are eliminated outside of prison through staged accidents or other means!

In our rereading of Albert Memmi’s book, we will see that the position of us Turks and other nations in Iran is that of a colony. Memmi essentially speaks of European colonizers and African colonized peoples, but the situation of the nations residing in Iran is no less than the colonies Memmi refers to.

In the first chapter of the book, Memmi addresses the position of the colonizer in the colony, which bears little resemblance to our colonizers. However, Memmi emphasizes that the essence of the colonizer harbors tendencies toward fascism and racism: "Every colonial nation carries the seeds of fascist temptation in its bosom" (p. 106).

"What is fascism, if not a regime of oppression for the benefit of a few? The entire administrative and political machinery of a colony has no other goal. The human relationships have arisen from the severest exploitation, founded on inequality and contempt, guaranteed by police authoritarianism. There is no doubt in the minds of those who have lived through it that colonialism is one variety of fascism." (pp. 106-107)

Memmi writes: "...the colonialist resorts to racism. It is significant that racism is part of colonialism throughout the world; and it is no coincidence. Racism sums up and symbolizes the fundamental relation which unites colonialist and colonized" (pp. 113-114).

After providing relatively detailed explanations about the relationship between the colonizer and the colonized, Memmi states: "Theoretically at least, a worker can leave his class and change his status, but within the framework of colonization, nothing can ever save the colonized. He can never move into the privileged clan; even if he should earn more money than they, if he should win all the titles, if he should enormously increase his power... Racism appears then, not as an incidental detail, but as a consubstantial part of colonialism" (pp. 117-118).

In this regard, dozens of examples and instances can be presented!

In the second chapter, Memmi extensively depicts the face of the colonized, which the oppressed nations in Iran are well acquainted with.

Memmi writes that colonizers believe the colonized are "lazy and indolent." The colonized are never seen as positive individuals: they are described as "not this" and "not that." The colonized are never identified as specific individuals and have no rights other than to drown in a nameless mass; "they are like this... they are all like this."

Memmi states that the colonized gradually accept what the colonizer says about them, and this is where the tragedy begins. "It is common knowledge that the ideology of a governing class is adopted in large measure by the governed classes. Now, every ideology of combat includes as an integral part of itself a conception of the adversary. By agreeing to this ideology, the dominated classes practically confirm the role assigned to them. This explains, inter alia, the relative stability of societies; oppression is tolerated willy-nilly by the oppressed themselves. In colonial relationships, domination is imposed by people upon people but the pattern remains the same" (p. 132).

We continue rereading The Colonizer and the Colonized:

"[The colonized] draws less and less from his past. The colonizer never even recognized that he had one; everyone knows that the commoner whose origins are unknown has no history. Let us ask the colonized himself: who are his folk heroes? his great popular leaders? his sages? At most, he may be able to give us a few names, in complete disorder, and fewer and fewer as one goes down the generations. The colonized seems condemned to lose his memory.

Memory is not purely a mental phenomenon. Just as the memory of an individual is the fruit of his history and physiology, that of a people rests upon its institutions. Now the colonized's institutions are dead or petrified. He scarcely believes in those which continue to show some signs of life and daily confirms their ineffectiveness. He often becomes ashamed of these institutions, as of a ridiculous and averaged monument" (pp. 146-147).

Albert Memmi asks: "By what else is the heritage of a people handed down?" and answers: "By the education which it gives to its children, and by language, that wonderful reservoir constantly enriched with new experiences .. Traditions and acquirements, habits and conquests, deeds and acts of previous generations are thus bequeathed and recorded in history" (p. 148).

The memory constructed in schools in Iran for the children of oppressed nations is not their own; as Memmi suggests in colonial conditions, "The memory which is assigned him is certainly not that of his people. The history which is taught him is not his own" (p. 148).

Malcolm X, when he began studying history in prison, realized that Black people had been erased from history. White people do not write about Black people; they erase them. Thus, Malcolm X reads the unwritten in the margins of the written!

We Turks have also been removed from the history books written by Persian nationalists or Persified Turks. Our past and history have been distorted.

Bilingualism in the Colony

According to Memmi (2003), the bilingualism of the colonized reflects their deep confusion, as the contrasting worlds of school and family create a lasting inner conflict rather than helping them achieve self-realization.

"The colonized is saved from illiteracy only to fall into linguistic dualism. This happens only if he is lucky, since most of the colonized will never have the good fortune to suffer the tortures of colonial bilingualism. They will never have anything but their native tongue; that is, a tongue which is neither written nor read, permitting only uncertain and poor oral development.

Granted, small groups of academicians persist, in developing the language of their people, perpetuating it through scholarly pursuits into the splendors of the past. But its subtle forms bear no relationship to everyday life and have become obscure to the man on the street. The colonized considers those venerable scholars relics and thinks of them as sleepwalkers who are living in an old dream.

If only the mother tongue was allowed some influence on current social life, or was used across the counters of government offices, or directed the postal service; but this is not the case. The entire bureaucracy, the entire court system, all industry hears and uses the colonizer's language. Likewise, highway markings, railroad station signs, street signs and receipts make the colonized feel like a foreigner in his own country.

In the colonial context, bilingualism is necessary. It is a condition for all culture, all communication and all progress. But while the colonial bilinguist is saved from being walled in, he suffers a cultural catastrophe which is never completely overcome.

The difference between native language and cultural language is not peculiar to the colonized, but colonial bilingualism cannot be compared to just any linguistic dualism. Possession of two languages is not merely a matter of having two tools, but actually means participation in two psychical and cultural realms. Here, the two worlds symbolized and conveyed by the two tongues are in conflict; they are those of the colonizer and the colonized.

Furthermore, the colonized's mother tongue, that which is sustained by his feelings, emotions and dreams, that in which his tenderness and wonder are expressed, thus that which holds the greatest emotional impact, is precisely the one which is the least valued. It has no stature in the country or in the concert of peoples. If he wants to obtain a job, make a place for himself, exist in the community and the world, he must first bow to the language of his masters. In the linguistic conflict within the colonized, his mother tongue is that which is crushed. He himself sets about discarding this infirm language, hiding it from the sight of strangers. In short, colonial bilingualism is neither a purely bilingual situation in which an indigenous tongue coexists with a purist's language (both belonging to the same world of feeling), nor a simple polyglot richness benefiting from an extra but relatively neuter alphabet; it is a linguistic drama." (pp. 150-152).

The Position of the Colonized Writer

"Some express wonder at the fact that the colonized does not have a living literature in his own language. Why should he turn to literature, considering that he disdains it? Similarly, he turns away from his music, the plastic arts and, in effect, his entire traditional culture. His linguistic ambiguity is the symbol and one of the major causes of his cultural ambiguity. The position of a colonized writer is a perfect illustration of this. The material conditions of the existence of the colonized would suffice to explain the rarity of writers. The excessive poverty of the majority drastically reduces the probability of finding a budding and developing writer. However, history shows us that only one privileged class is enough to provide an entire people with artists. The fact is that the role of a colonized writer is too difficult to sustain. He incarnates a magnified vision of all the ambiguities and impossibilities of the colonized.

Suppose that he has learned to manage his language to the point of re-creating it in written works; for whom shall he write, for what public? If he persists in writing in his language, he forces himself to speak before an audience of deaf men. Most· of the people are uncultured and do not read any language, while the bourgeoisie and scholars listen only to that of the colonizer. Only one natural solution is left; to write in the colonizer's language. In this case, of course, he is only changing dilemmas.

He must, in either case, overcome his handicap. Although a colonial bilinguist has the advantage of knowing two tongues, he wastes much of his imagination and energy in attempting to achieve a proficiency that will never be fully realized. This is another explanation of the slow ·birth of colonial literature. After this there re-emerges the ambiguity of the colonized writer in a new but even more serious form.

It is a curious fate to write for a people other than one's own, and it is even stranger to write to the conquerors of one's people. Wonder was expressed at the acrimony of the first colonized writers. Do they forget that they are addressing the same public whose tongue they have borrowed? However, the writer is neither unconscious, nor ungrateful, nor insolent. As soon as they dare speak, what will they tell just those people, other than of their malaise and revolt? Could words of peace or thoughts of gratitude be expected from those who have been suffering from a loan that compounds so much interest? For a loan which, besides, will never be anything but a loan...

The colonized writer, having succeeded after much effort in being able to use European languages those of the colonizers, let us not forget--can use them only to clamor for his own. That is not a question of incoherence or blind resentment, but a necessity. Were he not to do it, his entire people would eventually step in." (pp. 152-155)


The Response of the Colonized

"The body and face of the colonized are not a pretty sight. It is not without damage that one carries the weight of such historical misfortune. If the colonizer's face is the odious one of an oppressor, that of his victim certainly does not express calm and harmony. The colonized does not exist in accordance with the colonial myth, but he is nevertheless recognizable. Being a creature of oppression, he is bound to be a creature of want.

How can one believe that he can ever be resigned to the colonial relationship; that face of suffering and disdain allotted to him? In all of the colonized there is a fundamental need for change. For the colonizers to be unconscious of this need means that either their lack of understanding of the colonial system is immense or that their blind selfishness is more than readily believable. To assert, for instance, that the colonized's claims are the acts of a few intellectuals or ambitious individuals, of deception or self-interest, is a perfect example of projection: an explanation of others in terms of one's own interests. The colonized's refusal resembles a surface phenomenon, but it actually derives from the very nature of the colonial situation." (pp. 163-143)


Rebellion

"What is there left then for the colonized to do? Being unable to change his condition in harmony and communion with the colonizer, he tries to become free despite him . . . he will revolt.

Far from being surprised at the revolts of colonized peoples, we should be, on the contrary, surprised that they are not more frequent and more violent. Actually, the colonizer guards against them in many ways: by continuous incapacitation of the leaders and periodic destruction of those who, despite everything, manage to come forward; by corruption or police oppression, aborting all popular movements and causing their brutal and rapid destruction..." (p. 171).

In the preface to Albert Memmi's book, Jean-Paul Sartre writes, "And when a people has no choice but how it will die; when a people has received from its oppressors only the gift of despair, what does it have to lose? A people's misfortune will become its courage; it will make, of its endless rejection by colonialism, the absolute rejection of colonization" (p. 25).

Similarly, Memmi argues that revolt is the only escape from the colonial situation, as the colonized face increasing oppression and degradation, leaving them with no option but to break free through rebellion.

"However, revolt is the only way out of the colonial situation, and the colonized realizes it sooner or later. His condition is absolute and cries for an absolute solution; a break and not a compromise. He has been torn away from his past and cut off from his future, his traditions are dying and he loses the hope of acquiring a new culture. He h.as neither language, nor flag, nor technical knowledge, nor national or international existence, nor rights, nor duties. He passesses nothing, is no longer anything and no longer hopes for anything. Moreover, the solution becomes more urgent every day. The mechanism for destroying the colonized cannot but worsen daily. The more oppression increases, the more the colonizer needs justification. The more he must debase the colonized, the more guilty he feels, the more he must justify himself, etc. How can he emerge from this increasingly explosive circle except by rupture, explosion? The colonial situation, by its own internal inevitability, brings on revolt. For the colonial condition cannot be adjusted to; like an iron collar, it can only be broken." (pp. 171-172)


Reference:

Memmi, A. (2003). The coloniser and the colonised. Earthscan Publications.

  • Link to the Turkish version of the text in the Arabic alphabet

  • Link to the Farsi version of the text