Africa’s tragedy was the manner of contact, not its lateness
Evidence
The truth is that I have said something very different: to wit, that the great historical tragedy of Africa has beennot so much that it was too late in making contact with the rest of the world, as the manner in which that contact was brought about; that Europe began to “propagate” at a time when it had fallen into the hands of the most unscrupulous financiers and captains of industry; that it was our misfortune to encounter that particular Europe on — Aimé Césaire, Discourse on Colonialism, 75
Categorization
- XREF: Central claim distinguishing Césaire’s position from a nostalgic ‘return to the past’ — carries directly into how Islamophobia critics reject the charge of anti-Western primitivism.
- SEED: Article angle: how contact (not timing) as the historical variable reappears in analyses of migration, trade, and cultural encounter.