Assimilation demands full cultural identification that neither side could accept.

Evidence

The more he got to know the people, the further he wanted to be from them. “Knowing” them could not mean joining them or identifying with them:“They all cared about me and I got used to this situation and to their mentality. Very quickly I learned their language and could speak with them and was drawn into their way of life; something of a sense of ease entered me and I remained among them, as if I were one of them, until I was able to get out of their clutches.” As the text makes clear, James could not, would not, be assimilated into African life. … For al-Inklïzï, assimilation seems a wonderful progress-wielding instrument for Africans, but one with little real promise. Even those Africans who have had a long history of trade with the British, French, and Portuguese, and whose customs have been somewhat altered by close contact with Europeans, still follow the “corrupt” superstitions of their fathers and ancestors. — Eve M. Troutt Powell, A Different Shade of Colonialism_…, 280

Categorization

• DEFINE: Al-Inklïzï’s framing shows assimilation as a colonial category premised on Africans abandoning ancestor customs, defined by its unattainability.
• XREF: Assimilationist colonial policy here prefigures the French/Egyptian ideology debates elsewhere in African colonial studies; contrasts with Sudanese indirect rule.