Balfour’s 1910 speech exemplifies the knowledge-power nexus of British empire

Evidence

First of all, look at the facts of the case. Western nations as soon as they emerge into history show the beginnings of those capacities for self-government … having merits of their own… . You may look through the whole history of the Orientals in what is called, broadly speaking, the East, and you never find traces of self-government. All their great centuries—and they have been very great—have been passed under despotisms, under absolute governments. All their great contributions to civilization—and they have been great—have been made under that form of government. Conqueror has succeeded conqueror; one domination has followed another; but never in all the revolutions of fate and fortune have you seen one of those nations of its own motivation establish what we, from a Western point of view, call self-government. — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 202 (#exemplifies, via linked claim)

The old monologue of the colonial situation, already shaken by the existence of the struggle, disappeared completely by 1956. The Voice of Fighting Algeria and all the voices picked up by the receiver now revealed to the Algerian the tenuous, very relative character, in short, the imposture of the French voice presented until now as the only one. The occupier’s voice was stripped of its authority. — Frantz Fanon, A Dying Colonialism, 329 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Balfour denied Orientals any capacity for self-government in 1910 — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 202; The colonized also wield knowledge-as-power discourses against those they colonize; Colonial authority depends on the colonized hearing no other voice — Frantz Fanon, A Dying Colonialism, 329 (+1 more)

Related

• Balfour denied Orientals any capacity for self-government in 1910 (similarity 0.85)
• British colonial officials claimed Orientals were incapable of self-government (similarity 0.84)
• Balfour claimed Orientals never developed capacities for self-government (similarity 0.84)
• Balfour denied Orientals any history of self-government (similarity 0.83)
• Colonial discourse recasts Western self-government as a capacity Orientals lack (similarity 0.82)
• Colonial authority depends on the colonized hearing no other voice (similarity 0.82)
• Colonial discourse lets the colonizer speak for the colonized while silencing them (similarity 0.81)
• Imperialist statesmen openly asserted that Easterners never showed self-government. (similarity 0.79)
• Balfour framed Oriental civilization as incapable of self-government (similarity 0.79)
• Knowledge of colonized peoples produces power to control them (similarity 0.79)
• Colonial power endowed scholarly knowledge about Islam with authority (similarity 0.78)

Broader Connections

• Balfour denied Orientals any capacity for self-government in 1910 #exemplifies (0.85) — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 202
• The colonized also wield knowledge-as-power discourses against those they colonize #exemplifies (0.60)
• Colonial authority depends on the colonized hearing no other voice #expands (0.60) — Frantz Fanon, A Dying Colonialism, 329