Civilizing rhetoric normalized subjecthood by casting Africans as future citizens

Evidence

What was true of the naturalization bill was equally true of adapted education, the decision to suppress certain customs, and the nonrecognition of slavery during Roume’s tenure. In these instances as well, the French were not content simply to qualify Africans as barbarians. They were barbarians, in each instance, capable of-and in the process of receiving-republican civilization. By inaugurating policies that were consistent with France’s revolutionary heritage, Roume here too managed to normalize the presence of so many subjects in a nation of citizens. Roume’s initiatives in the “moral” realm, in short, reveal that the republican sujet was no anomaly at all, thanks to the democratic content of Dakar’s early civilizing rhetoric and actions. — Alice L. Conklin, A Mission to Civilize_ The Republican…, 364

Categorization

• XREF: Directly serves the reader’s core purpose: how ‘republican civilization’ framing made forced rule compatible with republican ideology. — connects to: Key human rights drafters combined universalist rhetoric with colonial paternalism — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market: Human Rights…, 269