Colonial powers justified intervention by portraying colonized subjects as incapable of self-understanding

Evidence

Nevertheless the Oriental, en soi, was incapable of appreciating or understanding himself. Partly because of what Europe had done to him, he had lost his religion and his philosophie; Muslims had “un vide immense” within them; they were close to anarchy and suicide. It became France’s obligation, then, to associate itself with the Muslims’ desire to defend their traditional culture, the rule of their dynastic life, and the patrimony of believers. — Edward W. Said, Orientalism, 694

Categorization

• DEFINE: Key mechanism of colonial ideology: the colonized Other’s perceived incapacity to know itself legitimates the colonizer’s paternalistic stewardship.
• XREF: Directly scaffolds the Islamophobia readings on colonial subject-formation and how the West justifies intervention; connects to Fanon’s colonial psychology and the construction of the racialized self. — connects to: Colonialism granted subjecthood to dominated people without granting equality. — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection: How Data Is…, 353; Colonial consent was fictional because subjects could not understand the terms — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection: How Data Is…, 303; Colonial powers opposed universal human rights extending to their own subjects — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market: Human Rights…, 268 (+4 more)
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Edward W. Said, Orientalism, 694