Colonial rule manufactured political identities that it then naturalized as culture

Evidence

In Africa, Mamdani explains, the subject races were many. The list extends to the Asians of East Africa, the Indians and “Coloured” of South Africa, the Arabs of Zanzibar, and, of course, to the Tutsi of Rwanda and Burundi (28). The terrible history of the political divisions that, naturalized by colonial rule, sedimented as cultural distinctions that were later to lead to what has been called “ethnic violence” in Rwanda, is what Mamdani describes and, more importantly, explains and interrogates. Colonial rule produced political identities, identities that it proceeded to naturalize. — Gil Anidjar, The Jew, the Arab, 45

Categorization

• DEFINE: Establishes Mamdani’s framework of subject races versus subject ethnicities — ‘subject race’ being the reading purpose core vocabulary.
• XREF: Anidjar deploys Mamdani’s colonial categories to scaffold the Jew/Arab bridge — connects to the Rwanda/Hamitic analysis that follows and the broader colonialism literature. — connects to: Colonialism’s legacies persist long after colonial rule ends. — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection: How Data Is…, 257; Colonialism functioned through thingification that made the oppressed accept subjugation as natural. — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection: How Data Is…, 262; British colonial rule created ethnoracial divisions where pluralistic communal life existed. — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race: Reflections on…, 556 (+7 more)
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Gil Anidjar, The Jew, the Arab: A History of the…, 45