Césaire distinguishes genuine civilizational exchange from colonial contact

Evidence

I admit that it is a good thing to place different civilizations in contact with each other that it is an excellent thing to blend different worlds; that whatever its own particular genius may be, a civilization that withdraws into itself atrophies; that for civilizations, exchange is oxygen; that the great good fortune of Europe is to have been a crossroads, and that because it was the locus of all ideas, the receptacle of all philosophies, the meeting place of all sentiments, it was the best center for the redistribution of energy. But then I ask the following question: has colonization really placed civilizations in contact? Or, if you prefer, of all the ways of establishing contact, was it the best? — Aimé Césaire, Discourse on Colonialism, 15

Categorization

• QUESTION: The premise that ‘exchange is oxygen’ sits in productive tension with the rush to condemn all colonial contact — the analytic hinge is contact-as-such vs. contact-as-domination.
• XREF: connects to: Colonial destruction of other cultures undermines the colonizer’s own civilization — Aimé Césaire, Discourse on Colonialism, 247; Colonial domination distorts the colonized’s relationship with their own culture and traditions — Frantz Fanon, A Dying Colonialism, 421

Related

• Colonial destruction of other cultures undermines the colonizer’s own civilization (similarity 0.80)

Broader Connections

• Colonial domination distorts the colonized’s relationship with their own culture and traditions #expands (0.78) — Frantz Fanon, A Dying Colonialism, 421
• Colonial destruction of other cultures undermines the colonizer’s own civilization #expands (0.75) — Aimé Césaire, Discourse on Colonialism, 247