Reponse+6+Lachney

“Therefore, dealing with African societies’ “historicity” requires more than simply given an account of what occurs on the continent itself at the interface between the working of internal forces and the workings of international actors. It also presupposes a critical developing into Western history and the theories that claim to interpret it.” (9)

"...In addition to being moved by the blind force of custom, these societies are seen as living under the burden of charms, spells, and prodigies, and resistant to change. Time - "it was always there," "since time immemorial," we came to meet it" - is supposedly stationary: thus the importance of repetition and cycles, and the alleged central place of witchcraft and divination procedures. The idea of progress is said to disintegrate in such societies; should change occur - rare indeed - it would, as of necessity, follow a disordered trajectory and fortuitous path ending only in undifferentiated chaos." (4)

“There thus arises the purely methodological question of knowing whether is it possible to offer an intelligible reading of the forms of social and political imagination in contemporary Africa solely through conceptual structure and fictional representations used precisely to deny African societies any historical depth and to define them as radically other, as all that the West is not.” (11).

Continuing the habitual argument, modernity, is also seen as characterized by the liberation of the sentient subject and his/her sovereignty from the unifying power of relation and the authority of faith and tradition. The triumph of the principle of free will (in the sense of the right to criticize and the right o accept as valid only what appears justified), as well as the individual’s acquired capacity to self-refer, to block any attempt at absolutism, and to achieve self-realization through art, are seen as key attributes of modern consciousness. So is differentiation among the various sectors of social life – for example between state or bureaucracy and the market, or between public and private.” (10)

“By focusing the discussion on what I have called “postcolony,” the aim was not to denounce power as such, but rather to rehabilitate the two notions of age and duree. But age is meant not a simple category of time but a number of relationships and configuration of events – often visible and perceptible, sometimes diffuse, “hydra-headed,” but to which contemporaries could testify since very aware of them”(14).

“I have tried to “write Africa,” not as a fiction, but in the harshness of its destiny, its power and its eccentricities, without laying any claim to speak in the name of anyone at all. As far as possible, I have adopted the attitude that everything remains to be learned about this continent and that, ay any moment, things may inflict surprise, even disavowals, on me.” (18).

“//Commandement//, in a colony, rested on a very specific imaginary of state sovereignty. State sovereignty in a colony had, in principal, to main features.” (25)

“Under colonization, the object and the subject of //commandement// combine in a single specific category, the native.” (28).

“First, //commandement// was based on a //regime d’exception// – that is, a regime that departs from common law.” (29)

“Second, //commandement// involved, in the beginning, a regime of //privilege and immunities//” (30).

“The idea that the “affairs of individuals” should be dissociated from the affairs of the ecclesiastical power, or hat the affairs of the ecclesiastical power are not he same as the affairs of the secular power, led to the establishment of laws with the purpose of, on the one had, to put an end to the power of customs, traditions, and authorities perceived as unjust and tyrannical, and, on the other, to secure an area of private freedom by distinguished it from public sovereignty; this is the context in which the notion of civility emerged standing in opposition to the notion of barbarism, and through barbarism, cruelty and tyranny.” (36-37).

"Two key ideas inform this chapter. The first is that through these ap- parently novel forms of integration into the international system and the concomitant modes of economic exploitation, equally novel technolo- gies of domination are taking shape over almost the entire continent. These new technologies result from the responses that the victorious ac- tors in the ongoing struggles around the continent give to the following questions: Who is to be protected, by whom, against what and whom, and at what price? Who is the equal of whom? To what has one a right by virtue of belonging to an ethnic group, a region, or a religion? Who has a right to take power and govern, in what circumstances, how, for how long, and on what conditions? Who has the right to the product of whose work, and for what compensation? When may one cease to obey authority, without punishment? Who must pay taxes and where do these revenues go? Who may contract debts, and in the name of whom, and for what may they be expended? To whom do a country’s riches belong? In short, who has the right to live and exist, and who has not, and why? All these questions relate to the three pillars without which no modern social order exists: definition of the prerogatives and limits of public power; codification of the rights, privileges, and inequalities tolerable in a society; and, finally, the financial underpinnings of the first two pillars. What, rather hastily, are called “transitions to democracy” are among attempts to answer these fundamental questions.1 But political liberalization is only one aspect, and possibly not the most decisive one, of the profound changes under way. Because these new technologies of domination are still being elaborated, they have not yet, generally, to- tally replaced those already present. Sometimes they draw inspiration from the old forms, retain traces of them, or even operate behind their facade." (67)