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Pierre Gourou
Reverend Tempels was a Christian missionary who participated in Belgium’s notoriously brutal rule over the central African territory that is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Tempels wrote a book about “the Bantu philosophy” that, he argued, showed that the native people wanted and needed to be ruled by superior white people. Although it had virtually no basis in reality, Tempels’s book was influential in Europe and is still commonly studied today. Césaire explains that, because it considered colonialism in philosophical rather than economic and political terms, Tempels’s book allowed Belgians to think of themselves as providing the Bantu peoples of the Congo with “satisfaction of an ontological nature” when they were really responsible for enslaving and systematically murdering these people. Tempels’s ideas show how intellectuals used “comfortable, hollow notions” of culture and ideology to make European conquest seem legitimate, even though it was really motivated by greed and white supremacism.
Reverend Tempels Quotes in Discourse on Colonialism
The Discourse on Colonialism quotes below are all either spoken by Reverend Tempels or refer to Reverend Tempels. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Section 4
Quotes
In short, you tip your hat to the Bantu life force, you give a wink to the immortal Bantu soul. And that's all it costs you! You have to admit you're getting off cheap!
As for the government, why should it complain? Since, the Rev. Tempels notes with obvious satisfaction, “from their first contact with the white men, the Bantu considered us from the only point of view that was possible to them, the point of view of their Bantu philosophy” and “integrated us into their hierarchy of life forces at a very high level.”
In other words, arrange it so that the white man, and particularly the Belgian, and even more particularly Albert or Leopold, takes his place at the head of the hierarchy of Bantu life forces, and you have done the trick. You will have brought this miracle to pass: the Bantu god will take responsibility for the Belgian colonialist order, and any Bantu who dares to raise his hand against it will be guilty of sacrilege.
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And the striking thing they all have in common is the persistent bourgeois attempt to reduce the most human problems to comfortable, hollow notions: the idea of the dependency complex in Mannoni, the ontological idea in the Rev. Tempels, the idea of “tropicality” in Gourou. What has become of the Banque d'Indochine in all that? And the Banque de Madagascar? And the bullwhip? And the taxes? And the handful of rice to the Madagascan or the nhaqué? And the martyrs? And the innocent people murdered? And the bloodstained money piling up in your coffers, gentlemen? They have evaporated! Disappeared, intermingled, become unrecognizable in the realm of pale ratiocinations.
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Reverend Tempels Quotes in Discourse on Colonialism
The Discourse on Colonialism quotes below are all either spoken by Reverend Tempels or refer to Reverend Tempels. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Section 4
Quotes
In short, you tip your hat to the Bantu life force, you give a wink to the immortal Bantu soul. And that's all it costs you! You have to admit you're getting off cheap!
As for the government, why should it complain? Since, the Rev. Tempels notes with obvious satisfaction, “from their first contact with the white men, the Bantu considered us from the only point of view that was possible to them, the point of view of their Bantu philosophy” and “integrated us into their hierarchy of life forces at a very high level.”
In other words, arrange it so that the white man, and particularly the Belgian, and even more particularly Albert or Leopold, takes his place at the head of the hierarchy of Bantu life forces, and you have done the trick. You will have brought this miracle to pass: the Bantu god will take responsibility for the Belgian colonialist order, and any Bantu who dares to raise his hand against it will be guilty of sacrilege.
Related Characters:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
And the striking thing they all have in common is the persistent bourgeois attempt to reduce the most human problems to comfortable, hollow notions: the idea of the dependency complex in Mannoni, the ontological idea in the Rev. Tempels, the idea of “tropicality” in Gourou. What has become of the Banque d'Indochine in all that? And the Banque de Madagascar? And the bullwhip? And the taxes? And the handful of rice to the Madagascan or the nhaqué? And the martyrs? And the innocent people murdered? And the bloodstained money piling up in your coffers, gentlemen? They have evaporated! Disappeared, intermingled, become unrecognizable in the realm of pale ratiocinations.
Related Characters:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
