“Europe is indefensible.”

“Europe is indefensible.” – Aimé Césaire , I want you to consider how Robin Kelley defines “surrealism” as a political project in his introduction to Césaire’s text. You will also want to consider how Suzanne and Aimé Césaire define it as a political practice? Why, for instance, does Aimé Césaire’s Discourse on Colonialism (1952) take the form that it does? In what precise ways does it not only describe but also enact an emancipatory vision of the world in its very language (or imagery) and style (or tone)—in not only what the text says but how it says it? Be specific and make sure you refer to both the content of Aimé Césaire’s critique (“Europe is indefensible”; the theme of colonialism’s “boomerang effect”; the vivid, potent, almost horror-film like imagery) as well as the form it takes (the text repeats, for instance, its argument or develops its argument rhythmically; speaks in the first-person; addresses if not interrogates the reader; is a series of declarations or long lists of abuses; takes an ironic tone in order to call attention to Europe’s—or the colonizer’s—contradictions). It will also be useful to remember that Kelley refers to Césaire’s text as both a “third world manifesto” and as “an act of insurrection” (7, 28). A strong response will therefore suggest why the text takes the form of a “manifesto,” from the Latin, meaning, “to make public.” In other words, Kelley is suggesting that Césaire is making something otherwise invisible manifest, or known. How does this effort at making known a truth that otherwise remains hidden—or which refuses to be acknowledged—relate to surrealism as form of “knowledge,” as Kelley suggests, quoting Césaire himself (17)? Why does Césaire’s counter-discourse of European civilization take the form that it does as “poetic knowledge”—that is, why is surrealism so relevant to the claims that Césaire is making to repudiate Europe’s invention of the “barbaric Negro” (21).