PREFACE
Not so very long ago, the earth numbered two thousand million inhabitants: five hundred million men, and one thousand five hundred million natives. The former had the Word; the others had the use of it. Between the two there were hired kinglets, overlords, and a bourgeoisie, sham from beginning to end, which served as go-betweens.
In the colonies the truth stood naked, but the citizens of the mother country preferred it with clothes on: the native had to love them, something in the way mothers are loved. The European elite undertook to manufacture a native elite. They picked out promising adolescents; they branded them, as with a red-hot iron, with the principles of Western culture; they stuffed their mouths full with high-sounding phrases, grand glutinous words that stuck to the teeth. After a short stay in the mother country they were sent home, whitewashed.
These
walking lies had nothing left to say to their brothers; they only echoed. From Paris, from
London, from Amsterdam we would utter the words "Parthenon! Brotherhood!" and
somewhere in Africa or Asia lips would open "...thenon! ...therhood!" It was the golden
age.
It came to an end; the mouths opened by themselves; the yellow and black voices still
spoke of our humanism
