Page:Michael Velli - Manual For Revolutionary Leaders - 2nd Ed.djvu/41

 and Europe, but the illusion was dispelled as soon as they entered mines and factories and became harnessed to the process that created the power. But for the colonized peasants of later days, the foreign occupying army, administration, language, culture and religion are attributes of an alien being whose sources of power remain a mystery. And it is precisely the mysterious origin of the colonizer's power, namely the absence of capitalist development among the colonized, that leaves the colonized no choice but to internalize the delusions of the colonizer, to become what the colonizer would have them be. Comparing themselves to this alien being with its mysterious powers, the colonized do not see themselves merely as inferior human beings, but as a different species. For the difference between colonizer and colonized is not subtle, spiritual, intangible; it is gross, glaring and visible—it is the difference between an adobe and cowdung hovel and a steel and concrete skyscraper, between a mule and a jet. The difference is far too visible to be ignored; the innermost depths of the human being cry out for an explanation. An explanation as gross as the mysterious difference in power puts an end to the mystery. The visible difference in power between the colonizer and the colonized is explained in terms of every visible human feature not covered by clothing: hair, eyes, skin and nose. When the difference in features is not visible enough, language, religion and toilet training are added. The explanation becomes the special concern of a new social science, Anthropology, the Science of Man, which is assigned the task of discovering and cataloguing every visible difference among human beings, and even invisible differences. By the time this much has been accomplished, the development of productive forces among the colonized would only undermine the achievements of colonization. To the colonizer of latter-day capitalism, "native capitalism" is a meaningless combination of words with opposite meanings; it is neither the aim nor the outcome of colonization. Furthermore even if such an absurdity were possible it would merely lead to another absurdity, namely to the absurd possibility that the colonized would colonize each other and might even colonize the colonizer.

Colonization is not part of the last stage of capitalist development because it is no longer even a form of capitalist development. However, the identification of colonization with the last expansion of capitalism marks the beginning of the last phase of capitalist development. The identification of capitalism with a pre-capitalist social form which did not in the end serve to expand the social relations of capitalism becomes a historical precondition for the completion of the process which was begun and then blocked by colonization. The identification of the power of Capital with the power of the colonizer reduces capitalism from a system of social relations to a consortium of dynasties. Capitalism becomes synonymous with "western civilization." This reduction becomes the foundation for the construction of the modern model of anti-capitalist, anti-imperialist revolution.