JAMES WALSH is moved by an exhibition of graphic art that relates horrors that would be much less immediate in other media
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Cultivate your inner barbarian
RON JACOBS welcomes the translation into English of an angry cry from the place they call the periphery
DEHUMANISING: An Algerian man is stripped naked and tortured by French soldiers, the photo was taken by a French conscript and was handed over to the Algerian authorities after independence / Pic: Public domain
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In Defence of Barbarism: Non-whites Against the Empire
Louisa Yousfi, Verso, £8.99
RECENTLY, Verso Books published a translation of Louisa Yousfi’s Rester barbare (Fabrique, 2022), giving it the English title In Defence of Barbarism: Non-whites Against the Empire. Some would call this text a brutal, crude, even savage book. My response to that charge is simple. That is part of its intention.
In Defence of Barbarism is a compact punch to the gut of Western colonialism and its detritus. It turns the accusations and portrayals of the citizens of the global south as barbarians on its head, pointing the finger at the true barbarians; it takes the violence which is the essence of Western colonialism and imperialism for its own and demands to be heard.
It begins with the conclusion that violence is all that the coloniser, the imperialist understands. History tells us it is absolutely correct in this perception. Doesn’t every day bring news of another atrocity committed on Palestinians by the Israeli colonial project? Doesn’t the history of colonialism list its massacres and conquests as achievements worthy of praise instead of the disgust they should honestly evoke?
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