but only to reproach us with our inhumanity. We listened
without displeasure to these polite statements of resent-
ment, at first with proud amazement. What? They are
able to talk by themselves? Just look at what we have
made of them! We did not doubt but that they would
accept our ideals, since they accused us of not being faith-
ful to them. Then, indeed, Europe could believe in her
mission; she had hellenized the Asians; she had created
a new breed, the Greco-Latin Negroes. We might add,
quite between ourselves, as men of the world: "After all,
let them bawl their heads off, it relieves their feelings; dogs
that bark don't bite."

A new generation came on the scene, which changed
the issue. With unbelievable patience, its writers and poets
tried to explain to us that our values and the true facts of
their lives did not hang together, and that they could
neither reject them completely nor yet assimilate them.
By and large, what they were saying was this: "You are
making us into monstrosities; your humanism claims we
are at one with the rest of humanity but your racist
methods set us apart." Very much at our ease, we listened
to them all; colonial administrators are not paid to read
Hegel, and for that matter they do not read much of him,
but they do not need a philosopher to tell them that
uneasy consciences are caught up in their own contradic-
tions. They will not get anywhere; so, let us perpetuate
their discomfort; nothing will come of it but talk. If they
were, the experts told us, asking for anything at all precise
in their wailing, it would be integration. Of course, there
is no question of granting that; the system, which depends
on overexploitation, as you know, would be mined. But
it's enough to hold the carrot in front of their noses,
they'll gallop all right. As to a revolt, we need not worry
at all; what native in his senses would go off to massacre
the fair sons of Europe simply to become European as

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