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108 THE WRETCHED OF THE EARTHinch of the way against the violent absolutism ofligion. Ministers are heard telling certainare not content, they should go and live in Cairo. In some easesAmerican Protestantism transports its anti-Catholic prejudicesonto African soil and uses religion to encourage tribal rivalries.On the scale of the continent this religious tension can takethe shape of the crudest form of racism. Africa is divided into awhite region and a black region. The substitute names of sub­Saharan Africa and North Africa are unable to mask this latentracism. In some places you that \Vhite Africa has a thousandyear-oldtradition of culture, that it is Mediterranean, an exten­Europe and is part of Greco-Roman civilization. Blackis looked upon as a wild, uncivilized, and lifelessplaces, you day in and day out hateful rewomen,polygamy, and the Arabs' allegedof all these resoonen attnbuted to me cOlOnist. The nationalbourgeoisie ofassimilated to the core the mostnial mentality, take over from the Europeansdations for a racist philosophy that is terribly prejudicial tofuture of Africa. Through its apathy and mimicry it encouragesthe growth and development of racism that was typical of thecolonial period. It is hardly surprising then in a country whichcalls itself African to hear remarks that are nothing less than racistand to witness paternalistic behavior bitterly reminiscent of Paris,Brussels, or London.In certain regions ofAfrica, bleating paternalism toward blacksand the obscene idea drawn from Western culture that the blackrace is impermeable to logic and science reign in all their nakedness.There are some places where black minorities are confinedsemi slavery, which justifies the caution, even distrust, thatBlack Africa manifest toward the countries ofTHE TRIALS AND TRIBULATIONS OF NATIONAL CONSCIOUSNESS 109Africa. It is not unusual for a citizen of Black Africa walkina city of \Vhite Africa to hear children call him "nigger"or to find the authorities speaking to him in pidgin.too likely that students from Blackof the Sahara will be asked by., in houses in their homecountries, whether they have electricity, and if their family practicescertain regionsencounter fellow countrymen who begwhere there are blacks." Likewise, in certain newlystates of Black Africa, members of parliament, even governmentministers, solemnly declare that the danger lies not in a reoccupationof their country by a colonial power but a possible invasionby "Arab vandals from the north."As we have seen, the inadequacies of the bourgeoisie are notrestricted to economics. Achieving power in the name ofa narrowmindednationalism, in the name of the race, and in spite of itsmagnificently worded declarations totally void of content, irrewieldingphrases straight out of Europe's treatises onpolitical philosophy, the bourgeoisie proves itself inofimplementing a program with even a minimumcontent. \Vhen it is strong, when it organizes the worldona bourgeoisie does not hesitate to maintaina n,.~'tpl"'CPideas. An economicallysoundstances to it to disregard itsfundamentally racist, the Western bourgeoisie ages to mask this racism by multiplying the nuances, enabling it to maintain intact its discourse on human dignity all its magnanimity. Western bourgeoisie has erected enough barriers and safeguardsfor it to fear no real competition from those it exploits and