4 Matching Annotations
  1. Oct 2017
    1. I find myself wondering too whether he has a private ritual of purification, carried out behind closed doors, to enable him to return and break bread with other men. Does he wash his hands very carefully, perhaps, or change all his clothes; or has the Bureau created new men who can pass without disquiet between the unclean and the clean?

      The magistrate has all this disbelief for all of the inhumanity that Joll has been showing ever since he arrived, so he wants to believe that in order for Joll to walk this earth without remorse that he is somehow able to "clean" himself of all of the cruelty. By showing the inhumanity of Joll and the men that follow him, we are able to see the humanity in the magistrate. For him it is impossible not to feel empathy for the prisoners and even more so being that brutal; especially, not without having a ritual that would help him be a clean man.

    1. To testify to a history of oppression is necessary, but it is not sufficient unless that history is redirected into intellectual process and universalized to include all sufferers. Yet too often testimony to oppression becomes only a justification for further cruelty and inhumanity,

      Here, Said is telling us that in order for history of oppression to have a purpose, it needs to be used in such a way where all of the voices of all of the oppressed can be heard or else we only hear the voices that justify tyranny. I think this is true and still remains true today, because if we only get that one part of history that has some justification, nothing changes. This is why history repeats itself; we don't look at exactly all of the suffering that happens.

    2. He now intervened to defend imperialism, saying in tones of almost comic reverence, that it had accomplished things that natives couldn’t have done for themselves. It had taught them, among other things, he said, how to appreciate the cuneiform and hieroglyphics of their own traditions

      Imperialism is a huge part of the formation of some of the large empires that we study throughout history. While Said is saying that the man speaking is defending imperialism i think he is portraying a part of it that can be very destructive. The man talks about how these people who may or may not be a large empire have decided that the native peoples are in need of their help whether or not it has actually been asked for. also, how can you teach a people more about their own writings if they are in fact the ones that wrote it?

    3. It is important to note that much of the early cultural resistance to imperialism on which nationalism and independence movements were built was salutary and necessary.

      Cultural resistance to imperialism ultimately resulted to the idea of nationalism and independence in specific places that weren't being governed correctly or fairly. These specific places felt out of place or were feeling that they weren't even part of the world rather just a part of another bigger country or nation. They are reclaiming their identity by claiming their independence. They become their own nation/race/category, what ever it may be. This is where we see the idea that they were simply being part of an Empire, but they desired to become their own for their own identity's sake (culture/race) so they begin to advocate against imperialism. The fact that these places/categories/race were trying to separate themselves from powerful empires resulted in those empires' to crumble to ruins as they began losing power.