The Traces of Césaire’s Colonial Discourse in Pennell’s A Country with a Government and a Flag (1986) Omayma El Achak

Abstract

Although C.R. Pennell’s A Country with a Government and a Flag (1986) remains a foundational work on the Rif War (1921–1926), critical scholarship has rarely analyzed how its historiography reflects broader theoretical frameworks of colonial violence. This article sheds light on that gap by using Césaire’s theoretical framework from Discourse on Colonialism, specifically his concept of the "decivilizing" effect of colonization on the colonizer, as a critical lens to re-evaluate Pennell’s representation of the Rif War. According to Césaire, colonization works to decivilize the colonizer by practicing barbaric acts, including torturing, violating, and dehumanizing the colonized, all of which make the colonizer a decivilized agent. In Pennell’s book, he represents different aspects of the Rif war, which include the representation of the soldiers, the leaders, the land, men, women,…etc. Césaire’s discourse of colonialism is used as a critical lens to analyze Pennell’s portrayal of the European colonial forces and the Rif resistance. Through a qualitative textual analysis of Pennell’s portrayal of European colonial forces and the Rifi resistance, this study investigates the intersection of colonial discourse and historical narrative. The analysis reveals that while Pennell’s historical narrative reproduces Orientalist representations, it also exposes the tactics and moral contradictions of the colonizers, addressing how the European attempt to "civilize" the Rif “decivilized” the colonizers themselves.