The most dangerous thing is thinking
In the beginning of the essay the author appeals to the readers with a request to “see clearly, to think clearly, and to answer clearly the innocent first question: what, fundamentally, is colonization?” And he ironically notes that “to think clearly is dangerously”.
The backward process
The author speaks of colonization not as of a civilizing process, but tries to display its opposite effects, tries to show its essence. With the help of irony the author wants the readers to feel all the brutality and cruelty colonization produces on colonizers: “First we must study how colonization works to decivilize the colonizer, to brutalize him in the true sense of the word, to degrade him, to awaken him to buried instincts, to covetousness, violence, race hatred, and moral relativism”.
The easiest way is to kill
The author brings in the quote of Colonel de Montagnac, one of the conquerors of Algeria: "In order to banish the thoughts that sometimes besiege me, I have some heads cut off, not the heads of artichokes but the heads of men." Ironically speaking the quote illustrates that the easiest thing is killing, as it may kill not only people, but it kills thoughts provoked by injustice. The irony shows the closed disc of colonization, but at some point it must be broken.
The true result
The colonizing processes have always been justified by the slogans of “Security. Culture. The rule of law”. But the results were different, as only “force, brutality, cruelty, sadism, conflict, and a parody of education” are observed instead of those high mottoes of colonization. The irony is painful.
