Instrumentalized Objects
Justifying Colonization
The concept of «civilization» has long been used in Europe to legitimize the supposed validity of colonial domination. A veritable system of thought in the 19th century, the «civilizing» rhetoric was also employed in Switzerland. By acknowledging the Christian faith as the only way to the salvation of souls, free trade as a means of material progress and Western knowledge as an objective truth, this rhetoric aimed to justify European expansion overseas while rationalizing the violence characteristic of it.
Even better, it presented the latter as a philanthropic act towards the whole of humanity. Its arguments, based among other things on racial theories, harmoniously united certain fundamental European contradictions, for example that between Western science and the Christian religion. It also affected the construction of identity in several countries part of the northern hemisphere which claimed to be «superior» to a southern hemisphere seen as «inferior».
Fabio Rossinelli
How was Colonization Legitimized?
What was a National Exhibition?
Are Museums Mirrors of Racial Theories?
