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of the Algerian War. In this process of repression, one must seek not only the forgetting
of Sartre but the symptom of the decentring of the subject.
The Algerian War had an impact on political institutions of mainland France, and the
process of decolonization influenced the cultural climate and intellectual life of
postcolonial France. As Young succinctly puts it: ‘If so-called “so-called
poststructuralism” is the product of a single historical moment, then that moment is
probably not May 1968 but rather the Algerian War of Independence – no doubt itself
both a symptom and a product. In this respect it is significant that Sartre, Althusser,
Derrida and Lyotard, among others, were either born in Algeria or personally involved
with the events of the war.’ 41
After its defeat and the German occupation during the Second World War, France lost
its grandeur on the stage of international politics. In addition to the shame of
collaboration, France, left chewing over its defeat, was liberated by the Allies who won
the war, and it was hailed ‘as [a] victor out of kindness and tolerated as a poor relation
among the Big Five’ (this volume, p. 101). The 1950s ushered in the age of consumerism
and opened to the French the road to modernity. However, what emerges from Sartre’s
commentaries is that France was caught in an impasse. The premises upon which French
democracy was built were being sapped by the Algerian War; the Fourth Republic was in
its death throes; French economic and political structures, shaped in the nineteenth
century by a colonial ideology, were breaking down and in need of urgent reform; the
political instability which led to the demise of the Third Republic came to dominate the
life of the Fourth Republic; the French empire was crumbling.
Contemporary French thinkers and philosophers experienced this tumultuous period of
decolonization and the processes of modernization which ensued. One is tempted to
argue that the debate surrounding the problem of modernity and postmodernity has less to
do with the decentring of the Cartesian subject than with the political realities of
postcolonial France. In the same vein, one could argue that the radical politics of this
period gave rise to a heightened consciousness and produced a generation of thinkers and
philosophers attentive to issues of power. Although they never represented a homogenous
trend, the central issues which dominated their theorizing were power, discourse and
subjectivity. What is pertinent to note is that these thinkers dealt with such issues at the
level of theory and eschewed the politics of colonial and post-colonial France. Their
engagement with politics was either purely theoretical or limited to philosophical
exegesis. Sartre, here, offers insights into this politics.
Notes
1 H. Cartier-Bresson and J. P. Sartre, D’une Chine à l’autre, Paris, Robert Delpire,
1954.
2 J. P. Sartre, Les Temps Modernes, 123, March–April 1956.
3 Sartre reviewed Albert Memmi’s book, Portrait du colonisé, précédé du portrait du
colonisateur in Les Temps Modernes, 137–138, July-August 1957. This review
reappeared as ‘Préface’ to the 1966 edition of Portrait du colonisé, précédé du
portrait du colonisateur, published by J. J. Pauvert.