The Contradiction of the 'Liberal Colonizer'

The liberal colonizer considers himself to be morally superior to his fellow colonizers on grounds of being a humanist and 'kinder' to the colonized. The contradictions in this position are a great many and they manifest themselves in different ways for different individuals. First and foremost is the idea of being a humanist, and then not only benefiting from the brutal colonization of another people but also participating in it. I'd propose that this stems from the ideology of individualism, that is so closely linked to liberalism, wherein actions of individuals are treated as if though they exist in a vacuum with no regard to the socio-economic and political context within which they occur. In this manner, liberal colonizers can consider themselves morally righteous and above the haughty traditional colonizers for the personal acts of kindness and understanding that they partake in while ignoring the oppressive institutions they are a part of as colonizers. Mr. Fielding shows some understanding, albeit limited, of this when he is overcome by Aziz's gesture of trust and friendship when he shows Mr. Fielding a picture of his deceased wife. This friendship, of course, does not exist outside of the colonizer-colonized relationship and the inability to reciprocate that Mr. Fielding feels stems from the fact that, as a colonizer, he has taken much more than he can give back in forms of personal kindness to Aziz. Another way the oddness and contradictions of the position of liberal colonizer come to light is in the way Adela speaks of and thinks of the colonized. She may speak of wanting to understand the 'real India' but only because she wants to confirm the orientalist image of it already ingrained in her head. She is delighted by stories of, or brief interactions with, the colonized because she is fascinated by Indians as if they are some sort of exotic people in a fictional story, an object of fascination but not real human beings that she could interact with, and form relationships with, on the same level as she interacts with fellow colonizers. This is telling because it means that her liberal outlook stems not from seeing the Indians as fellow equal human beings but rather from the petty amusement she derives from her made-up orientalist image of them.