Colonialism is not a machine capable of thinking, a body endowed with reason. It is naked violence and only gives in when confronted with greater violence.
Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth, translated by Richard Philcox
Yes, I reused the quote from my review of Babel. Its a good quote and is probably the most quotable sentence in The Wretched of the Earth.
I initially found this book hard to read. The text feel slippery, it felt like it kept moving from one concept to the next. I don’t know how much of that is Fanon himself or the effect of the translation. However as I started reading it a bit slower than I usually do, I started to absorb what the text was saying.
Every chapter in this book deals with a different aspect of decolonization. With the exception of the last chapter Colonial War and Mental Disorders, I found the book a useful addition to strengthen my perspectives on decolonization. The last chapter had descriptions of tortured methods used on colonized people so I ended up skipping most of it.
I also found myself in agreement with Fanon’s take on nationalism and national consciousness.
The people in arms, the people whose struggle enacts this new reality, the people who live it, march on, freed from colonialism and forewarned against any attempt at mystification or glorification of the nation. Violence alone, perpetrated by the people, violence organized and guided by the leadership, provides the key for the masses to decipher social reality. Without this struggle, without this praxis there is nothing but a carnival parade and a lot of hot air. All that is left is a slight readaptation, a few reforms at the top, a flag, and down at the bottom a shapeless, writhing mass, still mired in the Dark Ages.
From the end of the chapter titled “Grandeur and Weakness of Spontaneity”
Fanon stresses the importance of building social and political consciousness among the people and he considers nationalism or national consciousness a dead end if it does not lead to the people becoming more socially and political conscious. He also asserts that the people (or the proletariat if you are being technical) understands how to change their own destiny and needs the guidance of accessible political education.
If nationalism is not explained, enriched, and deepened, it it does not very quickly turn into a social and political consciousness, into humanism, then it leads to a dead end.
From “The Trials and Tribulations of the National Consciousness”
And also:
If the national government wants to be national it must govern by the people and for the people, for the disinherited and by the disinherited. No leader, whatever his worth, can replace the will of the people, and the national government, before concerning itself with international prestige, must first restore dignity to all citizens, furnish their minds, fill their eyes with human things and develop a human landscape for the sake of its enlightened and sovereign inhabitants.
From “The Trials and Tribulations of the National Consciousness”
I think one would benefit from a reading of earlier Marxist thought before Fanon to fully understand some aspects of the text but I’d say it was still mostly comprehensible to me as someone who hasn’t read other Marxist literature.
For example, in the chapter titled Grandeur and Weakness of Spontaneity Fanon refers to the “lumpenproletariat”. This is not a term that one would know if they hadn’t read earlier Marxist texts. The term is not without a significant amount of baggage which you can read about on Wikipedia. I’m not a huge fan of the concept as it applies to a significant amount of people who are very different from each other and thus it feels reductive.
Concluding my review of this book, I’m glad I finally got around to reading this. I don’t think I’ll be reading other Marxist literature any time soon but if I do I have a lot of concepts to use as jumping points for further exploration. I think this is essential reading for anyone who considers themselves a leftist.