The Wretched of the Earth (French: Les Damnés
de la Terre) is a 1961 book by Frantz Fanon,
in which the author provides a psychiatric
and psychologic analysis of the dehumanizing
effects of colonization upon the individual
and the nation, and discusses the broader
social, cultural, and political implications
inherent to establishing a social movement
for the decolonization of a person and of
a people. The French-language title derives
from the opening lyrics of "The Internationale".
== Summary ==
Through critiques of nationalism and of imperialism,
Fanon presents a discussion of personal and
societal mental health, a discussion of how
the use of language (vocabulary) is applied
to the establishment of imperialist identities,
such as colonizer and colonized, to teach
and psychologically mold the native and the
colonist into their respective roles as slave
and master and a discussion of the role of
the intellectual in a revolution. Fanon proposes
that revolutionaries should seek the help
of the lumpenproletariat to provide the force
required to effect the expulsion of the colonists.
In traditional Marxist theory, the lumpenproletariat
are the lowest, most degraded stratum of the
proletariat—especially criminals, vagrants
and the unemployed—people who lack the class
consciousness to participate in the anti-colonial
revolution.
Fanon applies the term lumpenproletariat to
the colonial subjects who are not involved
in industrial production, especially the peasantry,
because, unlike the urban proletariat (the
working class), the lumpenproletariat have
sufficient intellectual independence from
the dominant ideology of the colonial ruling
class, readily to grasp that they can revolt
against the colonial status quo and so decolonize
their nation. One of the essays included in
The Wretched of the Earth is "On National
Culture", in which Fanon highlights the necessity
for each generation to discover its mission
and to fight for it.
== "On Violence" ==
The first section of Fanon’s book is entitled
“On Violence.” It is a detailed explanation
of violence in relation to both the colonial
world and the process of decolonization. Fanon
begins with the premise that decolonization
is, by definition, a violent process without
exception. The object of that process is the
eventual replacement of one group of humans
with another, and that process is only complete
when the transition is total. This conception
of decolonization is based on Fanon's construction
of the colonial world. Through his observations,
he concluded that all colonial structures
are actually nested societies which are not
complementary. He uses Aristotelian logic
in that the colony followed the “principle
of reciprocal exclusivity”. Based on this
conclusion, Fanon characterizes the assessment
of the native population by the settler class
as dehumanizing. The settlers literally do
not see the natives as members of the same
species. The natives are incapable of ethics
and thereby are the embodiment of absolute
evil (p. 32) as opposed to the Christian settlers
who are forces of good. This is a crucial
point for Fanon because it explains two phenomena
that occur in the colonial world. The first
is the idea that decolonization is the replacement
of one population by another, and the second
is that since the native knows that they are
not animals, they immediately develop a feeling
of rebellion against the settler.
One of the temporary consequences of colonization
that Fanon talks about is division of the
native into three groups. The first is the
native worker who is valued by the settler
for their labor. The second group is what
he calls the “colonized intellectual”
(p. 47). These are, by western standards,
the more educated members of the native group
who are in many ways recruited by the settler
to be spokespeople for their views. The settlers
had “implanted in the minds of the colonized
intellectual that the essential qualities
remain eternal in spite of the blunders men
may make: the essential qualities of the West,
of course” (p. 36); these intellectuals
were “ready to defend the Graeco-Latin pedestal”
(p. 36) against all foes, settler or native.
The third group described by Fanon are the
lumpenproletariat. This group is described
in Marxism as the poorest class; those who
are outside of the system because they have
so little. This group is often dismissed by
Marxists as unable to assist in the organizing
of the workers, but Fanon sees them differently.
For him, the lumpenproletariat will be the
first to discover violence in the face of
the settler (p. 47).
Fanon is not wholly understanding of the native.
He refers to the native as containing his
aggressiveness through the terrifying myths
which are so frequently found in underdeveloped
communities (p. 43). This characterization
in many ways is a holdover from Fanon's schooling
in France.
Once the idea of revolution is accepted by
the native, Fanon describes the process by
which it is debated, adjusted, and finally
implemented. According to Fanon, the revolution
begins as an idea of total systematic change,
and through the actual application to real
world situations is watered down until it
becomes a small shift of power within the
existing system. “[The] pacifists and legalists…put
bluntly enough the demand… ‘Give us more
power’” (46), but the “native intellectual
has clothed his aggressiveness in his barely
veiled desire to assimilate himself to the
colonial world” (47). The colonialist bourgeoisie
offers non-violence and then compromise as
further ways out of the violence of decolonization;
these too are mechanisms to blunt and degrade
the movement. An example of this is the newly
independent Republic of Gabon which gained
independence from France in 1960 and afterward,
the new president, Léon M'ba said “Gabon
is independent, but between Gabon and France
nothing has changed; everything goes on as
before” (Quoted in Wretched of the Earth,
p. 52). For Fanon, this is the perfect example
of a decolonization movement which has been
enfeebled by the tentativeness of its leaders.
To fight this, “The newly independent Third
World countries are urged not to emulate the
decadent societies of the West (or East),
but to chart a new path in defining human
and international relationship” (Fairchild,
2010, p. 194)
In this essay Fanon describes many aspects
of the violence and response to violence necessary
for total decolonization. He also offers cautions
about several different approaches to that
violence.
== "On National Culture" ==
=== Summary ===
In the essay, "On National Culture" published
in The Wretched of the Earth, Fanon sets out
to define how a national culture can emerge
among the formerly and, at the time of its
release in 1961, still-colonized nations of
Africa. Rather than depending on an orientalized,
fetishized understanding of precolonial history,
Fanon argues a national culture should be
built on the material resistance of a people
against colonial domination. Fanon narrates
the essay with reference to what he calls
the 'colonized intellectual'.
==== The return to precolonial history ====
For Fanon, colonizers attempt to write the
precolonial history of a colonized people
as one of “barbarism, degradation, and bestiality”
in order to justify the supremacy of Western
civilization. To upset the supremacy of the
colonial society, writes Fanon, the colonized
intellectual feels the need to return to their
so-called 'barbaric' culture, to prove its
existence and its value in relation to the
West.Fanon suggests colonized intellectuals
often fall into the trap of trying to prove
the existence of a common African or 'Negro'
culture. This is a dead end, according to
Fanon, because it was originally the colonists
who essentialized all peoples in Africa as
'Negro', without considering distinct national
cultures and histories. This points to what
Fanon sees as one of the limitations of the
Négritude movement. In articulating a continental
identity, based on the colonial category of
the 'Negro', Fanon argues "the men who set
out to embody it realized that every culture
is first and foremost national".An attempt
among colonized intellectuals to 'return'
to the nation's precolonial culture is then
ultimately an unfruitful pursuit, according
to Fanon. Rather than a culture, the intellectual
emphasizes traditions, costumes, and clichés,
which romanticize history in a similar way
as the colonist would. The desire to reconsider
the nation's pre-colonial history, even if
it results in orientalized clichés, still
marks an important turn according to Fanon,
since by rejecting the normalized eurocentrism
of colonial thought, these intellectuals provide
a "radical condemnation" of the larger colonial
enterprise. This radical condemnation attains
its full meaning when we consider that the
"final aim of colonization," according to
Fanon, "was to convince the indigenous population
that it would save them from darkness". A
persistent refusal among Indigenous peoples
to admonish national traditions in the face
of colonial rule, according to Fanon, is a
demonstration of nationhood, but one that
holds on to a fixed idea of the nation as
something of the past, a corpse.
==== Struggle as the site of national culture
====
Ultimately, Fanon argues the colonized intellectual
will have to realize that a national culture
is not an historical reality waiting to be
uncovered in a return to pre-colonial history
and tradition, but is already existing in
the present national reality. National struggle
and national culture then become inextricably
linked in Fanon's analysis. To struggle for
national liberation is to struggle for the
terrain whereby a culture can grow, since
Fanon concludes a national culture cannot
exist under conditions of colonial domination.A
decisive turn in the development of the colonized
intellectual is when they stop addressing
the oppressor in their work and begin addressing
their own people. This often produces what
Fanon calls "combat literature", a writing
that calls upon the people to undertake the
struggle against the colonial oppressor. This
change is reflected in all modes of artistic
expression among the colonized nation, from
literature, to pottery, to ceramics, and oral
story-telling. Fanon specifically uses the
example of Algerian storytellers changing
the content and narration of their traditional
stories to reflect the present moment of struggle
against French colonial rule. He also considers
the bebop jazz movement in America as a similar
turn, whereby black jazz musicians began to
delink themselves from the image imposed on
them by a white-Southern imaginary. Whereas
the common trope of African-American jazz
musicians was, according to Fanon, "an old
'Negro,' five whiskeys under his belt, bemoaning
his misfortune," bebop was full of an energy
and dynamism that resisted and undermined
the common racist trope.For Fanon, national
culture is then intimately tied to the struggle
for the nation itself, the act of living and
engaging with the present reality that gives
birth to the range of cultural productions.
This might be best summarized in Fanon's idea
of replacing the 'concept' with the 'muscle'.
Fanon is suggesting that the actual practice
and exercise of decolonization, rather than
decolonization as an academic pursuit, is
what forms the basis of a national culture.
==== Towards an international consciousness
====
Concluding the essay, Fanon is careful to
point out that building a national culture
is not an end to itself, but a 'stage' towards
a larger international solidarity. The struggle
for national culture induces a break from
the inferior status that was imposed on the
nation by the process of colonization, which
in turn produces a 'national consciousness'.
This national consciousness, born of struggle
undertaken by the people, represents the highest
form of national culture, according to Fanon.
Through this process, the liberated nation
emerges as an equal player on the international
stage, where an international consciousness
can discover and advance a set of universalizing
values.
== Reception ==
In his preface to the 1961 edition of The
Wretched of the Earth, Jean-Paul Sartre supported
Frantz Fanon's advocacy of violence by the
colonized people against the colonizer, as
necessary for their mental health and political
liberation; Sartre later applied that introduction
in Colonialism and Neocolonialism (1964),
a politico–philosophic critique of France's
Algerian colonialism. The political focus
derives from the first chapter of the book,
“Concerning Violence”, wherein Fanon indicts
colonialism and its post-colonial legacies,
for which violence is a means of catharsis
and liberation from being a colonial subject.
In the foreword to the 2004 edition of The
Wretched of the Earth (1961), Homi K. Bhabha
criticized Sartre's introduction, stating
that it limits the reader's approach to the
book to focus on its promotion of violent
resistance to oppression. After 1967 the introduction
by Sartre was removed from new editions by
Fanon's widow, Josie. Interviewed in 1978
at Howard University, she said "... when Israel
declared war on the Arab countries, there
was a great pro-Zionist movement in favor
of Israel among western (French) intellectuals.
Sartre took part in this movement. He signed
petitions favoring Israel. I felt that his
pro-Zionist attitudes were incompatible with
Fanon’s work". Anthony Elliott writes that
The Wretched of the Earth is a "seminal" work.Fanon's
writing on culture has inspired much of the
contemporary postcolonial discussions on the
role of the national culture in liberation
struggles and decolonization. In particular,
Robert J. C. Young partially credits Fanon
for inspiring an interest about the way the
individual human experience and cultural identity
are produced in postcolonial writing. Fanon's
theorizing of national culture as first and
foremost a struggle to overthrow colonial
rule was a radical departure from other considerations
of culture that took a more historical and
ethnographic view.
=== Criticism ===
Some theorists working in postcolonial studies
have criticized Fanon's commitment to the
nation as reflective of an essentialist and
authoritarian tendency in his writing. In
response to 'On National Culture', Christopher
L. Miller, professor of African American studies
and French at Yale University, faults Fanon
for viewing the nation as the unquestioned
site of anti-colonial resistance, since national
borders were imposed on African peoples during
the Scramble for Africa. According to Miller,
the lack of attention to the imposition and
artificiality of national borders in Africa
overlooks the cultural and linguistic differences
of each country that make theorizing a unified
national culture, as Fanon does, problematic.
Miller also criticizes Fanon for following
much of "post-Enlightenment Western thought"
by treating particular or local histories
as subordinate to the universal or global
struggle of the nation.Neil Lazarus, professor
at Warwick University, has suggested that
Fanon's 'On National Culture' overemphasizes
a sense of unified political consciousness
onto the peasantry in their struggle to overthrow
colonial systems of power. In particular,
Lazarus argues that the idea of a 'national
consciousness' does not align with the history
of the Algerian Revolution, of which Fanon
was highly involved, since when the country
gained independence in 1962 after an 8-year
liberation war, the population was largely
demobilized. In Lazarus' view, the peasant
militancy in Fanon's analysis becomes the
exact justification for his theory, yet does
not necessarily exist in the material sense.In
the foreword to the 2004 edition of Wretched
of the Earth , Homi K. Bhabha also pointed
to some of the dangers of Fanon's analysis
in 'On National Culture'. He wrote that Fanon's
dedication to a national consciousness can
be read as a "deeply troubling" demand for
cultural homogeneity and the collapse of difference.
Bhabha, however, suggests Fanon's vision is
one of strategy and any focus on the homogeneity
of the nation should not be interpreted as
"narrow-minded nationalism", but an attempt
to break the imposed Cold War era binaries
of capitalism vs. socialism or East vs. West.
=== Strategic essentialism ===
Some scholars have noted the similarities
between Fanon's conception of national culture
and strategic essentialism. Strategic essentialism
is a popular concept in postcolonial studies,
which was coined by Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak
in the 1980s. The concept acknowledges the
impossibility of defining a set of essential
attributes to a group or identity, while also
acknowledging the importance of some kind
of essentialism in order to mobilize for political
action. This resonates with Fanon's argument
in 'On National Culture', since any essentialism
of national cultural identity was basically
a strategic step towards overcoming the assimilation
of colonialism, and building an international
consciousness where binaries of colonized
and colonizer were dissolved.
=== Relationship to the Négritude movement
===
'On National Culture' is also a notable reflection
on Fanon's complex history with the Négritude
movement. Aimé Césaire, Fanon's teacher
and an important source of intellectual inspiration
throughout his career, was the co-founder
of the movement. While Fanon's thinking often
intersected with figures associated with Négritude,
including a commitment to rid humanism of
its racist elements and a general dedication
to Pan-Africanism in various forms, 'On National
Culture' was rather critical of the Négritude
movement especially considering its historical
context. The last section of the essay was
initially drafted as a speech for the Second
Congress of Black Writers and Artists in Rome:
'The Unity and Responsibilities of African
Negro Culture' (1959). The problems and solutions
presented by the congress, inspired as they
were by the movement, often revolved around
the presumption that a unified African Negro
Culture existed. Alioune Diop, speaking as
one of the key figures of the movement at
the conference, said Négritude intended to
enliven black culture with qualities indigenous
to African history, but made no mention of
a material struggle or a nationalist dimension.
Meanwhile, throughout the essay, Fanon stressed
the cultural differences between African nations
and the particular struggles black populations
were facing, which required material resistance
on a national level. In a portion of the essay
written after he delivered the speech at the
conference, Fanon was especially critical
of prominent Négritude writers and politicians
Jacques Rabemananjara and Léopold Sédar
Senghor, who called for black cultural unity
yet opposed Algeria's bid for independence
at the United Nations.
== Translations ==
in English by Constance Farrington (Grove
Press, 1963)
in English by Constance Farrington (Penguin
Books, 2001)
in English by Richard Philcox
in Spanish by Julieta Campos (1963, first
edition in Spanish, Fondo de Cultura Económica)
in German by Traugott König
in Persian by Ali Shariati
in Turkish by Lütfi Fevzi Topaçoğlu
in Hebrew by Orit Rosen
in Korean by Kyungtae Nam
in Japanese by Michihiko Suzuki and Kinuko
Urano
in Arabic by Sami Al Droubi and Jamal al-Atassi
in Dutch by Han Meijer
in Croatian by Vera Frangeš (Stvarnost, Zagreb,
1972)
in Albanian by Muhamedin Kullashi, (Rilindja,
Pristina, 1984)
in Sindhi by Abdul Wahid Aaresar, Mitti Hana
Manhun
in Czech by Vít Havránek, Psanci teto země
(2015)
in Portuguese by António Massano, Os Condenados
da Terra (Letra Livre, 2015)
in Slovene by Maks M. Veselko, Upor prekletih
(Cankarjeva založba, 1963)
in Swedish Jordens fördömda (1962)
in Urdu by Sajjad Baqir Rizvi,Uftaadgan-e-Khaak
(1969)
in Polish by Hanna Tygielska, Wyklęty lud
ziemi (Państwowy Instytut Wydawniczy, Warszawa
1985
