You'll recall from the previous unit the impact
that violent struggles for independence had
on the postcolonial state where they occurred.
The loss of life in Algeria and Vietnam, and
the economic impact of war and forced migration
in Mozambique, Namibia, and Zimbabwe, for
example, was immense.
We observed that in the aftermath of those
struggles, parties often cast those opposed
to their policies as enemies of the state
rather than simply as people with differing
policy preferences and viewpoints.
This made democratic political transitions
between parties incredibly rare.
Now we're going to consider the arguments
of Franz Fanon around the question of the
nature and role of violence in the process
of decolonization.
Frantz Fanon was a French colonial subject,
born to a middle-class family in Caribbean
colony of French Martinique in July 1925.
As a child, Fanon benefitted from French colonial
schools in Martinique, receiving an education
and proving himself an able and bright student.
Recall that French colonialism was rooted
in the idea of the Mission civilisatrice,
the civilizing mission.
This idea held that it was the responsibility
of France to bring "civilization" to "backwards
peoples" around the world, to Westernize and
assimilate them.
Under the French philosophy, colonial subjects
who adopted French culture and language, who
converted to Christianity, and who internalized
French values and traditions, could become
French.
When Fanon turned 18 in 1943, he volunteered
to fight with the Free French forces against
Germany in World War II.
Fanon served in North Africa and saw combat
in France, where he was wounded at the Battles
of Alsace and decorated for his service.
After the war, he returned briefly to Martinique
before moving to France to study medicine
and psychiatry.
Fanon completed his residency in 1952.
Throughout this period and as a result of
his experience in Martinique and France, Fanon
became increasingly critical of the impact
of colonialism on the psyche.
In 1953, Fanon became the Head of the Department
of Psychiatry at a French hospital in Algeria.
The war for Algerian independence broke out
less than a year later.
In 1956, Fanon resigned his position and began
working with the National Liberation Front,
the FLN, in their armed struggle for liberation
from France.
His first book, Black Skin, White Masks, was
originally written as his doctoral dissertation.
In it, Fanon analyzes the psychological impact
of colonialism.
The manuscript was rejected by the university,
forcing Fanon to write a second book for his
doctor of philosophy degree.
Black Skin, White Masks was ultimately published
anyway.
In Black Skin, White Masks, Fanon argues that
colonialism strips the colonial subject of
their identity and self-worth, creating a
strong inferiority complex and engendering
a need to adopt the habits and customs of
the colonizer.
They attempt, as the title suggests, to wear
white masks.
And yet such practices are necessarily always
incomplete, for no matter how well the colonial
subject masters the language and customs of
the colonizer, they will still always be a
colonial subject.
Their skin will always be black.
Yet as the colonial subject internalizes the
colonizers—values, they increasingly view
themselves, their society, and their history
as inferior.
Their progress is defined by the degree to
which they abandon their own identities and
adopt those of the colonizer.
As Fanon wrote, "The colonized is elevated
above his jungle status in proportion to his
adoption of the mother country's cultural
standards."
Such a system, Fanon warned, necessarily created
a sentiment of both cultural and individual
inferiority.
Fanon saw this in practice most clearly during
his time in France.
When Fanon's unit was to march across the
Rhine into Germany, it was stripped of all
non-white soldiers.
Fanon and other black Caribbean soldiers were
redeployed so that they would not be seen
by photojournalists covering the story.
Fanon and his fellow soldiers would never
truly be "French," but only as inferior because
of their color.
As Fanon would later observe in "Black Skin,
White Masks," "When people like me, they like
me 'in spite of my color.'
When they dislike me; they point out that
it isn't because of my color.
Either way, I am locked in to the infernal
circle."
Fanon's later (and more well-known) book,
"The Wretched of the Earth," was published
in 1961.
It is broader in scope than "Black Skin, White
Masks," covering the nature of liberation,
the role of violence, and the challenges of
nationalism and imperialism.
It is also more controversial, for in it Fanon
argues that the use of violence in the struggle
for independence is necessary for true liberation.
Most of the attention usually paid to "The
Wretched of the Earth" focuses on its endorsement
of violence as a necessary component of the
struggle for authentic liberation.
But arguably the most important contribution
of the text stems not from its consideration
of violence but rather from its thinking around
the limits of the middle class as an agent
for political change in the colonies and in
its theorizing the relationship between nationalism
and liberation.
As Fanon observes in the third chapter of
the book, entitled "The Pitfalls of National
Consciousness," "By a kind of perverted logic,
[colonialism] turns to the past of the oppressed
people, and distorts, disfigures, and destroys
it...
The total result looked for by colonial domination
was indeed to convince the natives that colonialism
came to lighten their darkness."
As a result, Fanon concludes that, "National
consciousness, instead of being the all-embracing
crystallization of the innermost hopes of
the how people, instead of being the immediate
and most obvious result of the mobilization
of the people, will be in any case only an
empty shell, a crude and fragile travesty
of what might have been."
Fanon warns that the triumphant spirit of
celebration that marked the end of colonialism
in Africa, Asia, and Latin America would be
short lived.
He predicted that the new governments, ultimately
rooted in the very colonial system from which
they emerged, would be unable to fundamentally
transform the political, economic, and social
systems of the post-colonial state.
Again, quoting Fanon, "As we see it, the bankruptcy
of the bourgeoisie is not apparent in the
economic field only.
They have come to power in the name of a narrow
nationalism and representing a race; they
will prove themselves incapable of triumphantly
putting into practice a program with even
a minimum humanist content, in spite of fine-sounding
declarations which are devoid of meaning since
the speakers bandy about in irresponsible
fashion phrases that come straight out of
European treaties on morals an political philosophy."
Consequently, Fanon believed that the emerging
political and economic elites in the newly
independent states would continue to wear
white masks, aligning themselves with the
former colonial power rather than with the
marginalized peoples in their own countries.
According to Fanon,
"The national bourgeoisie turns its back more
and more on the interior and on the real facts
of its undeveloped country, and tends to look
towards the former mother country and the
foreign capitalists who count on its obliging
compliance."
Fanon thus concluded that the successful political
and economic development of the postcolonial
state would depend first on the development
of a national consciousness—a common national
identity around which the development project
could be framed.
We'll return to this idea of national consciousness
and nation building later this unit.
Fanon died of leukemia in 1961, at the age
of 35.
Yet his two books provide some of the most
powerful insights into the psychological impact
of colonization and the nature of the postcolonial
state and his theories would inform later
work of people like Steve Biko in South Africa
and groups like the Black Panther Party and
the "Black is Beautiful" movement in the United
States.
