Books Written by Fanon
Fanon’s most famous works have been Black Skin, White Masks which was published in English in 1967 but published in French in 1952; A dying colonialism or year five of the Algerian revolution which was published in English in 1965; The Wretched of the Earth which was published in English in 1963 and Towards a African Revolution political essays, which was published in 1967.
In this presentation however, I shall concentrate on Black Skin, White Masks and The Wretched of the Earth. From all my research I have gathered that Fanon was a bit of an Extremist, however I must say that I agree with most of his theories and believe that they could be applied in the world today.
Black Skin, White Masks
- Black Skin, White Masks is part a guiding principle and part an analysis that both shows Fanon’s personal experiences as a black thinker in a white world and elaborates the ways in which the colonizer or colonized is normalised as psychology. Due to his cultural background and education, from a young age Fanon perceived himself as French, and the embarrassment he felt after his first encounter with French racism decisively shaped psychological theories about culture. “Fanon inflects his medical psychological practice with the understanding that racism generates harmful psychological structure that both blinds the black man to his subjection to a universalised white norm and alienates his consciousness”. In other words Fanon argues that a racist culture disallows black man to be both healthy and developed psychologically.
- In his book Black Skin, White Masks Fanon emphasises on the language and the body of the black man, when I say black man I don’t necessarily mean man I mean the black race as a whole. He argued that “to speak… means above all to assume a culture, to support the weight of civilization.” By this he meant that in speaking the language of the colonialists in this case, French, black men adopted the French culture and were forced to integrate with the French customs, the same customs and culture that perceived blackness as evil and sin. Therefore in order to break away from the connection between black and evil, black man put on a white mask by leaving behind his own culture and beliefs and that therefore, creates a fundamental disconnection between the consciousness and the body of the black man.
- In addition, Fanon argued that ““white” depends for its stability on its negation “black””. In other words “white” does not exist without “black”, the whites only see themselves as better or superior than the blacks because they conquered them and therefore psychologically oppress them.
I agree with is theory of black skin, white masks and that the only reason whites think they are superior to blacks is because they conquered them. I believe that if blacks and whites lived in an island and had the same life style but were somehow divided in a way that the white stayed in one side and the blacks in another, and one day the whites crossed the barrier that separated blacks from whites, once realising the people on the other side of the island were different but had the same life style as them the whites would not feel superior nor the blacks inferior.
His all idea of the black body and a white skin makes a lot of sense to because today African people have totally adopted western habits and there is no way then can go back to the way they used to be. I believe that today there is this whole concept of being modern and western and that because of that African people have totally lost their culture and don’t have anything to relate to as African apart from their skin. A clear example of this is Algeria, as Mia told us last week the Algerians had to give up their language and were only allowed to speak French that therefore led them to lose their culture and nationality as they had to adapt to the western ways of living.
The Wretched of the Earth
- The Wretched of the Earth, is based on national culture, in this book Fanon argues that black people need to overcome the system which states the white is good and black is bad. According to him, the only way of getting this is through total revolution “absolute violation” to destroy all categories and the past he argued that this could only come from the peasants as the classes above them benefit from the economic structures of imperialism and he was disgusted by their greed. He also suggested that the revolutions had to come from peasants in the country not towns.
I also agree with his theory that in order to get freedom or get colonialists there would have to be a revolution f the peasants. And I believe that that can be applied in the world today as I believe than the only way third world countries today can free themselves from western exploitation is if there is a revolution of the peasants, if all of them got together from all over Africa and started and revolution maybe they would be able to free everyone from exploitation. As fanon says the third world are too lazy. They are not going to liberate their people from exploitation as it simply does not benefit them do so as they are happy with their lives, they have a comfortable life and if they tried to free their people from exploitation the good life they lead would stop.
- In addition, fanon talks about national identity and how important it is to national revolution however, national identity limits such efforts because it restates an often middle class understanding of “nation” instead of encouraging a culture of black culture across class lines. Fanon, emphasised a “political agency and the collective attempt to demonstrate the economic foundation of colonial rule” instead of cultural traditions and so on.
- He thought that colonialism robed the colonised people of their own cultures and also physically disarmed them in a way they could never get their true selves back.
- He believed that national identity is what the people have done together and how they can justify their actions in order to continue the existence of their people. In the Wretched of the Earth he wrote that nationalism often fails to liberate everyone because its applications are the ones of the African middle class who wants to rid of the colonial rule so that they can rule themselves. He blamed the failings of nationalism on “the intellectual laziness of the middle class”. Basically meaning that the African middle class wanted to have the lazy life and the characteristics of the colonial upper class in the sense that it wanted to be better and superior than everyone else, despite that it does not have any economic power it self.
- He also argued that there are problems of representation as before independence the leader stands for what people want i.e. national dignity, independence etc, but once independence is achieved his secrete purpose becomes clear. Which is to become the ruler of the country not as a matter of national dignity or because he cares about his people but because he ants to be powerful and superior in other words, because he wants to occupy the place of the evicted colonialists.
Fanon’s influence on other writers:
His book the wretched of the earth became known as “the handbook for black revolution”.
“The book became one of the central documents of the black liberation movement. His writings also influenced such anti-colonial writers as Kenya's Ngugi Wa Thiong'o, Zimbabwe's Tsitsi Dangarembga, and Senegal's Ousmane Sembène. Fanon did not accept the view that the Communist party leads the revolution like Mao, but he believed that the revolutionary party grows from the struggle. As a Marxist Fanon argued that postcolonial African nations end in disaster if they simply replace their white colonial bourgeois leaders with black African postcolonial bourgeoisie trained by Europeans - oppression remains under capitalistic class structure”
Conclusion
In sum, I have talked about fanon’s major works and his beliefs, things that he predicted and actually did happen such as the Algerian war of independence and the fact that after independence third world countries mainly have been left in the hands of a greedy leaders who is too comfortable in life to do anything to improve their country.
Although, he’s work was written before independence took place in most African countries fanon’ s work became well known all over the world and became the guide for revolution and the inspiration to many African writers. Fanon Argued that African nations end in disaster if they simply replace their white colonial bourgeois leaders with black African postcolonial bourgeoisie trained by Europeans. And that is exactly what is happened in Africa after independence and what’s happening to day the reason why African countries today are a complete disaster.
