hello comrades here we shall be discussing The Wretched of the earth preface and chapter one On Violence i was gonna write my own summry for yall but this summary and analysis i found would serve you all better than what I could write this morning, my sincere apoligies I wiil start us off with some optional question promts!
what did you think of satare’s preface?
what does Fanon mean by “replacing one species with another”?
who is the colonized intellectual? what role does he serve?
what does Fanon say about nationalist reformist movements? what are their failings?
why must decolonization be total and all encompassing?
why is the allocation of instruments of force important? I also want to encourage everyone to try to make critique of the reading.
these are just a few things to get the ball rolling, please let me know what I can do better! Please keep commenting and contributing to this thread through out the week for those of you not caught up, this isnt school there is no late work, in fact i hope people come back to these threads many times to see other comrades thoughts. lastly it seems like you guys really like the summary and study guide I found so I will keep using it in future post (its pretty cool its like sparknotes)
English translation by Richard Philcox – https://ia801708.us.archive.org/3/items/the-wretched-of-the-earth/The Wretched Of The Earth.pdf – you'd be reading from page 42 to 311 of this PDF, 270 pages
English translation by Constance Farrington – https://abahlali.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/Frantz-Fanon-The-Wretched-of-the-Earth-1965.pdf
Original French text – https://monoskop.org/images/9/9d/Fanon_Frantz_Les_damnés_de_la_terre_2002.pdf
English audio version – https://inv.tux.pizza/playlist?list=PLZ_8DduHfUd2r1OOCtKh0M6Q9xD5RaR3S – about 12h20m – Alternative links
Have a bit of things to do on the side so I cannot answer every reading question, but because comrade Othello has so kindly made an effortpost on a book that I should read in-depth as a fellow PoC which is on my list, as well as to earnestly participate in future Hexbear theory read-alongs, I have begun reading (though not as deeply as I would like if I had completely free time to absorb a book) Fanon’s Wretched of the Earth
An interesting and scathing preface written in the view of a European and (assuming through the usage of ‘we’ and of describing conditions of colonial expropriation of resources to Europe) writes for Europeans (“Europeans, you must open this book and enter into it.”), yet one that also applies to the US in the 21st century. Some of Sartre’s rhetorical flourishes about the cultural chauvinism displayed by Europeans, even in a voice that critiques such statements make me cringe a bit, yet Sartre exposes the colonialist mindset in such a stark way that echoes some of the neocolonialist apologia in the 21st century:
“A few years ago, a bourgeois colonialist commentator found only this to say in defense of the West: ‘We aren’t angels. But we, at least, feel some remorse.’”
“But, all the same, they think to themselves, there are limits; these guerillas should be bent on showing that they are chivalrous; that would be the best way of showing they are men. Some times the Left scolds them . . . ‘You’re going too far; we won’t support you any more.’ The natives don’t give a damn about their support; for all the good it does them they might as well stuff it up their backsides.”
“You, who are so liberal and so humane, who have such an exaggerated adoration of culture that it verges on affectation, you pretend to forget that you own colonies and that in them men are massacred in your name.”
A scathing preface of European colonialism and a solid intro to what Fanon will expound on later.
Fanon begins chapter 1 with the statement that “National liberation, national renaissance, the restoration of nationhood to the people, commonwealth: whatever may be the headings used or the new formulas introduced, decolonization is always a violent phenomenon.” [emphasis mine] Fanon writes that in the undergoing of decolonization that success lies in the whole of the social structure changed from the bottom up, in both the material lives and cognitive consciousness of those colonized. Conversely, within the minds of the colonizers, the possible act of decolonization is “equally experienced in the form of a terrifying future.”
Fanon writes: Decolonization never takes place unnoticed, for it influences individuals and modifies them fundamentally. It transforms spectators crushed with their inessentiality into privileged actors, with the grandiose glare of history’s floodlights upon them. It brings a natural rhythm into existence, introduced by new men, and with it a new language and a new humanity. Decolonization is the veritable creation of new men."
Fanon writes of the frenzied search of compradors and local bourgeois within a colonized country by the colonizers for “the indigenous population is discerned only as an indistinct mass” to the colonizers, in order to undergo the “familiar dialogue concerning values is carried on” through colonial ideological indoctrination and dissemination. “The colonialist bourgeoisie had hammered into the native’s mind the idea of a society of individuals where each person shuts himself up in his own subjectivity, and whose only wealth is individual thought,” writes Fanon.
Yet in cases of decolonization, Fanon writes of the dangers of the colonized intellectual that remain, especially if in positions of governance and power for: “We find intact in them the manners and forms of thought picked up during their association with the colonialist bourgeoisie. Spoilt children of yesterday’s colonialism and of today’s national governments, they organize the loot of whatever national resources exist. Without pity, they use today’s national distress as a means of getting on through scheming and legal robbery, by import-export combines, limited liability companies, gambling on the stock exchange, or unfair promotion.” When colonial ideology and indoctrination exist in a formerly colonized populace, colonized intellectuals within positions of power act as cat’s-paws and comprador cutouts furthering neocolonial interests.
Fanon writes that the concept of colonialism has changed over time, when once a column of imperialist soldiers may occupy swathes of land to expropriate wealth and natural resources to the European market, now, " After a phase of accumulation of capital, capitalism has today come to modify its conception of the profit-earning capacity of a commercial enterprise. The colonies have become a market. The colonial population is a customer who is ready to buy goods; consequently, if the garrison has to be perpetually reinforced, if buying and selling slackens off, that is to say if manufactured and finished goods can no longer be exported, there is clear proof that the solution of military force must be set aside." [emphasis mine.]
Yet, as Fanon writes: “Thus the nationalist leader who is frightened of violence is wrong if he imagines that colonialism is going to “massacre all of us.” The military will of course go on playing with tin soldiers which date from the time of the conquest, but higher finance will soon bring the truth home to them.” [emphasis mine yet again.]
Fanon critiques nationalist reformist movements that " take the interests of both parties into consideration," [colonizer and colonized] solely through acts of peaceful dissent, alongside colonizers’ appealing to religion, of “all those saints who have turned the other cheek, who have forgiven trespasses against them, and who have been spat on and insulted without shrinking,” used to pacify dissent of a populace oppressed by violence who are exploited. However, harkening back to the beginning of the chapter “decolonization is always a violent phenomenon” and as also stated earlier within the chapter (and apparent through historical precedent) colonization too is a violent phenomenon.
the questions were optional and i LOVED you responses! thank you so much for your excellent response. I dont believe you misconstrued any of Fanons points, I also very much agree with your read of satare (i was so taken aback the first time i read “we Europeans” like we who?). excellent points all around.
Thank you!
Reading, even with the cursory analysis I had, through Fanon’s writing is a breath of fresh air, especially through his viewpoint as a PoC intellectual from Martinique [which upon looking up, is a French “Single territorial collectivity” to this day. 🔥 🇫🇷 🔥 Free Martinique!'] without the biases and chauvinism, conscious and unconscious, of white western theoreticians.
Striking is his affirmation that the act of decolonization is violent and can only be violent similarly to how colonialism and its establishment can only be violent, and that hand-wringing by the moderate liberals who equivocate the violence by colonized with violence by the colonizer, who go over the talking points of “Yes I believe colonialism is a monstrous system and I denounce it, yet violence committed in the sake of colonialism’s opposition is also wrong! Change must be moderate, reserved, blah blah blah blah blah” ultimately are either cynical liars, or useful fools who will denounce the forceful response to colonialism/neocolonialism by the oppressed and exploited, and in the same breath, without any shame, excuse colonial violence as “a horrid thing, one to be opposed, but a regretful thing of the past, one that we can learn from” while turning a blind eye or denial of existing, ongoing oppression and expropriation of natural resources of colonies and neocolonies.
He puts into words one of the things that infuriates me beyond measure when talking to the “white moderate” about imperialism, no matter how moralistically self-flagellating even the most well-meaning liberal is regarding imperialism, denying neocolonialism as an ongoing phenomena or relegating colonialism and the scars it had created as a ‘thing of the past’ and that ‘we [blech, what do you mean WE] learned from our mistakes’ and proceeding to uncritically absorb international “unbiased” news media or take government officials at face value perpetuating the same systems but under a new neocolonialist patina, which manufactures consent for punitive acts of military intervention or economic sanctions, makes apparent how it’s the same shit but just a little bit different and these “mistakes” are still continuing to be made. The West has not changed, it will not change, and it cannot be trusted to bring about change for the dismantling of the successor systems of historical colonialism.
His analysis that decolonization must be undertaken bottom up, and address both base and superstructure is an excellent point. It’s apparent how decolonization of the base, of both means and relations of production, are critically important, but also with his point on how ignoring decolonization of the superstructure, of colonizer ideology, perpetuates a more decentralized system of compradors and vendepatrias that maintain oppressive systems.
I meant to get around reading Wretched of the Earth, and what better time to do so than right now with comrades on Hexbear. I’m really liking this so far, thanks for pushing for this as a collective analysis on my favorite six-sided bear site.
for someone who claims to be busy, you sure have a great understanding of Fanons work !! I find reading fanons work to be both soothing and invigorating. soothing because he so clearly rejects this perverted morality that tells us the suffering and death brought on my colonialism is natural and just. and invigorating because he lays out the path forward with an sense of self-assuredness that makes me wanna {redacted}. I feel the same way when talking to white moderates, capitalist posing as compassionates be offending me, as kendrick says lol.
I think this is one of there more important take aways, Ive really struggled to articulate this concept myself, how the colonizer can both leave and stay at the same time.
Im so glad you are enjoying this discussion! Dont forget that deadlines are not real here and you can take your time with responses. you have great insight and add so much to the discussion plantifa!
Thank you! I’m looking forward to future discussion posts, thanks again for putting this together Othello!
excited to see you there. and I cant take too much credit @vampire (i forgot how to tag people on here) is the one who got this started. I only hope im doing right by them!
Leading the discourse, providing discussion questions, and taking the time to respond to other poster’s analyses is very important too, and on the second thing, you absolutely are, I’m enjoying the discussions!