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.