Hey guys! welcome to chapter two of the Wretched of the Earth! Here is the summary and analysis we will be using for this book, feel free to use this to follow along if you cant complete the reading or need help catching up.
Chapter two is one of my favorites. It paints a wonderful painting of the colonized society and its potential paths and pitfalls to revolution. The key to this chapter is understanding the different players involved in a colonized society and the tensions between each other.
Some (optional) discussion questions:
1.Who is the lumpenproletariat? Why are the essential to a revolution, why is discounting their potential a mistake?
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Who are the urban proletariat? what kind of positions do they have? why do they represent the “bourgeoisie fraction of the colonized population”?
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Who are the rural masses, why are they often a hindrance to revolutions in the past, why are they also crucial? What role do witch doctors and tribal chief play in the lives of the rural masses?
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Where will the political education of the masses come from? Why is it important?
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What is the weakness of spontaneity?
Bonus: Try to tie in the concepts from chapter two to a real life countries, such as the events in Niger or Haiti (who is the lumpenproletariat, what are they doing ect).
feel free to ignore the discussion questions if they dont serve you, and just comment any thought, questions, and critiques you have of the chapter! also due dates are not conducive to a real education people! always go at your own pace you don’t have to comment today.
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
soundcloud audio book english https://soundcloud.com/listenleft/sets/frantz-fanon-the-wretched-of-the-earth
Schedule
8/20/23 - pre-face and chapter one On violence
8/27/23- chapter two Grandeur and Weakness of Spontaneity
9/3/23- chapter three The Trials and Tribulations of National Consciousness
9/10/23- chapter four On National Culture
9/17/23 chapter five Colonial war and Mental Disorders and conclusion
1.Who is the lumpenproletariat? Why are they essential to a revolution, why is discounting their potential a mistake? The lumpenproletariat are a subclass within the peasant masses that live in the city and have been separated from their rural land. The lumpenproletariat are the unemployed, sexworkers, and transents. Who are the urban proletariat? what kind of positions do they have? why do they represent the “bourgeoisie fraction of the colonized population”? The urban proletariat is the most privileged group of the colonized. They are technicians, manual workers, intellectuals,m and tradespeople mainly living in town who Fanon identifies as the main clientele of the nationalist parties.
Who are the rural masses, why are they often a hindrance to revolutions in the past, why are they also crucial? What role do witch doctors and tribal chief play in the lives of the rural masses? The rural masses are those who live outside of urban centers, and tend to be ruled by tradition. The rural masses are impoverished and marginalized, who tend not to respect outside authority in colonized countries. Local chieftans and witch doctors can be bribed to lead the rural masses astray and have their own incentives to prevent revolutionary action that would challenge their power. The influence of this rural elite presents a challenge to revolution as they tend to collaborate with colonial powers.
Where will the political education of the masses come from? Why is it important? Fanon argues that the revolutionary minority within urban centers, after having been driven out of the cities, will find their way out of the urban centers and to rural areas. Fanon argues that this revolutionary minority will educate the rural masses and that these revolutionaries will educate the rural masses, completing the dialectic that governs the development of an armed struggle. This dynamic personally reminds me of the Cuban revolution, as most of the revolutionaries had tried to work within the system before being pushed out through political violence and often had to hide and retreat into rural areas. What is the weakness of spontaneity? Spontaneity, Fanon argues, is unable to provide a coherent and sustained strategy for revolution. The colonized people are so used to being treated as dirt that any concession by the colonial government is often treated like a victory. The militant has to be there to talk to the people so that they are not led astray by the smallest of concessions.