Frantz Fannon (1925-1961)

• Born in French Antilles and had a big impact in Africa where he influenced many anticolonial writers.
• Historical conditions of anticolonial struggle
• role of intellectuals in the struggle
• Politically and military active, participated in the guerrilla against supporters of the pro-Nazi French Vichy government and also fought in Europe. Also supported the National Liberation Front in Algeria.
• Trained as psychiatrist in Paris, during his education came face to face with racial prejudice which disregarded his intelligence
• Wrote about the impact of racism and colonialism in the black psyche
  • accommodation and alienation of black lives in white societies
  • personal experience
  • dialectic resolution between Western rationalism and African primitivism
  • wrote about the Algerian revolution
  • interaction of class and race in colonies:
    • racism is central in European colonialism, but ultimately the social, economic and political oppression in the third world is a matter of class. if all that changes in postcolonial societies is that white bourgeoisie is replaced by black bourgeoisie, then they are doomed.

  (in chapters of The Wretched of the Earth)

  • exploration of pros and cons of nationalism in the fight for independence from colonialism
    • nationalism is an important tool, but risky because it could result in African nations following the patterns provided by European predecessors
      • a bourgeoisie that can solve problems in the European way, but without the historical energy that enabled the European bourgeoisie to take and maintain its power.
  • role of culture in the development of viable postcolonial identities for African emerging nations
    • importance of intellectuals in this task
    • keep in mind that new nations must exist in an international context, no isolationism
    • influential in US and Africa

Starting points

• dialogue with French existentialism (esp. Sartre).
• négritude movement (1940 and 50s, argued for a separate black cultural identity and against complete assimilation to French culture), and Aimé Césaire
• Marxism modified to reflect third world and anticolonial perspectives
  • he saw revolutionary potential in the lumpenproletariat of Africa to lead the anticolonial revolution (as opposed to Marx’s view of lumpenproletariat in Europe)

The Wretched of the Earth

"The Pitfalls of National Consciousness"

• The battle against colonialism does not always align with the lines of nationalism
• national consciousness is traditionally weak in underdeveloped countries
  • because of the harm done by the colonial regime but also intellectual laziness of national middle class and cosmopolitan model
• the national middle class which takes power in a postcolonial society is an underdeveloped one
  • no economic power
  • cannot be compared to the bourgeoisie of the colonial power
• the university and merchant classes are too small and concentrated in the capital. they do not belong to the middle class
• middle class is only engaged in activities of the intermediary sector. it does not accumulate capital
• in an underdeveloped country the bourgeoisie should betray its fate and put at disposal of the people their intellectual and technical capital, however it falls in the ways of a traditional bourgeoisie
• nationalist parties are effective in mobilizing people towards independence, but not so much regarding the economy of the country
  • they do not know the resources of the country
• after independence, the machinations of the middle class and the ignorance of the nationalist parties in conducting the economy will result in an artisan economy
  • thus, no change from the colonial economy: being Europe’s small farmers
• the middle class demands nationalization of economy, which does not mean an improvement for the nation, but a passage of the economy from the hands of the colonizers to native hands
• so it is with business offices and commercial houses formerly occupied by the settlers
  • intermediary between foreign companies and the nation
  • transmission line between the nation and capitalism/neo-colonialism
• incapability of the national middle class to fulfill the role of the bourgeoisie
  • this role entails a pioneer, innovative character in the rest of the world, here absent
  • only indulgence is imitates
    • it will be greatly helped bu the Western bourgeoisie in this enterprise: tourism,setting up its country as the brothel of Europe
    • Example of Latin American
• The middle class in towns behaves similarly to these national landed proprietors
• the masses will follow the example of the leaders
  • return to chauvinism
  • fallback to old tribal attitudes
  • the bourgeoisie has been incapable if enlightening the people
• a colony’s economy is developed according to the needs to the colonizer and therefore it is unequally developed by the time it reaches its independence
• then, those who are in the more prosperous nations refuse to help those in less advantageous areas. Old hatred, interracial problems, etc., come to the surface
• African unity gives way to regionalism and the bourgeoisie declares itself incapable to bring national unity into being. The national front cracks up and loses its victor
• return of colonialism:
  • religious rivalries: catholicism against Islam.
    • mass media distills hatred
    • idea that the Arab invasion paved the way for European invasion is installed
    • groups attack each other
  • racism erupts
    • white Africa, Mediterranean and a continuation of Europe sharing Greco-Latin civilization
    • Black Africa: brutal and uncivilized. Aggressiveness similar to the settlers’
    • the national bourgeoisie of each of those regions promotes the same racism of the colonial era because they can profit from it
• Fanon proposes that because the bourgeoisie is weak numerically, intellectually and economically, it is easy to neutralize it.
• There almost always exist honest intellectuals who distrust the race for positions so typical of the early post-colonial period
• the road to national bourgeoisie must be closed

"On national Culture"

Reciprocal Bases of National Culture and the Fight for Freedom

• Cultural domination soon disrupts the cultural life of a conquered people
  • it is total and tends to oversimplify
  • made possible by:
    • negation of national reality
    • new legal relations introduced by the colonizers
    • banishment of natives and customs to peripheral districts by colonizers
    • by expropriation
    • by enslavement
• Dynamism is replaced by the concretization of the attitutdes that the colonial power has towards the local culture
  • the objective is to make the colonized person to admit the inferiority of their culture.
• the native’s reaction:
  • a lo9t maintain the same traditions as before
  • the artisanal style becomes stereotyped
  • the intellectuals try to acquire the culture of the colonizer + criticism of own nation
  • or tries to defend the claims of own culture, but in an unproductive way
  • both are ineffectual because the analysis of the colonial situation is not strict
  • under colonial domination, the national culture is contested
  • the persistence in following the forms of the national culture is a demonstration of nationality, but it is not enough to fight the colonial power
    • the national culture is after one or two centuries weakened, becomes automatic and loses its creativity
      • the negation of the national culture makes people be aggressive, but the aggression is not effective
  • eventually, native writers develop methods for the struggle for liberation,
    • the national consciousness disrupts literary styles and themes
    • the writer begins to address their own people
    • the oral tradition is renewed
    • the storyteller engages with imagination and creativity
  • other forms of expression such as handicrafts are also invigorated
    • colonialist specialists reject these new styles, they become defenders of the native style (for example, bebop styles originated after WWII and white jazz specialists rejected them. They were the expression of black people’s new hopes and a desire to repel racism)
  • these movements are linked to the state of maturity in the national consciousness and start to express themselves objectively in institutions
  • the condition of existence of a national culture is national liberation and the renaissance of the state
  • culture is set moving by the fight for national existence, and then the nation ensures the conditions necessary to culture
  • is the struggle for liberation a cultural phenomenon?
    • yes, the conscious and organized struggle to re-establish the sovereignity of a colonized nation by its people is the most complete and clear manifestation of culture that we can find.
      • the struggle changes culture as it changes social relationships
      • after it, not only colonialism dissappears. but also the colonized man
      • this new huamnity must define a new humanism
      • national consciousness is necessary to have an international dimension.
        • In Africa, this means a responsibility with African Negro Culture
        • if the building up of the nation is true, if it interprets the will of the people, then it will necessarily be accompanied by the encouragement of universalizing values which will lead the nation to play its part on the stage of history.