It took me longer than I anticipated to read this book because of the subject matter and unknown (to me) historical events which required additional research. As I was reading the first section, “On Violence,” I thought this book would be a handbook for a revolution, but as I progressed, I think the two quotes on the back better summarize the book:
“This century’s most compelling theorist of racism and colonialism.” – Angela Davis
“…Analysis of the psychology of the colonized and their path to liberation.”
Fanon was born in the Caribbean, served with the French in WWII, and ended up as a psychiatrist, philosopher, revolutionary, and writer in Algeria. This is where he experienced/studied the affects of colonial oppression on the colonized which is the subject of this book. Below I’ll give a brief summary of the five major sections of the book with some of my favorite quotes.
ON VIOLENCE – In this section, Fanon defends the right of the colonized to use violence in their struggle for liberation. He describes how the colonizer forces the submission of the colonized, the differences in the living quarters of the colonizers vs. the colonized, and how the colonizer uses the “colonized intellectual” (also known as the bourgeoisie) to keep the rural and lower classes in their place.
“The colonized world is a world divided in two… In the colonies, the official, legitimate agent, the spokesperson for the colonizer and the regime of oppression, is the police officer or the soldier.” [There are obvious modern day America connections we can make here.]
After the colonizer gains powers, he makes the history. “His life is an epic, an odyssey. He is invested with the very beginning: ‘We made this land.’ He is the guarantor for its existence.”
After submitting to the domination of the colonizer, “the colonized subject also manages to lose sight of the colonist through religion. Fatalism relieves the oppressor of all responsibility since the cause of wrong-doing, poverty, and the inevitable can be attributed to God. The individual thus accepts the devastation decreed by God, grovels in front of the colonist, bows to the hand of fate, and mentally readjusts to acquire the serenity of stone.”
“Violence is a desperate act only if it is compared in abstracto to the military machine of the oppressors.”
“European nations wallow in the most ostentatious opulence. This European opulence is literally a scandal for it was built on the backs of slaves, it fed on the blood of slaves, and owes its very existence to the soil and subsoil of the undeveloped world.” (pg. 53)
“What matters today, the issue which blocks the horizon, is the need for a redistribution of wealth. Humanity will have to address this question, no matter how devastating the consequences may be.” (pg. 55)
GRANDEUR AND WEAKNESS OF SPONTANEITY – this section details the lack of connection between the national parties and the rural masses, and why it’s important for the national parties to leverage the spontaneous uprisings of the masses into a coherent strategy for liberation.
“The great mistake, the inherent flaw of most of the political parties in the underdeveloped regions has been traditionally to address first and foremost the most politically conscious elements: the urban proletariat, the small tradesmen and the civil servants, i.e., a tiny section of the population which represents barely more than one percent.”
The colonizers then “use this antagonism in their opposition to the nationalist parties. They mobilize the population in the mountains and the interior against the urban population. They set the back country against the coast, they revive tribal identities…” [By keeping the colonized focused on each other, the oppressor stays in control. The connection to America’s current political state is obvious.]
“The oppressor, who never misses opportunity to let the blacks tear at each other’s throats, is only too willing to exploit those characteristic flaws of the lumpenproletariat [starving men, divorced of tribe and clan], namely its lack of political consciousness and ignorance.” [pg. 87]
Therefore, “The political education of the masses is now recognized as an historical necessity.” [pg. 88]
“Racism, hatred, resentment, and ‘the legitimate desire for revenge’ alone cannot nurture a war of liberation.” [pg. 89]
THE TRIALS AND TRIBULATIONS OF NATIONAL CONSCIOUSNESS – this section describes how after liberation, the national bourgeoisie that takes over power is underdeveloped, and if they aren’t careful, the colonized will become the colonizer.
“For the bourgeoisie, nationalization signifies very precisely the transfer into indigenous hands of privileges inherited from the colonial period. [pg 100]
“The exploitation of farm workers [by the new (previously colonized) land owners] is intensified and justified. Capitalizing on two or three slogans, these new colonists demand a colossal effort from these farm laborers…” [pg. 102]
“Colonialism shamelessly pulls all these strings, only too content to see the Africans, who were once in league against it, tear at each other’s throats.” [pg. 107]
“The politician should be aware that the future will remain bleak as long as the people’s consciousness remains rudimentary, primary, and opaque.” [pg 135]
On a side note about awakening the consciousness of the people, Fanon mentions one mistake that underdeveloped countries frequently make: they talk of “fortifying the soul, developing the body, and encouraging talent in sports” as a way to keep the youth occupied. “The capitalist notion of sports is fundamentally different from that which should exist in an underdeveloped country. The African politician should not be concerned with producing professional sportsmen, but conscious individuals who also practice sports… If we produce national sportsmen instead of conscious individuals, then sports will quickly be ruined by professionalism and commercialism.” [pg. 137]
Fanon then moves into discussing the role of the military. “The army is never a school for war, but a school for civics, a school for politics. The soldier in a mature nation is not a mercenary but a citizen who defends the nation by the use of arms. This is why it is paramount that the soldier knows that he is at the service of his country and not of an officer.” [pg. 141]
ON NATIONAL CULTURE – in this section, Fanon analyzes the “fundamental issue of the legitimate claim to a nation.”
“Colonialism is not satisfied with snaring the people in its net or of draining the colonized brain of any form or substance. With a kind of perverted logic, it turns its attention to the past of the colonized people and distorts it, disfigures it, and destroys it.” [pg. 149]
“…the final aim of colonization was to convince the indigenous population it would save them from darkness.”
“After one or two centuries of exploitation the national cultural landscape has radically shriveled. It has become an inventory of behavioral patterns, traditional costumes, and miscellaneous customs.”
He describes how storytellers began incorporation newer stories/heroes into the old epics, thus creating a new national culture. “Colonialism knew full well what it was doing when it bean systematically arresting these storytellers after 1955.” [pg. 174]
“By imparting new meaning and dynamism to artisanship, dance, music, literature, and the oral epic, the colonized subject restructures his own perception.” [pg. 176]
COLONIAL WAR AND MENTAL DISORDERS – in this section, Fanon’s psychiatry practice comes into play as he shares case studies of the effects of colonial oppression upon colonized people.
“We must remember in any case that a colonized people is not just a dominated people. Under the German occupation the French remained human beings. Under the French occupation the Germans remained human beings. In Algeria there is not simply domination but the decision, literally, to occupy nothing else but a territory. The Algerians, the women dressed in haiks, the palm groves, and the camels form a landscape, the ‘natural’ backdrop for the French presence.” [The Algerians lose their humanity and simply became part of Nature.]
“Colonization has succeeded once this untamed Nature has been brought under control.” [pg. 182]
After describing a myriad of traumatic case studies, Fanon observes that “In a context of oppression like that of Algeria, for the colonized, living does not mean embodying a set of values, does not mean integrating oneself into the coherent, constructive development of a world. To live simply means not to die.”
CONCLUSION
“Let us decide not to imitate Europe and let us tense our muscles and our brains in a new direction. Let us endeavor to invent a man in full, something which Europe has been incapable of achieving.” [pg. 238]
“If we want to transform Africa into a new Europe, America into a new Europe, then let us entrust the destinies of our countries to the Europeans. They will do a better job than the best of us. BUT if we want humanity to take one step forward, if we want to take it to another level than the one where Europe has placed it, then we must innovate, we must be pioneers.”

Very powerful topic and book, just very dense and a hard read. If you are willing to really put the effort into it, it's history we should all be aware of.

Very well written, dense at times and definitely more of a thinker with themes of colonization, colonialism, racism and the trauma that these ideals impart

This is so filled with anger that it corrodes the philosophical arguments present in the tract. I remember reading Fanon's Black Skin, White Masks as a teenager and then later excerpts from his many books at university. Felt the same way then as I do now.

There are times when he can be quite theoretically sophisticated, and that's when he's the most enlightening. But other times, in his anger, I find him too affective and hence grading. This is more of a 2.5 than a 3. The second half of the book is much more interesting than the first half.

Very snow and difficult read.

“Arduous and dated theory” was my first impression as I waded through the first few chapters. “Male centred” certainly.

But then the simple demonstrations to me that Europe fought the nazis because they didn’t want to be colonised by them hit home hard. Of course I had all the pieces but I had never quite put them together before. Or if I had, then I hadn’t spent time looking at the picture and realising that the British empire was not just evil but grotesquely hypocritical on its very face.

The late chapter that simply and calmly recounts some mental health cases and in doing so matter of factly describes the tortures and abuses of colonialism was truly sickening.

My grandad fought the Nazis. For him it was good versus evil.

Fully understanding and realising that the “side” he fought on did just what the Nazis wanted to do to us, repeatedly, in Africa and Asia is painful and difficult to digest. But there it is.

It brought to mind two things for me:

All the descriptions of ISIS as animals in our media when we have done every evil and savage thing that they are doing.

This book reflects in some small way on an African Holocaust of staggering proportion.

Brilliant! Thought-provoking and insightful into the forces and structures of decolonialization, and a bit challenging. The prefaces by Sartre and particularly Homi K Bhabha (sesquipedalian though it is) do an excellent job of contextualizing the rest. It is a bit fascinating that Sartre's preface, embracing (reveling in? maybe an ungenerous read of Sartre but it does feel like there is a bit of that) the necessity of violent revolution, criticized by Arendt for encouraging violence that dehumanizes, was removed at the bequest of Fanon's widow from certain editions following Sartre's support of Israel in the Six Day War.

Fanon does seem to have a tendency, not quite unique to himself, of generalizing, globalizing certain paradigms that make the points a bit tenuous at points. The generalization at some points veers into the psychohistorian a la Asimov, analyzing from first principals psychological effects, without much supporting evidence. For paragraphs on end, he will discuss what seems to be some specific history in terms of the natural process of cause and effect disconnected from any other specifics on the ground: "when the colonizers do X, those subjects in the rural towns disconnected from the metropole will do Y, causing this force to well-up within the revolutionary groups." I'm sure some (many?) of his generalizations have merit, but for me it becomes difficult to disentangle, particularly when no concrete histories are used to illustrate their validity. That is to say, it is not always clear to me what parts are remain relevant to the decolonization project today, and what parts are specifically relevant to the place and time of Algeria in 1961.

He also seems to have undisputed faith in the concept of the nationstate, and it being the basis of identity, organization, revolution. This is a bit of a surprise to me, maybe an aspect of the time - he kept on coming right up to where this could be discussed, but would just fall back on the underlying assumption of the supremacy of the nation. There is a section there, of particular interest to me while probably of lesser general import, where he talks about how the colonized intellectual, unconfident in their place in the revolutionary state, will grope among artifacts of precolonial artistic periods in a phony attempt to dredge up a connection. This is, according to Fanon, the wrong way to do art - the correct way is to capture the zeitgeist, be precisely focused on the present. The psychological analysis here does not entirely ring false to me, but I think the other purpose of this reaching into the past is precisely to endeavor to establish the national identity with respect to precolonial culture. And maybe that project is flawed as well! But it does seem to point at the question of: where is the nation coming from? What is the nation? In what cases is the idea necessary to be constructed, and by who?