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A review by deathbedxcv
The Wretched of the Earth by Frantz Fanon
5.0
“As soon as you and your fellow men are cut down like dogs there is no other solution but to use every means available to reestablish your weight as a human being.”
Is a sentence taken from the Colonial War and Mental Disorders section of Frantz Fanon’s ‘The Wretched of the Earth.” And I choose to highlight it in this summary because I believe this truly gets to the point of what Fanon is advocating. The only response to being oppressed is violence, and the only way to true freedom is through violence. Revolution is violent because the colonizer makes its violent. Decolonization is violent because the colonizer gave the colonized no other choice, so they will strive for their freedom by any means necessary.
It’s very easy to call Fanon’s 1961 collection of essays a seminal text, and can be easily proven given how influential it is in many leftist circles, but what’s surprising is seeing how much of this text can be connected to what’s happening today within Palestine. (And by surprising I mean not surprising at all, since history is cyclical). The Palestinian people have been oppressed and colonized by Israel for over 8 decades. Forgive me for the hard words and trigger warning but there is no other way to say it, but the Palestinian people have been abused, beaten, raped, robbed, and many times obliterated by the Israeli government. And you expect them to take that shit nicely? Did people expect the Mau mau or the Algerian revolution to be non violent?
Fanon studied medicine and psychiatry, so he illustrates decolonization not only as a physical act with physical means and consequences but also in the mental. Fanon studied the effects of colonization and decolonization on the oppressed and the oppressor. Here is a qoute from a Frenchman with anxiety disorder whose civil servant father was killed in an ambush; “Every time I went home my father would tell me a new batch of people had been arrested. In the end I no longer dared go out in the street, I was so sure I’d encounter hatred everywhere I looked. Deep down I knew the Algerians were right. If I were Algerian I’d join the resistance movement.” And here is an exchange between Fanon and a 14 year old Algerian boy who murdered his European playmate;
“‘Child: In your opinion, what do you think we should have done?
Fanon: I don’t know. But you are a child and the things that are going on are for grown-ups.
Child: But they kill children too.’”
Fanon illustrates the psyché of both sides and he comes to the conclusion that for true revolution we must be willing to use force, and we must stray away from the idea of wanting to become like the oppressor. As Fanon states, “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.”
Is a sentence taken from the Colonial War and Mental Disorders section of Frantz Fanon’s ‘The Wretched of the Earth.” And I choose to highlight it in this summary because I believe this truly gets to the point of what Fanon is advocating. The only response to being oppressed is violence, and the only way to true freedom is through violence. Revolution is violent because the colonizer makes its violent. Decolonization is violent because the colonizer gave the colonized no other choice, so they will strive for their freedom by any means necessary.
It’s very easy to call Fanon’s 1961 collection of essays a seminal text, and can be easily proven given how influential it is in many leftist circles, but what’s surprising is seeing how much of this text can be connected to what’s happening today within Palestine. (And by surprising I mean not surprising at all, since history is cyclical). The Palestinian people have been oppressed and colonized by Israel for over 8 decades. Forgive me for the hard words and trigger warning but there is no other way to say it, but the Palestinian people have been abused, beaten, raped, robbed, and many times obliterated by the Israeli government. And you expect them to take that shit nicely? Did people expect the Mau mau or the Algerian revolution to be non violent?
Fanon studied medicine and psychiatry, so he illustrates decolonization not only as a physical act with physical means and consequences but also in the mental. Fanon studied the effects of colonization and decolonization on the oppressed and the oppressor. Here is a qoute from a Frenchman with anxiety disorder whose civil servant father was killed in an ambush; “Every time I went home my father would tell me a new batch of people had been arrested. In the end I no longer dared go out in the street, I was so sure I’d encounter hatred everywhere I looked. Deep down I knew the Algerians were right. If I were Algerian I’d join the resistance movement.” And here is an exchange between Fanon and a 14 year old Algerian boy who murdered his European playmate;
“‘Child: In your opinion, what do you think we should have done?
Fanon: I don’t know. But you are a child and the things that are going on are for grown-ups.
Child: But they kill children too.’”
Fanon illustrates the psyché of both sides and he comes to the conclusion that for true revolution we must be willing to use force, and we must stray away from the idea of wanting to become like the oppressor. As Fanon states, “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.”