I got started on August 1 with a copy of the physical book. I am skipping all the intros and contextual information for now and starting with page 1 with On Violence. There is a lot of obvious power in his words and it is very affecting. I find it hard to read more than 20 pages at a time.
Fanon clearly and passionately describes the colonial dichotomy and in his view the only way to deal with it. He approaches violence in this early phase of the book as endemic to the system, in its visual reminders of borders with barracks or the colonial officer so since the colonized is a product this system there is no alternative for them.
Right off the bat I highlighted one paragraph that I want to revisit as I complete the book and the psychology of the colonized later on. I think this is universal and so obvious when it is described. One only needs to look at American and Israeli descriptions to see this manifesting again as if on a historical loop:
"Challenging the colonial world is not a rational confrontation of viewpoints. It is not a discourse on the universal, but the impassioned claim by the colonized that their world is fundamentally different. The colonial world is a Manichaean world. The colonist is not content with physically limiting the space of the colonized, i.e., with the help of his agents of law and order. As if to illustrate the totalitarian nature of colonial exploitation, the colonist turns the colonized into a kind of quintessence of evil. Colonized society is not merely portrayed as a society without values. The colonist is not content with stating that the colonized world has lost its values or worse never possessed any. The “native” is declared impervious to ethics, representing not only the absence of values but also the negation of values. He is, dare we say it, the enemy of values. In other words, absolute evil. A corrosive element, destroying everything within his reach, a corrupting element, distorting everything which involves aesthetics or morals, an agent of malevolent powers, an unconscious and incurable instrument of blind forces. "
- Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth p. 6
I guess it might help to give some context about myself as a reader, spoilered to spare people the read because it’s likely not relevant. I just think it’s an interesting exercise to help me understand how my worldview is framing my reading:
spoiler
I have very little experience in the liberal arts, although I did take a few history courses in university as I required a few electives(in north america). I live in a colonized land where the colonized people still exist, and to this day still have genocide enacted upon them. My family (grandparents) immigrated in the 1960s and most people I grew up with also lived in this context. We don’t have a “mother country” but our whole lives exist because of colonialism. I don’t know much about the ongoing genocide apart from a few news bites here and there. It is a little hard for me to read this book and apply it to modern colonialism in the place I live, so much of my interpretation will be related to historical/current colonialism in the global south (which allows north america to exist as it does now) with an attempt to understand how it also applies directly to north america currently and historically.
I’m doing a mix of audiobook versions (various) and reading the PDF version of the 2004 edition posted in the sticky post.
In a reply, I’ll post some quotations that I found interesting and why. I guess this is me processing the text “out loud”.
I think my main take away from Chapter 1 is that I can apply my knowledge and world understanding to the colonizer, but not the colonized. This is a very shallow understanding of the text, I know, but I hope as I continue to read and learn through discussions that I will pick up on other themes and lessons.
I’m also spoiling this because it is LONG.
spoiler
The colonist and the colonized are old acquaintances. And consequently, the colonist is right when he says he “knows” them. It is the colonist who fabricated and continues to fabricate the colonized subject.
This struck me as an important concept. A person cannot see themselves as above another person without first making up a story about them. We know that the concept of whiteness exists to justify the exploitation those defined as non-white and to divide those who should have solidarity with each other. The colonizer will view themselves as superior to the colonized and thus do the work of the state to enact violence, extract resources, etc.
In capitalist societies, education, whether secular or religious, the teaching of moral reflexes handed down from father to son, the exemplary integrity of workers decorated after fifty years of loyal and faithful service, the fostering of love for harmony and wisdom, those aesthetic forms of respect for the status quo, instill in the exploited a mood of submission and inhibition which considerably eases the task of the agents of law and order.
Isn’t it this respect for the status quo and appeal to harmony that stops people from seriously considering Land Back, the abolition of the prison industrial complex and even speaking out against the current wave of blatant fascism worldwide? Isn’t this still why we are told that we should vote and work within the system?
The colonist is aware of this as he catches the furtive glance, and constantly on his guard, realizes bitterly that: “They want to take our place.”
This is very much what is said about the Land Back movement and reconciliation with indigenous nations in canada. Despite being build on stolen land and stolen resources, the demand for reparations, reconciliation, and the ability to self govern is viewed as being driven by greed and jealousy by people who have no right to these things because they didn’t build them or work for them (which is of course nonsense).
It is not the factories, the estates, or the bank account which primarily characterize the “ruling class.” The ruling species is first and foremost the outsider from elsewhere, different from the indigenous population, “the others.”
I want this on a little card to hand out. I (currently) work primarily with white men in the skilled trades. They are so resistant to the concept of white privilege because they work with their hands unlike the privileged knowledge workers who sit at their desks all day. They don’t understand that despite depending on a wage they are in fact part of a privileged class within these colonized lands. They live in places with clean drinking water and their children can go to schools. They generally have access to doctors, at least without leaving their community to access it. They can’t see that there should be solidarity with the knowledge workers and that they must actively decolonize.
Colonized society is not merely portrayed as a society without values. The colonist is not content with stating that the colonized world has lost its values or worse never possessed any. The “native” is declared impervious to ethics, representing not only the absence of values but also the negation of values.
I understand this to be serving two purposes, to justify the colonization and genocide in the first place, and also to create fear of decolonization. How can those people who are dependent on the government for everything (because their self determination, their social fabric, their economy were systemically destroyed) be trusted to self govern?
During the period of decolonization the colonized are called upon to be reasonable. They are offered rocksolid values, they are told in great detail that decolonization should not mean regression, and that they must rely on values which have proved to be reliable and worthwhile.
I’m putting this here because I can’t quite make out how this applies to canada. In my mind, the country is not decolonized. It’s no longer directly british, but the indigenous communities are still under control (and “care”???) of the “crown”. When the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (which looked specifically to the legacy of the residential school system) published its findings, there were a lot of calls to be reasonable and not disrupt the status quo too much. I don’t know what the various nations see as the final state of decolonization. I know that the commission focused on integration into canadian society. I will have to re-read the 94 calls to action after finishing this book.
The intellectual who, for his part, has adopted the abstract, universal values of the colonizer is prepared to fight so that colonist and colonized can live in peace in a new world. But what he does not see, because precisely colonialism and all its modes of thought have seeped into him, is that the colonist is no longer interested in staying on and coexisting once the colonial context has disappeared. - page 74 of the PDF
I would like to understand two things around this passage: 1. What does the intellectual think the colonizer wants and 2. What does this look like in canada? Initial thoughts are that it doesn’t mean physically leaving or giving up stolen resources, but rather refusing to have nation-to-nation relationships with the colonized groups and at the same time abandoning all “responsibility” towards the colonized communities, such as not providing infrastructure.
This colonized intellectual, pulverized by colonialist culture, will also discover the strength of the village assemblies, the power of the people’s commissions and the extraordinary productiveness of neighborhood and section committee meetings. Personal interests are now the collective interest because in reality everyone will be discovered by the French legionnaires and consequently massacred or else everyone will be saved. In such a context, the “every man for himself” concept, the atheist’s form of salvation, is prohibited. - Page 76 of the PDF
I think it is very easy for the colonizer who has interest in decolonization to fetishize cultures that do not praise individualism. Growing up I would hear about wise and (maybe?) just indigenous cultures were. The key word is were, past tense. It at the same time makes it clear that this type of society cannot exist in modern times and places unrealistic expectations on current indigenous communities. If you have been robbed of your connection to your culture and the world has changed around you over generations, how can you simply flip a switch and go back? And all communities have conflict. But when indigenous communities disagree or act in a way that doesn’t fit this stereotype it’s seen as evidence that integration (genocide) is the only option.
The colonist makes history and he knows it. And because he refers constantly to the history of his metropolis, he plainly indicates that here he is the extension of this metropolis. The history he writes is therefore not the history of the country he is despoiling, but the history of his own nation’s looting, raping, and starving to death.
This reinforces the idea that the colonialist saved the colonized from a void, a time before history.
The muscular tension of the colonized periodically erupts into bloody fighting between tribes, clans, and individuals.
I don’t want to comment on the section prefaced by this sentence too much because it is not really something I can understand or experience except for possibly around the idea of class and how people will fight each other, often triggered by living a life of struggle and stress, but not think about fighting back against the ruling classes.
These colonial subjects are militant activists under the abstract slogan: “Power to the proletariat,” forgetting that in their part of the world slogans of national liberation should come first.
I think this is an important thing to keep in mind as a member of the colonizer group. I have seen (and myself been guilty of) judgment of colonized groups for not enthusiastically jumping on board anti-capitalist movements or organization. When people downplay the issue of race or colonization and instead say it’s all based on class they committing an colonial act. They are imposing the world view of the colonizers on these groups.
They introduce a new notion, in actual fact a creation of the colonial situation: nonviolence. In its raw state this nonviolence conveys to the colonized intellectual and business elite that their interests are identical to those of the colonialist bourgeoisie and it is therefore indispensable, a matter of urgency, to reach an agreement for the common good.
I am a non-violent person. But I have never had the force of colonial violence acted upon me. I can’t understand what that means to live under.
A blind domination on the model of slavery is not economically profitable for the metropolis. The monopolistic fraction of the metropolitan bourgeoisie will not support a government whose policy is based solely on the power of arms. What the metropolitan financiers and industrialists expect is not the devastation of the colonial population but the protection of their “legitimate interests” using economic agreements.
I thought this was very interesting because people often say things like, “It’s so much better now” because force is not used as openly. But the violence is different now. If people don’t work for wages they cannot survive. State violence is for the protection of capital which indirectly forces the colonized sell their labour.
Another one, lol
spoiler
Their plan is to make the first move, to turn the liberation movement to the right and disarm the people: Quick, let’s decolonize. Let’s decolonize the Congo before it turns into another Algeria. Let’s vote a blueprint for Africa, let’s create the Communauté for Africa, let’s modernize it but for God’s sake let’s decolonize, let’s decolonize. They decolonize at such a pace that they force independence on Houphouét- Boigny. In answer to the strategy of a Dien Bien Phu defined by the colonized, the colonizer replies with the strategy of containment—respecting the sovereignty of nations.
I wonder how this could play out in north america?
In the war in Algeria, for example, the most liberal-minded French reporters make constant use of ambiguous epithets to portray our struggle. When we reproach them for it, they reply in all sincerity they are being objective.
This is another good reminder that the colonizer cannot understand the colonized so easily. To do so, the colonizer needs to accept their world view isn’t default or inherently correct.
In 1945 the 45,000 dead at Sétif could go unnoticed; in 1947 the 90,000 dead in Madagascar were written off in a few lines in the press; in 1952 the 200,000 victims of repression in Kenya were met with relative indifference— because the international contradictions were not sufficiently clear-cut. … A greater threat, as far as imperialism is concerned, is that socialist propaganda might infiltrate the masses and contaminate them. It is already a serious risk during the conflict’s cold period; but what would happen to the colony rotted by bloody guerrilla warfare in the event of a real war?
I found this interesting. When is violence actually violence to the colonialist? When it impacts their money.
When a colonialist country, embarrassed by a colony’s demand for independence, proclaims with the nationalist leaders in mind: “If you want independence, take it and return to the Dark Ages,” the newly independent people nod their approval and take up the challenge. And what we actually see is the colonizer withdrawing his capital and technicians and encircling the young nation with an apparatus of economic pressure
Even though these are “non violent” actions, they are in fact violent.
Things I would like to understand better:
A. I don’t really understand the discussion of myths of the colonized as “inhibitions for his aggressiveness”. I understand the suggestion that these traditions can make the colonizer seem less all imposing, and that working collectively (as demanded by these myths) have real benefit to the struggle. But beyond that I feel like I am missing something. Can anyone explain? Is this mostly related to Fanon’s background as a psychiatrist and what he observed in the course of his work?
He goes on to speak about dance and how it is an outlet but that it is abandoned in during the struggle for liberation and what remains is violence directed towards colonialism.
There is this sentence, and then I feel like the subject changes:
The challenge now is to seize this violence as it realigns itself. Whereas it once reveled in myths and contrived ways to commit collective suicide, a fresh set of circumstances will now enable it to change directions.
Can anyone explain the conclusion here?
B. I didn’t really understand the last few pages of the chapter. Colonized people are owed what was stolen from them. This I understand. But I am not understanding how
So the capital, deprived of reliable outlets, remains blocked in Europe and frozen. Especially as the capitalists refuse to invest in their own country. Returns in this case are in fact minimal and the fiscal pressure disheartens the boldest.
The situation in the long-term is catastrophic. Capital no longer circulates or else is considerably reduced. The Swiss banks refuse funding and Europe suffocates. Despite the enormous sums swallowed up by military expenditures, international capitalism is in desperate straits.
Am I not understanding this simply because it did not happen? What did happen instead?
I also understand that the third world did not form autocracies, which Fanon described as another threat.
It is our duty, however, to tell and explain to the capitalist countries that they are wrong to think the fundamental issue of our time is the war between the socialist regime and them. An end must be put to this cold war that gets us nowhere, the nuclear arms race must be stopped and the underdeveloped regions must receive generous investments and technical aid. The fate of the world depends on the response given to this question.
I don’t understand what threat existed that investment and technical aid to former colonies could save the world?
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I’ve read the first 20 or so pages so far using a PDF copy and agree with your description, the book is really moving and Fanon’s words have hit me hard. I think this is probably one of the best metaphors and descriptions of colonisation that I have read so far and am looking forward to reading the rest.
