Franz Fanon - His Some Ideas.

“The oppressed will always believe the worst about themselves.”

 

 

Franz  Fanon, a French revolutionary theorist born in Martinique, is most known for emphasising violence as a component of the anti-colonial fight.

 His theory of imperialism placed a strong emphasis on the psychological aspect of colonial oppression. Therefore, decolonization is more than just a political process; it also involves the creation of a new "kind" of man.

Only the healing experience of violence, according to Fanon, has the ability to bring about this psycho-political rebirth.

Violence is man re-creating himself. ”

― Frantz Fanon

  Fanon's best-known writings are Towards the African Revolution (1964), The Wretched of the Earth (1962), and Black Skin, White Masks (1952). 

The unequal relationship between "whites" and "blacks" serves as a prime example of how colonial domination operates on a psycho-political level.

 According to Franz Fanon, it can only be eradicated by the cleansing power of "absolute violence."

Fanon Written in the context of the Algerian independence fight, In the Wretched of the Earth (1962) gave a potent critique of the psychological effects of colonialism.

On National Liberation  According to Fanon, colonialism created a culture of submission that makes colonial peoples incapable of political action and resistance.

Using the regenerative experience of violence, he claimed, was the only way to overcome this helplessness and inaction. Only by destroying the colonial master could the slave reclaim a sense of purpose. Thus, "national freedom" required a revolution in the way people think.

Black Skin, White Masks (1952)

In this work, Fanon shares his own experiences while presenting a historical critique of the effects of racism and dehumanisation, inherent in situations of colonial domination, on the human psyche. 

He emphasises how the coloniser views the black person's use of a colonizer's language as predatory rather than transformational, which may lead to unease in the black person's awareness. He recalls that as a child, he also received numerous disciplinary measures for speaking Creole rather than "true French," or "French. French," which is "white" French. Last but not least, he draws the conclusion that "mastery of language [of the white/colonizer] for the sake of identification as white reveals a dependency that reduces the black's humanity."

“Sometimes people hold a core belief that is very strong. When they are presented with evidence that works against that belief, the new evidence cannot be accepted. It would create a feeling that is extremely uncomfortable, called cognitive dissonance. And because it is so important to protect the core belief, they will rationalize, ignore and even deny anything that doesn't fit in with the core belief.” ― Frantz Fanon, Black Skin, White Masks

 

Wretched of the Earth (1962)

In The Wretched of the Earth (1961), he argued that colonial people has the right to use force to achieve independence. He also outlined the steps and factors that led to neocolonialism or national independence during the decolonization movement that swept through much of the world after World War II. Fanon stated that human beings who are not regarded as such (by the coloniser) shall not be bound by standards that apply to humanity in their attitude toward the coloniser in support of the use of violence by colonised peoples.

 The colonizer's presence in Algeria, according to Fanon in The Wretched of the Earth, is founded only on military strength. As violence is the primary "language" the coloniser speaks, any resistance to this power must equally be violent in form. Therefore, the colonisers force violent resistance against the colonised. This is because the relevance of language and the reformation of discourse permeate much of it.

“For a colonized people the most essential value, because the most concrete, is first and foremost the land: the land which will bring them bread and, above all, dignity.”

― Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth

His audience as the colonial Algerian was influenced by his involvement in the Algerian National Liberation from 1955. Their attention was drawn to his masterpiece, The Wretched of the Earth. It serves as a warning to the oppressed about the dangers they face in the chaos of decolonization and the shift to a globalised neo-colonialist society.

Cr- Pol Science Team