Fanon and the

Decolonization of Philosophy
 Fanon and the
Decolonization of Philosophy

Edited by Elizabeth A. Hoppe

and Tracey Nicholls

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Fanon and the decolonization of philosophy I edited by Elizabeth A. Hoppe and Tracey
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Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index.
ISBN 978-0-739 1 -4 1 25-0 (cloth : alk. paper)
1. Fanon, Frantz, 1 925-196 1 . 2. Philosophy. 3. Decolonization. I. Hoppe, Elizabeth
(Elizabeth Anne) II. Nicholls, Tracey.
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 Contents

Foreword vii
Mireille Fanon-Mendes France

Acknowledgments XI

Introduction Xlll

Elizabeth A. Hoppe and Tracey Nicholls

PART I: ON KNOWLEDGE AND THE ACADEMY

1. Fanon on Decolonizing Knowledge 3
Lewis R. Gordon
2. Opening up the Academy: Fanon 's Lessons for Inclusive Scholarship 19
Tracey Nicholls

PART II: ON FANON AND PSYCHIATRY

3. Fanonian Musings: Decolonizing/Philosophy/Psychiatry 39
Marilyn Nissim-Sabat
4. Fanon, Foucault, and the Politics ofPsychiatry 55
Chloe Taylor

PART III: ON FANON AND VIOLENCE

5. Fanon on Turtle Island: Revisiting the Question of Violence 77
Anna Carastathis
6. Sovereign Violence, Racial Violence 1 03
Peter Gratton

v
vi Contents

PART IV: FANON ON RACISM AND SEXUALITY

7. Decolonizing Selves: The Subtler Violences ofColonialism and
Racism in Fanon, Said, and Anzaldua 1 17
Mohammad H. Tamdgidi
8. Fanon and the Impossibilities ofLove in the Colonial Order 149
Sokthan Yeng

PART V: BEYOND COLONIZATION

9. Hegel, Fanon, and the Problem ofNegativity in the Postcolonial 1 67
Ferit Guven
1 0 . Tourism as Racism: Fanon and the Vestiges ofColonialism 1 77
Elizabeth A. Hoppe

PART VI: BEYOND FANON

1 1 . Ami/car Cabral: A Philosophical Profile 1 97
O!Ufemi Taiwo
12. Fanonian Presences in South Africa: From Theory andfrom Practice 211
Nigel C. Gibson

Bibliography 24 7

Suggestions for Further Reading 263

Index 265

About the Contributors 275

 Foreword

Mireille Fanon-Mendes France

Decolonizing Philosophy is an engagement to think and enact philosophy within

a context of emancipation. If we want to fully understand and inhabit this
orientation, the necessary consequence is our obligation, as we adopt the
injunction to "decolonize philosophy," to formulate a parallel understanding of
what "a philosophy of decolonization" requires. It is certainly only by starting
with this chiasmus, with a full understanding of its dynamics, that we can come
to grips with the position and the praxis of Frantz Fanon. It is through such an
approach that the twelve contributors to Fanon and the Decolonization of
Philosophy attempt their emancipation of philosophy, in their examination of
Fanon's psychiatric practice, his positions in relation to sexuality and racism,
and, more generally, his understanding of the mechanisms through which
colonialism continues to assert itself as a power struggle such that those in
power do not conceal their intention to seize what does not belong to them. This
volume is an opportunity to think about the contributions that Fanon's thinking
has made to a world where the relation of forces in fact has never changed but
instead, in this age of globalization, displays all of its violence.
While the relevance and the impact of Fanon's thought are examined
through different frameworks and from different points of view in each of this
volume's chapters, the relevance of the knowledge of decolonization and its
impact on postcolonial thought is never forgotten. All of these interrogations
consider, to some extent, Fanon's notion of violence, a central theme without
which his contributions to philosophy cannot be understood.
Attention to the question of violence is not uninteresting, particularly in the
context of today's world, where globalization imposes on people, on women and
men, its military and economic violence in an attempt to homogenize their
spirits and attitudes by denying them their right to self-determination, their right
to have and control their natural resources, and their right to freely choose their
political systems. This is the sole aim of safeguarding for the powerful their use
and abuse of the means of manipulation (the media, education, security
measures): the seizure of goods and the enslavement of people.
Vll
Vlll Mireille Fanon-Mendes France

If the Sixties announced the end of colonization with its affirmation by the
international community that:

[t]he subjection of peoples to alien subjugation, domination and exploitation

constitutes a denial of fundamental human rights, is contrary to the Charter of
the United Nations and is an impediment to the promotion of world peace and
co-operation . . . [thereby leading us to assume that] the process of liberation is
irresistible and irreversible and that, in order to avoid serious crises, an end
must be put to colonialism and all practices of segregation and discrimination 1

today the world is faced with new forms of colonization. These new forms
require us to re-read Fanon or, at the very least, to revisit some of his works, and
also to take note of other works which raise the question of the decolonization of
philosophy, together with its connection to liberation theology.
If we are to think of human beings as liberated (in the sense of standing
upright in the face of challenges), the question posed by the professional and
political engagement that Frantz Fanon demands of us is one of reflection on
and identification of that which binds us, from the point of view of the
individual as well as the collective, and hence, the question that Fanon has
always faced, beyond the paradigmatically philosophical "why." How to liberate
ourselves from dominating and colonizing systems-this question never ceased
to concern him.
In effect, Frantz Fanon, doctor and psychiatrist, activist in the Front de
Liberation Nationale [the National Liberation Front of Algeria], editor of the El­
Moudjahid, and ambassador, never stopped questioning the forms of
domination, be it of the human spirit or of entire nations.
When it came to madness, racism, the concept of "universalism" confis­
cated by the powerful, Fanon never stopped trying to posit a "living together,"
identified as that which Edouard Glissant called an "identity-relationship,"2 a
transformation into situations in which the dominated and the dominant each
have everything to lose from the perpetuation of existing orders and disorders.
Fanon, unbowed and rebellious, fought tenaciously and victoriously against
the supremacy exerted by the powerful over the weak. His thought engages and
illuminates us still today because of h i s fundamental articulation of, on the one
hand, the right of rebellion in the face of a social, political, and economic system
that plunges the world into disorder and, on the other hand, a new type of
colonization.
In confrontation with the model of violence and violations imposed by the
defenders of a liberal economy, there is more than ever a need for creativity, for
liberation, and for refusal of a historical determinism. This determinism, that
was plotted out upon the colonized of yesterday, is still being projected onto the
globalized of today, who must subject themselves to the demands of market
forces. It is a determinism imposed by the powerful in the guise of "the free
market."
 Foreword IX

Faced with the alternatives that presented themselves yesterday, the

capitalist system and the socialist system, Farron called for the inauguration of
another way. And today, this same choice of alternatives presents itself as being
between a universalism that has been appropriated by the powerful in the
context of a capitalist system, also called globalization, and the struggles to
build an international society founded on the solidarity, cooperation, and
friendship of all peoples. This third way is yet to be constructed.
This collaborative work is interesting because it problematizes that which
Fanon himself did in the different lands to which he committed himself. His
work drew links between places which otherwise seemed quite separate from
each other, geographically (France, the Caribbean, North Africa, sub-Saharan
Africa) and institutionally (the psychiatric hospital and the political arena).
This volume brings together twelve contributors wanting to illuminate,
forty-nine years after his death, how Farron thought and acted, the ways his
thinking is still pertinent to our knowledge of the places he affected, and the
ways his thinking confronts the experiences, problems, and issues of the present.
In this respect, one of the important characteristics of Fanon's thought emerges:
its situatedness in the world of the human being and his desire for a human
world.

That the enslavement of man by man cease forever. That is, of one by another.
That it may be possible for me to discover and to love man, wherever he may
be . . . . My final prayer: 0 my body, make of me always a man who questions! 3

Notes

This foreword was translated from the French by Tracey Nicholls and Elizabeth A.
Hoppe, with assistance from Charley and Marilyn Nissim-Sabat and Yvan Tetreault.

I. Resolution 1 5 14, General meeting of the United Nations, On the granting of

independence to colonial countries and peoples, December 1 4, 1 960.
2. Edouard Glissant et Patrick Chamoiseau, Quand !es murs tombent: L 'identite
nationale hors-la-Joi? (Galaade: Institut du Tout-Monde, 2007).
3. Frantz Fanon, Black Skin, White Masks, trans. Charles Lam Markmann (New
York: Grove Press, 1 967).
 Acknowledgments

This anthology would not have been possible had it not been for Lewis Univer­
sity and Brother James Gaffney, FSC, President. Since 1 996 Lewis University
has hosted an annual philosophy conference, and the topic of the 2007 confe­
rence, Fanon and the De-colonization of Philosophy, led to the development of
this anthology. We would like to thank the College of Arts and Sciences Dean's
Office for its continued support of this annual event.
Many were instrumental in the success of the 2007 conference, and in par­
ticular we would like to thank the faculty moderators and student respondents:
Laura Baltuska, Katrina Binaku, Brian Brown, Emily Custardo, Arthur Horton,
Laurette Liesen, George Miller, Laura Miller, Judy Mrgan, Buzz Pounds, Ken­
neth Stikkers, Karen Trimble-Alliaume, and Sarah Vitale. In preparing the pro­
posal for this volume Lewis University' s Faculty Development Committee and
the Office of the Provost provided financial support. A special thank you goes
out to Ying Xie and Sue Sollie for their technological expertise and guidance.
Our acknowledgments would not be complete without expressing our grati­
tude to Chimaobi Enyia, a Philosophy of Law and Political Science major, who
compiled the section titled Suggestions for Further Reading. Chima is a member
of Pi Sigma Alpha Political Science Honors Society and Phi Sigma Tau Philos­
ophy Honors Society, and he has been a student respondent at several confe­
rences, including the annual Lewis conferences on Immanuel Kant and bell
hooks. He intends to pursue graduate studies in Ethics and Political Philosophy.
We would especially like to thank all of our contributors for their incisive
essays and their collaborative efforts in ensuring that this book lives up to its
promise of a new approach to Fanon studies. Deserving of special thanks are
Lewis Gordon, for asking Mireille Fanon-Mendes France--daughter of Frantz
Fanon and director of the Frantz Fanon Foundation-to write a preface for this
book, Madame Fanon-Mendes France herself for contributing her thoughts, and
Bill Martin of DePaul University and Bettina Bergo of Universite de Montreal
for their help on elements of this book. Finally, we would like to thank Matt
McAdam, Jana Wilson, Mirna Araklian, and Ginny Schneider of Rowman &
Littlefield/Lexington Books for their support and assistance in bringing this
book into existence.

xi
 Introduction

Elizabeth A. Hoppe and Tracey Nicholls

Our aim in this book is to showcase some of the ways in which contemporary
philosophers are extending Frantz Fanon's enduringly influential decolonization
theory in response to new challenges of oppression and colonialism. We gath­
ered together the work of important Fanon scholars, several of whom presented
papers at the 2007 Lewis University philosophy conference of the same name.
The list of authors ranges from recognized experts in Fanon studies to those who
are just emerging as important voices in the field . Their chapters all reflect a
growing awareness among North American philosophers of the value that
Fanon's social and political philosophy offers, and constitute a new critical en­
gagement with his work .
Readers unfamiliar with Frantz Fanon wi ll find in these pages reflections on
a remarkable thinker. Reared in the French-Antillean culture of Martinique, he
was educated in France and initially went to Algeria as a psychiatrist for the
French Army, which was then engaged in trying to put down the Algerian war
of independence and maintain its control over the colonized nation. Fanon rec­
ognized the humanity, the courage, and the unquenchable desire for freedom of
the emerging Algerian nation, and left his position with the French in order to
aid the Algerians in their struggle to build a new nation. His thinking, and the
writing he did on decolonization and liberation struggles before his untimely
death in 196 1 , has been integral to such diverse philosophical questions as "what
is race?" and "who has the right to use violence?" and is being used here to ex­
plore the entire breadth of contemporary philosophical concerns.
Unlike many of the books that have been published about Fanon in the
years since his death, ours is not a biography, nor is it an examination o f the
relevance to political science and development studies of his work as a doctor
and psychiatrist during the Algerian war, nor a recasting of Fanon as a theorist
of contemporary international relations. Instead, our contributors expand the
types of questions that Fanon 's analyses can shed light on, thereby encouraging
a sharper and richer appreciation of the central role Fanon can play in contempo­
rary philosophy. The refocusing on the philosophical that is common to the
xiii
xiv Elizabeth A. Hoppe and Tracey Nicholls

chapters in this volume allows our contributors to consider not just Fanon 's im­
portance, but the full spectrum of philosophical positions on such questions as
race, interpersonal relations, human agency and empowerment, and social lib­
eration, not to mention the implication of these positions for philosophy itself.
After a long period of inattention by philosophers, Fanon 's analyses of exis­
tentialism, psychiatry, and decolonization are now the object of increasing en­
gagement in the c lassroom and at academic conferences. Attention to his writ­
ings on decolonization has tended to focus on the necessity to re-interpret Fanon
in order to retrieve out of his writings that portion which remains pertinent to us
today. The question of continued relevance is a pressing one for many of his re­
interpreters because Fanon 's engagement with decolonization took place in cir­
cumstances very different from our own contemporary political reality. Fanon 's
optimism about the power and influence that emerging "non-aligned" nations in
Africa and South East Asia could exert on the "Cold War" relations between the
United States and the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics is c learly dated
so, in order to make the case for his continuing relevance, his optimism is either
translated into a more modern pessimism about "Third World" liberation or
dismissed outright. There are, however, at least two significant problems with
this updating for relevance : either the translated view is contemporary but is no
longer Fanon, or the Fanon who remains is a muted utopian voice without much
to say about current political relations. Our volume represents a departure from
this attempt to demonstrate relevance through re-interpreting Fanon. Instead we
seek to demonstrate Fanon 's continuing importance by showing that the scope
of questions benefiting from his analyses is wider than previously acknowl­
edged. We have paired chapters that explore similar themes in an attempt to
show the nuance and complexity that can be drawn out of his thought and writ­
ings . In addition, we have arranged these pairs of chapters such that they suggest
fruitful connections with the other topics examined in this volume.
In order to show the importance of Fanon to philosophy and epistemology
in general, the first part of this volume concentrates on the idea that knowledge
itself needs to be decolonized. Of course, from a historical standpoint, coloniza­
tion implies the oppression of peoples. But perhaps as important as physical
oppression is the role that colonization continues to play in knowledge forma­
tion. Certain types of knowledge are privileged or accepted as true, while others
fall outside the philosophical discourse that calls itself epistemological. In chap­
ter I, "Fanon on Decolonizing Knowledge," Lewis R. Gordon calls us to medi­
tate on the ways that will truly transform a world of contradictions, uncertainty,
and unfairness. He demonstrates that as colonialism spread so too did epistemo­
logical developments that created groups of people who in turn were viewed as
problems. Gordon rightly argues that there is something wrong with the social
systems in which we live. He then investigates the decadence associated with
those disciplines that c laim legitimacy based on logical rationality. This issue in
turn reveals the radicality o f Fanon 's thought insofar as he calls into question the
epistemic colonization that corresponds to colonialism itself. As Gordon points
out, Fanon 's sociogenic analysis offers much for a postcolonial epistemology in
 Introduction xv

which the subjects of liberation are able to transform the social world through a
reconfiguration of concepts. One of the ways we can achieve s uch a radical al­
teration would be through changing education itself. In chapter 2, Tracey Ni­
cholls ' " Opening up the Academy : Fanon's Lessons for Inclusive Scholarship,"
envisions a new form of scholarship that would posit multivocity and empow­
erment as the characteristic features of a liberatory and progressive academic
communities. She undertakes this task by examining contributions to progres­
sive politics by theorists of decolonization-either inspired by or consistent with
Fanonian thought-who have challenged traditional Eurocentric academic dis­
course . In demonstrating that both academia and colonized societies share a
common feature of social control, Nicholls focuses on the ways in which aca­
demia can be transformed in order to become liberatory. She argues that this
liberation of scholarship can only be achieved through adoption of a decoloniz­
ing attitude, one in which all would-be scholars would feel welcome, visible,
and heard. Additionally, Nicholls shows us that within the c lassroom setting
instructors can build community and solidarity by encouraging students to treat
each other as fully participating community members.
Part II delves into Fanon and psychiatry. Marilyn Nissim-Sabat in chapter 3,
"Fanonian Musings : Decolonizing/Philosophy/Psychiatry," shows the ways in
which Fanon 's account of psychiatry advocates a new form o f humanism. She
argues that Fanon 's philosophical perspective, existential phenomenology, is
such that decolonizing both psychology and philosophy are necessarily con­
joined. These insights point towards a new postcolonial humanism that is truly
transformative. Fanon 's tho ught emanates from a schema of embodied thinking
that Nissim-Sabat refers to as Fanonian h umanism, which shows that victims of
oppression have been stripped of the actuality and inner sense of freedom and
the sociality that constitutes our humanness. In his critique of psychology, Fa­
non contends that the origin of the b lack man's a lienation is sociogenic. The
Manichean world will only be transformed into a h uman world through a revolu­
tionary process that will need to deontologize whiteness. By abstaining from
commitment to ontological beliefs, people can examine them as phenomena, as
possibilities, and examine as well their potential ramifications and consequences
for h uman life. In chapter 4, "Fanon, Foucault, and the Politics of Psychiatry,"
Chloe Taylor compares both Fanon's and Michel Foucault's critiques o f psy­
chiatry in order to show the ways in which Foucault's tho ught both converges
with and also counters Fanonian thought. According to Taylor, a key distinction
between Foucault and Fanon is that while Foucault raises the political-rather
than the scientific-character of the psychological disciplines in order to oppose
their practice, Fanon acknowledges but a lso takes up the non-scientific and po­
litical function of psychiatry and psychoanalysis, using them as tools for antico­
lonial engagement. Taylor a lso considers the significance of the fact that Fanon
opted to raise and respond to these criticisms from within the psychiatric and
psychoanalytic disciplines, whereas for Foucault these same problems were rea­
sons to resist all psychological practice. But there is an interesting convergence
between the two: both Fanon 's works on colonization and Foucault's mid-career
XVI Elizabeth A. Hoppe and Tracey Nicholls

writings on delinquents and madmen examine the oppressive impact of psychia­

try on subjects whose freedom is most likely to be curtailed within their socie­
ties.
The third section, "On Fanon and Violence," takes up Fanon 's continuing
relevance to questions of violence through analysis of the role it plays in facili­
tating state power. Here, a decolonization of philosophy is suggested through
arguments that cast into doubt the dictum handed down to us from Max Weber,
that the government of a particular territory has an exclusive monopoly on the
right to use force . Closely related to this point of c lassical political theory is a
movement common to both chapters : they draw our attention away from a pre­
occupation with the West as political paradigm and urge us to realize instead the
extent to which political expectations of rulers and citizens have been shaped by
non-Western resistances to colonial power. Chapter 5, "Fanon on Turtle Island:
Revisiting the Question of Violence," looks at Fanon 's conception o f revolu­
tionary/decolonizing violence through the lens of decolonization movements
within First Nations/Native American communities. The author, Anna Carasta­
this, argues that Fanon's famous first chapter of The Wretched of the Earth is
not merely a rhetorical glorification of revolutionary violence, but a crucially
important phenomenological analysis of colonization and liberation. Her chapter
contrasts Fanon 's c laims about the necessity of violence in decolonizing move­
ments with recent theorization of "nonviolent militancy" by indigenous political
philosophers in North America, and argues that these different positions on the
question of violence are ultimately attributable to differences in the ways colo­
nial state power manifests itself in the post World War II French colony of A lge­
ria and the contemporary liberal democracy that is Canada. Its pair in this sec­
tion, chapter 6, is Peter Gratton's "Sovereign Violence, Racial Violence."
Gratton traces important lessons in Fanon 's thinking on decolonizing violence
for the writings of contemporary Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben. What
Agamben theorizes as "the state of exception" (the suspension of rule of law that
a leader can declare in times of national emergency) is shown as an overempha­
sis on government as the locus of politics. In contrast, Fanon directs us to the
politics of "the population at large," and Gratton demonstrates that the concept
of "bare life" we find in the political theorizing of Agamben, Hannah Arendt,
and Michel Foucault is the same racialized other that Fanon analyzed in Black
Skin, White Masks and The Wretched of the Earth. The violence that state power
visits upon this degraded form of life is thus a repression that was perfected in
the colonial context before being imported back to the West. Both chapters deal,
albeit in different ways, with questions that keep alive Fanon's relevance in this
age o f war and terror: whether, once a cycle of violence has started, it is possible
to end it; and where we locate the power of the state-in the capacity to coerce,
or in the legitimacy that we grant to it as habitual followers of its laws?
Part IV, "Fanon on Racism and Sexuality," a lso takes up questions of vio­
lence, but in the more specific form of racism. Both chapters present the notion
of decolonization of the self as a constructive response to racism. Chapter 7,
Mohammad H. Tamdgidi 's "Decolonizing Selves : The Subtler Violences of
 Introduction xvii

Colonialism and Racism in Fanon, Said, and Anzaldua," investigates the ways
racist violence is contested in the work of these three thinkers. Tamdgidi shows
that each of them enacts what he calls "quanta! sociological imaginations"-a
view of society that rejects atomistic individualism in favor o f a complex under­
standing of the many selves and voices that each of us manifests in different
contexts. This more sophisticated understanding of what it means to be a self
within society both complicates and enables the moral responses to racism that
could make it possible for us to move past colonial essentializations. The crucial
question Tamdgidi raises out of this comparative analysis is whether their dif­
ferent conceptions of colonial and racial oppression are irreconcilable or com­
plementary aspects of a common emancipatory project. The challenge for us, as
readers, is to assess these positions and their commensurability from "the inside"
so to speak : we are not mere observers of the forces of racism and colonialism
that Fanon, Said, and Anzaldua describe, but are instead caught up in societies
where these forces are still at play. The difficulty of assessing racism and colo­
nialism is that they are, in effect, moving targets that shift constantly, even as we
stop to examine them. Accompanying this comparative analysis is a deeper in­
vestigation into how racism impacts the romantic lives of colonized people of
color. In chapter 8, Sokthan Yeng 's c lose reading of Black Skin, White Masks in
"Fanon and the Impossibilities of Love in the Colonial Order" draws out an ac­
count of Fanon's writings on interracial relationship and theorizes the relation­
ship between the man of color and the woman of color in this situation through
feminist theorizing on sibling rivalry. Yeng argues that the psychopathology of
sibling rivalry is an important complement to Fanon 's analysis of obsessive neu­
rosis. Where Fanon explains only how people of color are alienated within white
society, we also need an examination of the a lienation that men of color and
women of color experience with respect to each other (a tension that runs
throughout Black Skin, White Masks), and this is what sibling rivalry accounts
can provide . We can see the destructive impact of racism on sexuality in the way
it turns people of color against each other in competition for white approbation.
As with Tamdgidi's analysis, if there is a Fanonian solution to the problem of
racism and sexuality, Yeng c learly thinks it lies in the notion o f a decolonization
of the self, a decolonization that allows for development of a positive sense o f
self and a capacity for intra-racial love and regard.
Our fifth section, "Beyond Colonization," shifts to theoretical and empirical
considerations of postcolonial restructuring. From these chapters, we can gain an
even deeper appreciation of the prescience of Fanon's thought. Writing at a
moment when postcolonial forms of government, society, and economic rela­
tions had not yet emerged, Fanon nevertheless predicts the conflicts and con­
cerns that our authors in this section raise. Chapter 9, Ferit Gi.iven 's "Hegel,
Fanon, and the Problem of Negativity in the Postcolonial," offers a discussion of
the continuing importance of Fanonian critique for postcolonial political phi­
losophy. Developing in detail a point that Mohammad Tamdgidi discussed
briefly in chapter 7, Giiven understands Fanon to be engaged in a critique of the
Hegelian assumptions that structure our philosophica l thinking about conflict
xviii Elizabeth A. Hoppe and Tracey Nicholls

and reciprocal recognition . Where Hegel 's dialectic understands the "master"
and "slave" to be locked in a struggle that crucially depends on their desire for
recognition from the other, Fanon argues, in The Wretched of the Earth, that
there is no such mutuality in colonial contexts. In turn, Giiven argues that we
can fully appreciate how radical Fanon 's critique is through an analysis of the
Hegelian dialectic in postcolonial political thought. A theory o f mutually recog­
nized and constituted community might seem to be exactly what we need for
political reconstruction o f societies with colonial pasts but Hegel 's theory is
limited, in Giiven 's view, because it depends upon a conception of race and ra­
cial hierarchy that accords superiority to the European subject. In essence, albeit
perhaps unwittingly, Hegel replicates the very colonial structure that his dialec­
tic might seem to help us transcend, and it is this weakness that Fanon 's later
writings recognized. In chapter IO, Elizabeth A. Hoppe's "Tourism as Racism:
Fanon and the Vestiges of Colonialism," we move from the lingering problems
of conceptual colonization to those of economic colonization. Translating the
challenge o f reciprocal recognition from political philosophy to contemporary
tourism, Hoppe shows empirically what Giiven argues theoretically : the extent
to which colonial power creates its other, and even creates the playing field on
which these postcolonial nations are expected to compete with their former co­
lonial masters. While some people might think that economic development is a
project entirely separate from philosophical decolonization, Hoppe argues that
the asymmetry we find in tourism replicates racist colonial structures. The solu­
tion she draws out of Fanon 's writings is a recognition of the equal value of dif­
ferent cultures that he terms "cultural relativity." This is essentially a call for the
decolonization of cultures, presumably to be undertaken along with the decolo­
nization of the self. Both chapters in "Beyond Colonization" contribute to the
project of decolonizing philosophy through their investigations o f our current
"postcolonial" moment by drawing our attention back to Fanon 's warnings that
national liberation is not necessarily a panacea. Instead, they show his percep­
tive grasp of the problems that newly-independent nations would face in rela­
tions with their former colonial masters in the development of national identi­
ties, political autonomy, and economic viability.
As the final part of this anthology, part VI, "Beyond Fanon," shows the
ways in which Fanonian thought continues to influence discourse about Africa
today. In Chapter 1 1 , "Amilcar Cabral: A Philosophical Profile," OlUfemi Taiwo
examines Cabral and the ways in which he both supports and goes beyond Fa­
non. As Taiwo points out, his chapter is not meant to be a comparison between
Fanon and Cabral, but rather, it serves as a juxtaposition between the two think­
ers. While both reflected on common themes, this similarity does not mean that
they came up with the same theories or positions on the subject of colonization.
Instead, Taiwo uses Cabral to expand our theoretical horizons, as well as to
show why Cabral should be considered a leading thinker of postcoloniality.
Among the topics that Taiwo addresses are the comparative philosophy o f colo­
nialism, the adaptation of Marxism to indigenous terrain which thereby extends
its theoretical reach, national liberation and culture, and possibility of genuine
 Introduction xix

human emancipation in spite of the violence of colonialism and the viciousness

of racial oppression. Toward the end of the chapter, Taiwo shows that, for both
Fanon and Cabral, advocacy of humanism and commitment to progress were
likely motivations for their involvement in the struggle and the focus of their
philosophical reflections. While this chapter focuses on a contemporary of Fa­
non, the twelfth and final chapter of the volume, "Fanonian Presences in South
Africa : From Theory and from Practice" by Nigel C . Gibson, addresses contem­
porary issues in South Africa, especially in terms of Steve Biko and more re­
cently, the shack dwellers movement. His account of the shack dwellers in South
Africa shows the ways in which the struggle continues, in the organizing efforts
of the people who live at the margins and their battles with the government.
Gibson finds that Fanon 's philosophy of liberation has been engaged and chal­
lenged in two distinct movements, one from theory toward action that develops
into the philosophy of B lack consciousness in the work and writings of Steve
Biko, and the other as a movement from practice to a form o f theory, specifi­
cally the democratic grassroots politics of the shack dwellers movement, Abah­
lali baseMjondolo, in the postapartheid South Africa of the twenty-first century.
Both of these examples reveal the ways in which the fight for autonomy contin­
ues. Thus, the final part of this volume reveals that Fanon's vision of a new Af­
rica remains unfulfilled and challenges us to take on this unfinished labor.
While some historians have contended that the age of colonization has come
to an end, this anthology reveals the ways in which colonizing themes continue
to be p layed out today. Whether it be a privileging of a singular knowledge, so­
cial control, or race and gender struggles, we find that we need to be vigilant
regarding the ways in which each one of us continues to participate in oppres­
sion and dehumanization. It is our hope that this volume offers some possible
solutions and suggestions for creating a new model of humanism, one that is
truly universal. The problem, as we see it, is not that modern philosophy was
wrong to advocate for universal human rights, but rather that its application
went astray as soon as it decided to exclude any one person from the category o f
humanity. It i s our sincere hope, a s the editors o f this volume, that the arguments
and analyses offered here will indeed contribute to a decolonization of philoso­
phy.
 PART I

ON KNOWLEDGE

AND THE ACADEMY

 Chapter 1
Fanon on Decolonizing Knowledge

Lewis R. Gordon

This chapter examines some recent theoretical developments that are playing an
important role in the decolonization of knowledge. That knowledge has been
colonized raises the question of whether it was ever free. The formulation o f
knowledge i n the singular already situates the question i n a framework that is
alien to precolonial times, for the disparate modes of producing knowledge and
notions of knowledge were so many that "knowledges" would be a more appro­
priate designation. Unification was a function of various stages of imperial re­
alignment, where local reflections shifted their attention to centers elsewhere to
the point o f concentric collapse. On their way, those varieties of knowledge coa­
lesced into knowledge of the center, and successive collapses of centers under
the weight of other centers led, over time, to the global situation of the center
and its concomitant organization of knowledges into knowledge . This path has
not, however, been one exclusively built upon alienation, for along with the
strange and the alien were also the familiar and the, at times, welcomed.
There is a growing community of scholars who have questioned the logic o f
self reflection offered by the most recent stage of centered productions o f know­
ledge. 1 The philosophical framework of such rationalization is familiar to most
students of Western philosophy : Rene Descartes reflected on method in the sev­
enteenth century, grew doubtful, and articulated the certainty of his thinking self
in opposition to the fleeting world of the senses. A result of such intellectual
labor is a shift of first questions from meditations on what there is to what can
be known . This focus on epistemology as first philosophy charted the course of
philosophy in modern terms against and with which contemporary philosophers
continue to struggle and grapple. For political thinkers, the new beginning is a
little earlier, in NiccolO Machiavelli 's late fifteenth- through early sixteenth­
century portraits of republicanism and the cunning Prince.
The Latin American philosopher Enrique Dussel has raised the question of
the underside of these intellectualist formulations o f modern l ife, o f the geopo­
litical, material impositions and the unnamed millions whose centers collapsed
not simply from the force of ideas but sword and musket. That modernity was
3
4 Lewis R. Gordon

ironically also identified by Machiavelli but is often overlooked through how he

is read today: in The Prince, Machiavelli wrote of the effects of King Ferdinand
and Queen Isabella 's victory over the Moors in the Iberian Peninsula. 2 His focus
on the repression wrought in the name of Christendom presumed, however, the
continued significance of the Mediterranean in the commerce o f world­
constituting activity. Dussel's work argues that the continued conflict spread
westward across the Atlantic Ocean, and by October of that year, 1492, a series
of new relations were established w ith a New World that decentered the Medi­
terranean, stimulated a new economy and with it an organization of its manage­
ment (new epistemologies), and re-aligned the western peninsula of Asia into a
new political territory in the form of a continent, namely, Europe.
Prior to the emergence of Europe, there were maps of the Mediterranean
that would have to be turned upside down to be familiar to contemporary travel­
ers, for, as was the case with ancient organizations of locations of regions that
included northeast Africa, whose most known civilization was Egypt, "upper"
3
pointed south, and " lower" northward. One, in other words, traveled up to what
became known as Africa and down to what became known as Europe. The birth
of new centers produced new geopolitical relations, and as focus on the New
World eclipsed the effort to establish trade with southwest and middle Asia, the
bourgeoning economies affected the cultural life as well. In the production o f
cultural considerations a lso emerged those o f new forms of life. A transition
followed from Jews, Christians, and Muslims to Europeans, Asians, Africans,
and New World peoples forced into some variation of the last as Indians or "red
savages" at first along old Aristotelian categories of developed versus undevel­
oped "men." This movement, negotiated through conquest, disputations, and
enslavement, brought to the fore reflections of "man" on "man," with constant
anxiety over the stability of such a category. In such study, the process of dis­
covery, of uncovering, also became one of invention and production: the search
to understand "man" was also producing him. Its destabilization was inevitable
as his possibilities called his exclusion of "her" into question. The concomitant
reorganization of understanding him and her is oddly a schema that befits the
dominating knowledge scheme of the epoch : natural science.
The word "science," although also meaning knowledge, reveals much in its
etymology. It is a transformation of the Latin infinitive scire ("to know"),
which, let us now add, suggests a connection to the verb scindere ("to divide"­
think, today, of "schism"), which, like many Latin words, also shares origins
with ancient Greek words, which, in this case would be skhizein (to split, to
cleave). Oddly enough, this exercise in etymology is indication of a dimension
of epistemological colonization. Most etymological exercises report a h istory o f
words a s though language itself i s rooted i n Greco-Latin c lassicism . The ten­
dency is to find the sources of meaning from either the European s ide of the
Mediterranean or from the north. There is an occasional stop off in Wes tern Asia
or the Middle East, but for the most part, the history of important terms suggests
a geographical movement that is oddly similar to the movement of Geist in He­
4
gel's Lectures on the Philosophy of History. Some further inquiry reveals, how-
 Fanon on Decolonizing Knowledge 5

ever, the relationship of the Latin and Greek words to the more ancient, Egyp­
tian words Crethi and kotket by way of the Hebrew Crethi, which was derived
from the root carath, which means to cut. The word Crethi referred to the an­
cient Egyptian royal armies, which were split into two c lasses. 5 We thus see here
a transition from one form of ancient center to various others on a course to
modern times. Oddly enough, there is an etymological link during the Latin
transition with another Latin infinitive, secare (which also means to cut), which
is more transparently connected to the Hebrew carath (if one imagines "cara" as
a possible spoken form). Secare is the source of the English word sex. A link
between science and sex brings biology to the fore and the question of the life
sciences. Such a consideration indicates the importance life had on reflections
on the unfolding developing of systematic inquiry: as the question of G-d moti­
vated theological reflections and metaphysical inquiry, so, too, did concerns
over the generation o f life initiate scientific inquiry, although life was loaded
with metaphysical content, as anxieties and fear over the salvation of the soul
without the theological guarantees attest to well into the present.
The subsequent unfolding story is familiar to most of us who study coloni­
zation. A long with the expansion of Christian kingdoms into nation-states and
their colonies, which resulted over the course of a few hundred years in Euro­
pean civilization on a global scale, was also a series of epistemological devel­
opments that have produced new forms of life: new kinds of people came into
being, while others disappeared, and whole groups of them occupy the age in an
ambivalent and melancholic relationship.6 They belong to a world to which they
paradoxically do not belong. These people have been aptly described by W.E.B.
Du Bois as "problems."7 They are a function of a world in which they are pos­
ited as i llegitimate although they could exist nowhere else . I am speaking here
primarily of blacks and Indians/Native Americans, and by b lacks I also mean to
include Australian Aboriginals and related groups in the South Pacific and In­
dian Ocean. Such people are treated by dominant organizations of knowledge as
problems instead of people who face problems. Their problem status is a func­
tion of the presupposed legitimacy o f the systems that generate them. In effect,
being presumed perfect, the systems resist blame for any injustice or contradic­
tion that may be avowed by such people. Those maledictions become extraneous
to its functions in spite of having already been generated by them. The contra­
dictory nature of such assessments distorts the process o f reasoning and the pro­
duction of knowledge into doubled structures of disavowals and concealment, at
times even with c laims of transparency, and more problem people result. A con­
sequence of such reflection is the proliferation of more kinds of problem people.
Since 2001, when the War on Terror was inaugurated, the production of such
people has increased.
At this point, I should like to make some distinctions that may make c lear
some of the abstract terms of this discussion. That modes of producing knowl­
edge can be enlisted in the service of colonization is evident. Frantz Fanon re­
flected, in Peau noire, masques blancs, that methods have a way of "devouring
themselves."8 In doing so, he brought into focus the problem of evaluating me-
6 Lewis R. Gordon

thod itself, of assessing methodology. If the epistemic conditions of social life

are colonized, would not that infection reach also the grammatical level as well?
Put differently, couldn 't there also be colonization at the methodological level?
If so, then any presumed method, especially from a subject living within a colo­
nized framework, could generate continued colonization. To evaluate method,
the best "method" becomes the suspension of method. This paradox leads to a
demand for radical anticolonial critique. But for such a reflection to be radical, it
must also make even logic itself suspect. Such a demand leads to a distinction
between rationality and reason. The former cannot suspend logic, for to be what
it is, it must, at minimum, demand consistency. The demand for consistency
eventually collapses into maximum consistency, in order to be consistent. In
effect, this means that rationality must presume its method, and it must resist
straining from its generating grammar. Reason, however, offers a different story .
To be maximally consistent, although logically commendable, is not always
reasonable. Reasonability can embrace contradictions. Even more, it must be
able to do so in order to evaluate even itself. This means that the scope of reason
exceeds rationality.
Science is more at home with instrumental rationality than it is with reason.
Departure from consistency-maximization would disintegrate an important
foundation of modern science, namely, the notion of a law of nature . A law in
this sense cannot have exceptions. Since reason at times demands exceptions, a
marriage between science and reason would be short lived . The project of much
of modern European philosophical thought, however, has been the effort to cul­
tivate such a marriage. Toward such a goal, the instruments o f rationality are
often unleashed with the result of the effort to yoke reason to rationality. This
effort could be reformulated as the effort to colonize reason.
The ef fort to colonize reason has had many productive consequences. Many
disciplines have been generated by this effort. On one hand, there are the natural
and exact theoretical sciences. On the other, there are the human sciences. The
former set seems to behave in a more disciplined way than the latter . Although
disciplining the latter has resulted in a variety of disciplines, the underlying goal
of maximum rationalization has been consistently strained. The source of such
difficulty-reality-has been unremitting. Karl Jaspers, in Philosophy of Exis­
tence, summarized the circumstance well: reality is bigger than we are.9 Any
discipline or generated system for the organization of reality faces the problem
of having to exceed the scope of its object of inquiry, but since it, too, must be
part of that object (if it is to be something as grand as reality), it must contain
itself in a logical relationship to all it is trying to contain, which expands the
initial problem of inclusion. There is, in other words, always more to and o f re­
ality.
Failure to appreciate reality sometimes takes the form of recoiling from it.
An inward path of disciplinary solitude eventually leads to what I call discipli­
nary decadence. 10 This is the phenomenon of turning away from living thought,
which engages reality and recognizes its own limitations, to a deontologized or
absolute conception o f a particular discipline as disciplinary life. The discipline
 Fanon on Decolonizing Knowledge 7

becomes, in solipsistic fashion, the world. And in that world, the main concern
is the proper administering of its rules, regulations, or, reiterating Fanon, (self­
devouring) methods. Becoming "right" is simply a matter of applying the me­
thod correctly. This is a form of decadence because of the set o f considerations
that fall to the wayside as the discipline turns into itself and eventually implodes.
Decay, although a natural process over the course of time for living things, takes
on a paradoxical quality in their creations. A discipline, for example, could be in
decay through a failure to realize that decay is possible. Like empires, the pre­
sumption is that the discipline must outlive all, including its own purpose.
In more concrete terms, disciplinary decadence takes the form of one disci­
pline assessing all other disciplines from its supposedly complete standpoint. It
is the literary scholar who criticizes work in other disciplines as not literary. It is
the sociologist who rejects other disciplines as not sociological. It is the histo­
rian who asserts history as the foundation of everything. It is the natural scientist
that criticizes the others for not being scientific. And it is a lso the philosopher
who rejects all for not being properly philosophical. Discipline envy is also a
form of disciplinary decadence. It is striking, for instance, how many disciplines
in the humanities and the social sciences are now dominated by scholars writing
intellectual history with a focus on the Western philosophical canon. And then
there is decadence at methodological levels. Textualism, for example, infects
historiography at the level of archival legitimacy. Or worse, in some forms o f
textualism, the expectation of everything being contained i n the text becomes
evident in work in the human sciences that announce studying its subject
through an analysis focused exclusively on texts on the subject. There are schol­
ars in race theory, for example, who seem to think that theorizing the subject is a
matter of determining what has been said on it by a small set of canonical texts.
When appearance is reduced to textual appearance, what, then, happens to in­
quiry--0r, for that matter, reality? What are positivism and certain forms of
semiological imitation of mathematical phenomena but science envy? When
biologism, sociologism, psychologism, and many others assert themselves, to
what, ultimately, are they referring? In the human sciences, the problem be­
comes particularly acute in the study of problem people. Such people misbehave
also in disciplinary terms. The failure to squeeze them into disciplinary dictates,
from a disciplinarily decadent perspective, is proof of a problem with the people
instead of the discipline. It serves as further "proof' of the pathological nature o f
such people.
A response to disciplinary decadence (although not often identified as such)
has been interdisciplinarity. A problem with this response is that it, too, could
manifest a decadent structure. This is because presumed disciplinary complete­
ness of each discipline is compatible with disciplinary decadence. Disciplines
could simply work a longside each other like ships passing in the night. A more
hopeful route is transdisciplinarity, where disciplines work through each other;
yet although more promising, such a route is still susceptible to decadence so
long as it fails to bring reality into focus. But doing that raises questions of pur­
pose. It raises considerations that may need to be addressed in spite of discipli-
8 Lewis R. Gordon

nary dictates. I call this process a teleological suspension of disciplinarity. By

that, I mean the willingness to go beyond disciplines in the production of knowl­
edge. This "beyond" is, however, paradoxical. In some instances, it revitalizes
an existing discipline. In others, it generates a new one. For example, a teleo­
logical suspension of philosophy generates new philosophy in some instances,
and in others, it may generate new social thought that may not be philosophical.
A teleological suspension of topology, chemistry, and biology could offer much
to genetics and other sequencing notions of life.
Teleological suspensions of disciplines are also epistemic decolonial acts.
The discussion I have offered thus far places such acts squarely in, although not
exclusive to, Africana philosophy. By Africana philosophy, I mean the explora­
tion of modern life as understood through contradictions raised by the lived­
reality of African Diasporic people. Because such people are often linked to
many others whose humanity has been challenged, Africana philosophy is also a
philosophy that speaks beyond the Africana community. Among the pressing
concerns of Africana philosophy are: (1) problems of philosophical anthropol­
ogy, (2) theorizing liberation, and (3) offering a metacritique of reason. The first
is raised by the dehumanization of people in the modern world. Although not all
people of African descent were enslaved in the modern world, the impact of
modern slavery, its correlative racist rationalization, and global colonization by
European (and some Middle Eastern and Asian) nations led to the discourse of
questioned legitimacy of such people as members of the human community. The
second concern pertains to the transformation of a degraded people into a liber­
ated one. Issues of social transformation and liberation link philosophical an­
thropology to the question of freedom; what kind of subject, in other words, is it
to which or to whom the question of freedom is relevant? An important distinc­
tion arises here between liberty and freedom. The former is purely negative (the
absence of constraints) and exemplifies what we share with other animals,
whereas the latter entails responsibility and maturation. One could have liberty
without freedom. The third concern examines whether the first two, especially at
the level of the reasons offered in their support, are justified. Fanon, whose
thought guides much of this discussion, offers insight into all three.
As we have seen, the philosophical radicality of Fanon's thought emerges
in, among other things, his critique of epistemic colonization. Colonization
made rigorous, he argued, entails subjugation at the methodological level. Since
the method and its logic call for critique, neither can be presupposed in an anal­
ysis without begging the question of the scope of colonization. Fanon thus had
to be willing to examine human phenomena at the level of their failures. This
placed him in a paradoxical relation to his own work, especially as exemplified
by Peau noire, masques blancs. For there, failure was a metatextual assessment.
That means that the internal consistency of the text could be a manifestation of
its failure. Fanon argued that this relationship of external triumph over internal
failure, or external failure over internal triumph, called for an appeal to the un­
derstanding of meanings generated by the social world, which he called socio­
genic phenomena.
 Fanon on Decolonizing Knowledge 9

Fanon's sociogenic analysis offers much for a postcolonial epistemology

and philosophy of liberation since the movement from bondage to liberation
would make no sense without the subjects of liberation being able to affect the
social world in which their identities have been forged. At the heart of socio­
genesis is the foundation of what today is often called "constructivity." For con­
struction to occur, something has to be able to change from one condition to
another, and that process, when planned or struggled for, is a manifestation of
agency. The point about social meaning, however, is that although the change
may not necessarily be biophysical or simply physical, it is paramount that the
change is meaningful. In short, Fanon announces the relationship between mean­
ing and the constitution of forms of life, and that a central role of liberation
thought is the reconfiguration of concepts, including those through which prac­
tice can become praxis or freedom-constituting activity. The addition of freedom
raises the question of the distinction between freedom and liberty. If freedom is
a function of meaning, and if human beings, as meaning-constituting subjects
are the manifestations of freedom, what, then, is coherent about bondage? Could
not one in some sense be "free" even while enslaved?
The argument here suggests a dialectical movement as follows : bondage is
an imposition on freedom/human beings with the aim of creating nonhuman
physical objects-namely, animals that could obey comp lex commands. The
reassertion of the humanity of such beings is their call for liberation, which re­
quires the coordination of freedom and liberty. Thus, the dialectic becomes
movements from freedom to bondage to liberation. The middle stage requires
more than a curtailment of liberty since the goal of oppression is also to make
the subject give up her or his freedom.
Although the social world is paramount, a danger in the social world is the
subordination of the individual to futile conditions of meaning. One example is
the dialectics of recognition. Fanon argued that it is futile for colonized and ra­
cially oppressed peoples to seek their liberation through seeking recognition
from their colonizers and racial oppressors. In doing so, they will be caught in a
logic that props up their oppressor as the standard of human value. Fanon often
wrote of this as narcissism, where there is a demand for a deceiving mirror im­
age. It is an effort to force the oppressor to become one's mirror, which would
require making oneself identical to the oppressor. The situation is a failure on
two levels. First, it is a lie. As long as the oppressor is the standard, then the
demand for recognition leads to acts of imitation, of never being the standard
but, at best, an approximation. Second, its achievement would logically increase
the world of oppressors, unless everyone achieved such a status, which would
render oppression meaningless beyond a search for those whom to oppress. In
all likelihood, that would mean each other. It would, in other words, also be neu­
rotic.
In Peau noire, masques blancs, Fanon showed that the sciences of the hu­
man being offered by the West offer the pretense of universality and a problem­
atic c laim to ontology. Appealing to the concept of sociogenesis, he showed that
the colonial condition displaced each of these sciences by imposing their limits.
10 Lewis R. Gordon

The social forces that intervened offered a better explanation of a b lack seeking
affirmative words of white recognition in the hope of e scaping blackness. In
effect, Fanon advanced an argument first introduced by W.E.B. Du Bois in his
essays from the late 1890s and in The Souls of Black Folk, which is that blacks
often emerge as a problem at the epistemological and political levels. Because
the systems lay claim to ontological validity, there must be something wrong
with those who do not "fit" them or affirm their c laim to completeness. Such
people become "problems." Du Bois' and Fanon' s point is that there is nothing
intrinsically wrong with such people. There is something wrong with the social
systems in which they live and the presuppositions of the scope of the sciences
premised upon such systems. Think, for instance, of trying to figure out why
one 's slave is "unhappy." It is the aim of achieving "happy slaves" that is prob­
lematic . In fact one could argue that the resistance of blacks and indigenous
people to such assimilation is healthy. But still, there are cases in which ordinary
explanations of the unhappiness of subjects of color fail, simply, because the
mechanisms of explanation require not addressing the notion of a sociogenic
explanation. And therein awaits much error.
Fanon also demonstrated the limits of the Self-Other dialectic in colonial
and racialized environments. That dialectic is properly an ethical one. At its
heart is the possibility of symmetry-the self that sees another as Other is also
seen by that other self as its Other. In short there is a self/other-other/self rela­
tion in which reciprocity beckons. But colonial and racist settings only set that
relationship as one between colonizers or members of the dominating race. Be­
cause the colonized and racially degraded people experience the Self-Other rela­
tionship with each other and do not have the imposition of the master ' s inferior­
ity on them (otherwise, he or she would not be "master" but an equal), then they
could imagine the master as another human being or at least one who thinks he
or she is more. But the problem is that the colonizer/master does not encounter
another human being in the lower depths. Thus, for him or her, there is pre­
sumed no possibility of an equal relationship between those beings and his or
her self. The relations for the colonizer/master, then, are Self-Other and non­
self-and-non-others. There is no one, only "things" that stand out from the world
of the colonizer s as racially inferior. As a matter of praxis, then, decolonizing
strugg les and those against racial oppression do not begin on ethical but pecu-
1iarly political premises of constructing a genuine Self-Other relationship
through which ethical relations can become possible. A problem that emerges
here, however, is that politics also requires the elevation of those who are "noth­
ings" to the level of "someone," namely, people. The struggle here, then, is a
conflict with politics as an aim through which ethical relations can emerge. The
dialectic, echoing the one on liberation, becomes one from war or violence to
politics to ethics. A more stab le, humane environment is needed, in other words,
for ethica l life.
There is thus a paradoxical ethical failure at the dawn of every decolonial
project. Although the transformation could be ethically motivated, its coming
into being appears as an ethical violation because of politics supervening ethics.
 Fanon on Decolonizing Knowledge 11

Yet, as Fanon attested in the introduction of Peau noire, masques blancs, his
aim was the cultivation of actional subjects. Fanon's reflections on failure there­
fore call for exploration at more subterranean levels, which he offered through
an appeal to psychoanalysis. Although he explored a variety of psychoanalytical
concepts, one of crucial importance is the subject-forming effect of melancholia,
an insight subsequently explored by Judith Butler and Pau l Gilroy in the con­
texts of gender, race, and postcoloniality. Melancholia is a form of suffering that
is a consequence of a loss that is distinct from bereavement. In the case of the
death of a loved one, there is no chance of reconciliation with the lost object.
But in the case of melancholia, there is a continued presence of that which has
been lost. The separation of child from parent, for example, is lived as melan­
cholic where the parent continues to be present but out of physically bonded
intimate reach. Various forms of loss that continue this process are manifested in
transitions from infancy to childhood to adolescence and then adulthood. As
Fanon was fond of saying, echoing Jean-Jacques Rousseau through Friedrich
11
Nietzsche, "Man's tragedy . . . is that he was once a child." One could think of
modernity as inaugurating a unique form of melancholia that formed the black
subject. The situation is a frustrating one of a longing for a precolonial existence
as what one is, of longing for black existence in a form that blacks could never
have existed. Fanon 's infamous criticisms of history and the past come from this
insight : there is no p lace in the past for black people ; there is no place to which
black people can return.
In political, geographical, and historical terms, this melancholia is tragically
manifested in African postcolonies. The critique of presuming the presence of a
Self-Other dialectic leads, as well, to a critique of a particular form of human
study, namely, normative political theory. For such theory, most represented by
modern liberalism, the claim is that it is about theorizing what should be, but the
thought in fact presupposes the very political reality it needs to construct for its
condition of possibility. To put it differently : for those who rule, ethics needs to
precede politics since they presuppose an already just and humane, although
often hidden, environment as the de facto context of their inquiry into what
ought to be. For those who are oppressed, they regard the appeal to ethics as
begging the question of the relevance of good will and argue for the need to shift
the conditions of rule, to engage in politics, before addressing an ethics. Failure
to do so would have the conservative consequence of preserving the colonial and
racist condition. And worse, one may discover at the end of a political process
that some oughts are no longer viable; they face no chance, in other words, of
any longer becoming a lived reality.
From the previous two arguments, Fanon contended that the sociogenic
problem is that there is no coherent notion of normality for colonized and racial­
ized subjects. For example, both the black "assimilated" professional and the
black criminal live an abnormal schema; the first as not "authentically" black ,
the latter as an authentic pathology. The absence of normality for black people
leads to another challenge to black existence in the modern world : there is no
coherent notion of a black adult in antiblack societies. Here, Fanon in effect ex-
12 Lewis R . Gordon

plored the theoretical significance of the impact of Lord Frederick John Dealtry
Lugard's prescription for Africa, which was the stratagem of reducing all the
people of the continent to juveniles. It was part of the larger rationalization of
dehumanizing people of African descent, which included reducing them to
property (formalized s lavery) and effecting a structure of treating them as chil­
dren in relation to whites and some Asians in avowedly improved times. In the
context of therapy, Fanon 's point is that expecting a man or woman to live in the
social world as a boy or girl demands the normalization of a pathological rela­
tionship; in other words, he queries, how could health be achieved for black
people in a world where there is no coherent notion of a black adult?
Fanon also argued, from his critique of prioritizing ethics, that decoloniza­
tion is a violent phenomenon. This is so because ethics, in such efforts, has been
suspended. Where ethics is suspended, all is permitted-Dr there is at least an
absence of justification for imposing limits. And in that sphere of permissive­
ness, violence receives license. What is more, because the consent of the op­
pressed has been rendered irrelevant, then the process becomes, in his or her
lived reality, one of violation or an unjust ushering in of the future. If the ethical
is here fused with the epistemological, the added consideration of decolonial
epistemology as a form of i llicit practice returns. But it returns paradoxically,
since its illegality is a function of the expected completeness of instrumental
logical c laims. In other words, the reassertion of reason as a broader possibility
than rationality depends on an internal failure of rationality, namely, the paradox
of its (relevant to a restricted context or domain) completeness being a conse­
quence of its incompleteness (there being a world that exceeds it).
The political significance of these ideas can be considered through their ge­
nealogical line from Rousseau through to Kant, Hegel, Marx, and on to Sartre in
the European tradition and its manifestations in the Caribbean from the Haitian
revolution through to Antenor Firmin, C.L.R. James, and Aime Cesaire. Fanon's
ideas conjoin the two lines. Consider the distinction between the will in general
and the general will, which Rousseau outlined in Du contrat social. 12 The for­
mer pertains to selfish interests; the latter, to the common good or interests of
all. Fanon makes the distinction, in Les damnes de la terre, between nationalism
and national consciousness. The former involves members of ethnic groups col­
lapsing into the interests of their group over all others, and its logic, premised
upon sameness, has a sliding scale infinitesimally to the notion of a sanitized
self. At the end, nationalism and self-interest follow the same logic, and the re­
sult is the will in general-just a matter of which collective of interests will pre­
vail over other collectives of interests by sheer number. But national conscious­
ness always transcends selfishness. It is not to say that it must erase the
individual. It is to recognize that an individua l makes no sense outside of a so­
cial world, and a social world makes no sense without distinct individuals. To­
gether, they are demanded by Fanon's argument to make a transition from in­
strumental rationality to reflective reason, from thinking only about hypothetical
means to reflecting on valued ends.
 Fanon on Decolonizing Knowledge 13

The colonial and decolonizing moments lead to the following analysis of

such ends. The colonial condition forces the colonized, Fanon argued, to ques­
tion their humanity. This interrogation occasioned alienation of the spirit in the
face of loss of land and thwarted First Nations or First Peoples' teleological
processes such as their own forms of self-critique. The decolonization process
unleashed an array of violent forces that bring to the surface the many double
standards of the colonial system and contingency in a world that once seemed to
be absolute and necessary. At the heart of this "hell" is the classic direction of
consumed hatred. As Virgil showed Dante 's protagonist two foes, one of whom
is so consumed by hatred that he gnaws on the head of his enemy while frozen
from the neck down near the cold center of Hell, Fanon presented the horrific
implications of being consumed by hatred . There are some attachments, values,
of which we must let go, and in so doing, we will find our way outside, where
we could emerge, in the words of Dante, "to see--once more-the stars." 13 This
is what Fanon u ltimately means when, echoing L 'Internationale, he implores us
all to take on a "peau neuve, developper une pensee neuve, tenter de mettre sur
pied un homme neuf." 14
Fanon offers an ironic twist on L 'Internationale here. The title Les damnes
de la terre is drawn from the Haitian poet Jacques Roumain 's adaptation, in his
book of verse Bois-d 'ebene, 15 of the first line of L '/nternationale ( 1 87 1 ) by
Eugene Edine Pottier. The connection to L 'Internationale, mediated by black
struggles in the Caribbean and Africa, challenges a presumption of Communist
politics, namely, that the revolutionary class must be the proletariat. By using
the line from L 'internationale to discuss people in the Third Wor ld, Fanon both
advances and challenges Marxist philosophical anthropology.
In contemporary Africa, these considerations come to the fore in discus­
sions of the postcolonial state, which is further contextualized by the global
reach of neoliberalism and a growing neoconservatism in the countries that once
ruled over most of the continent. The general goals of neoliberalism are to ex­
pand the hegemony of the market economy or capitalism, dwindle away the role
of the state in human affairs as much as possible, especially the economy, and to
facilitate the growth of Anglo-civil libertarian democracy. Neoconservatism is
similar , but it prioritizes order over civil liberties and is also willing, for the sake
of such order , to cultivate a relationship with conservative, even radically right­
wing, religious groups. In the West, this often means Christians and Jews. In the
Middle East, such expansion has meant a near eradication of moderate or even
progressive Muslim opposition, with the result of mostly conservative or right­
wing forms of Islam dominating many countries in the region. This is the con­
text in which the African postcolonial state is located today. The epistemological
correlate of the value of revenge is a reactionary epistemology, one that seeks a
form of purification of the postcolonial space as one sterilized of all things
Western. The decolonization of knowledge requires, then, also letting go of
commitments to notions of an epistemic "enemy."
14 Lewis R. Gordon

Development of this context would require much more space than available
for this chapter. I should like, then, to c lose with several summarizing considera­
tions.
The first is regarding the political significance of this cr itique. For politics
to exist, there must be discursive opposition . Such activity involves communica­
tive possibilities that rely on the suspension of violent or repressive forces. This
suspension facilitates a public sphere. In effect, that makes politics also a condi­
tion of appearance. To be political is to emerge, to appear, to exist by v irtue of
discursive communication. Colonization involves the elim ination o f discursive
opposition between the dominant group and the subordinated group. A conse­
quence of th is is the elim ination of speech (a fundamental activity of political
life) with a trail of concomitant conditions of its possibility. It is not that colo­
nized groups fa il to speak. It is that the ir speaking lacks appearance; it is not
transformed into speech. The erasure of speech calls for the elimination of such
conditions of its appearance such as gestural sites and the constellation of mus­
c les that facilitates speech-namely, the face. As faceless, problem people are
derailed from the dialectics of recognition, of self and other, w ith the conse­
quence of neither self nor other. Since ethical life requires others, a challenge is
here raised against models of decolonial practice that center ethics. The addi­
tional challenge, then, is to c ultivate the options necessary for both political and
ethical life. To present that call as an ethical one would lead to a sim ilar problem
of coloniality as did, say, the problem of method raised by Fanon. Ethics, in
other words, has been subverted in the modern world. As with the critique of
epistemology as first philosophy, ethics, too, as first philosophy must be called
into question. It is not that ethics must be rejected. It simply faces its teleological
suspension, especially where, if maintained, it presupposes instead of challenges
colonial relations. Even conceptions of the ethical that demand deference to the
Other run into trouble here since some groups, such as blacks and Indi­
ans/Native Americans, are often not even the Other. This means, then, that the
ethical proviso faces irrelevance without the political conditions o f its possibil­
ity. This is a major challenge to liberal hegemony, wh ich calls for ethical foun­
dations of political life, in the modern world. It turns it upside down. B ut in do­
ing so, it also means that ethics-centered approaches, even in the name o f
liberation, face a similar fate.
The second is about the imperial sign ificance of standards. Recall the prob­
lem of philosophical anthropology. Simply demonstrating that one group is as
human as another has the consequence of making one group the standard of an­
other. In effect, one group seeks justification while the other is self-justified.
The demonstration itself must be teleologically suspended . Shifting the geogra­
phy of reason means that the work to be done becomes one that raises the ques­
tion of whose future we face and the competing global considerations of legiti­
mation we consider. Ortega Y Gasset in The Revolt of the Masses also raised
16
this question of legitimation and standards. Gasset's analysis gets to the point
of coloniality and the question of postcoloniality and our discussion of politics.
Rule, as we have seen, is not identical with politics. It involves, by definition,
 Fanon on Decolonizing Knowledge 15

setting standards. Consider the ancient relationship of priestly leaders and kings
to their subjects. They were free of politics the extent to which fundamental ine­
qualities had divine and cosmic foundations. Affairs between priests and each
other, kings and their kind, or even priests and kings were another matter. There
arose a sufficient level of equality between powers to call upon resources of
rhetoric and persuasion, and it is from such a discursive transformation of con­
flicts that politics was born. Such activity, as its etymology suggests, is rooted in
the city, a space and place that was often enclosed, if not encircled, in a way that
demanded a different set of norms "inside" than "without." Within, there is the
tacit agreement that conflicts need not collapse into war, which means, in effect,
the maintenance of opposition without violence, of, as the adage goes, "war by
other means." In this case, the internal opposition afforded a relationship to the
world that differed from what awaited beyond city walls. Out there was the
space of violence par excellence, the abyss in which a ll is proverbially permit­
ted. Ruling the polis, then, demanded a set of norms unique to such a precious
place, and where rule is distributed nearly to all, the conflicts over standards
require discursive safeguards.
The modern world has, however, been marked by the rise of rule over poli­
tics in relation to certain populations. Colonialism-in Foucaultian language, its
episteme and, in V.Y. Mudimbe's, gnosis-renders whole populations receiving
orders, commands, as the syntactical mode of existence itself. Standards are set,
but they are done so through a logic that both denies and affirms the spirits that
modernity was to hold at bay. Our references to Du Bois and Fanon reveal that a
problem with colonialism is that it creates a structure of rule over politics in
relation to the colonized. Since, as we just saw in our discussion of the roots of
politics versus mere rulership, the discursive dimensions of politics properly
require a sufficient level of equality between disputants, then the call for politi­
cal solutions requires, as well, the construction of egalitarian institutions or
places for the emergence of such relations for a political sphere. We find, then,
another dimension of the ethical in relation to the political, for the political con­
struction of egalitarian orders entails, as well, the basis for new ethical relations.
In other words, the construction of a standard that enables ethical life requires a
transformation of political life as well from the violence on which it was born to
the suspension of violence itself. Such a suspension would be no less than the
introduction of a public realm, a place in which, and through which, opposition
could occur without the structure of the command. But here we find a paradox,
for how could such a space exist without peripheral structures held together by
force?
Third, at least at the epistemological level, every empire has a geopolitical
impact by pushing things to its center. In the past, the range of empires was not
global. Today, because global, we face the question of the traces they leave
when they have dissolved. In the past, empires constructed civilizations that
lasted thousands of years. Today, time is imploding under the weight of rapid
and excessive consumption (with the bulk of natural resources being consumed
in North America and increases on the horizon in Asia), and we must now
16 Lewis R . Gordon

struggle through a complex understanding of decay and the dissolution of em­

pires. As with all empires, the consciousness from within continues to be sus­
ceptible to an inflated sense of importance, where the end of empire is feared as
the end of the world . This fear, which is also an anxiety, has become normative
and, hence, hegemonic, which leads some theorists to proffer that term as a con­
sideration of the current global situation. 17
Fourth, subjects of dehumanizing social institutions suffer a paradoxical
melancholia. They live a haunted precolonial past, a critical relation to the colo­
nial world from which they are born, and a desire for a future in which, if they
are able to enter, they are yoked to the past. A true, new beginning stimulates
anxiety because it appears, at least at the level of identity, as suicide. The consti­
tution of such a subjectivity, then, is saturated with loss without refuge. It is the
lived trauma of being homeless in the p lace of one 's birth.
Fifth, but not final, the theme of loss raises challenges of what decolonial
activity imposes upon everyone. I call this the Moses problem. Recall the story
of the Exodus, where Moses led the former enslaved Hebrews (and members of
other tribes who joined them) to the Promised Land, but he was not permitted to
enter. Commentary, at least at Passover Seders, explains that Moses' sense of
power (and ego) got in the way, and he presented his might as a source of the
people 's liberation (instead of G-d). There is much that we who reflect upon
decolonization, those of us who seek liberation, can learn from the mythic life of
ancient people. Fanon paid attention to this message when he wrote the longest
chapter of Les damnes de la terre, namely, "Mesavenures de Ia conscience na­
tionale." The message is this : those who are best suited for the transition from
colonization/enslavement to the stage of initial liberty are not necessarily the
best people for the next, more difficult stage, living the practice of freedom. It is
no accident that instead of the end of colonization, new forms of colonization
emerge. The movements, in other words, are as follows: from initial freedom to
bondage/colonization, to decolonization/initial liberation, to neocolonization, to
internal opposition, to postcolonization/concrete manifestations of freedom.
What this means is that the more difficult, especially in political and ethical
terms, conflict becomes the one to wage against former liberators. Like Moses,
they must move out of the way so the subsequent generations could build their
freedom. We see here the sacrificial irony of all commitments to liberation: it is
always a practice for others.
This discussion reveals, then, several challenges of developing concepts in
coordination with infrastructural resources with great social reach . They are ma­
nifested liberation arguments that prioritize ethics over other modes of action
and the organization of knowledge. Meditation on and cultivation of maturity, of
how to negotiate, live, and transform a world of contradictions, uncertainty,
conceptual hindering, and unfairness, may be the proverbial wisdom well
sought.
 Fanon on Decolonizing Knowledge 17

Notes

l . This community of scholars includes Linda Martin Alcoff, Enrique Dussel, Paget
Henry, Nelson Maldonado-Torres, Eduardo Mendieta, and Walter Mignolo, works by all
of whom, among others, I discuss in An Introduction to Africana Philosophy (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2008).
2. See, e.g., Nicco!O Machiavelli, The Prince (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2005), chapter XXI, 76.
3. See, e.g., Liz Sonnebom's discussion of the Medieval Islamic empires in the first
two chapters of Averroes (Ibn Rushd): Muslim Scholar, Philosopher, and Physician of
the Twelfth Century (New York: Rosen Publishing, 2005). For discussions of global ex­
pansion from the Iberian to the Ottoman and Mandarin worlds, see Margaret R. Greer,
Maureen Quilligan, and Walter D. Mignolo (eds.), Rereading the Black Legend: The
Discourses of Religious and Racial Difference in the Renaissance Empires (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 2008).
4. G.W.F. Hegel, Lectures in the Philosophy of History (New York: Dover, 1 956).
5. See The Academy of Science of St. Louis, Transactions of the Academy of Sci­
ence of St. Louis, volume I , 1 856- 1 860 (St. Louis, MO: George Knapp and Company,
1 860), 534.
6. For more discussion, see, e.g., Lewis R. Gordon, "Not Always Enslaved, Yet Not
Quite Free: Philosophical Challenges from the Underside of the New World," Philoso­
phia: Philosophical Quarterly of Israel 36, no. 2 (2007): 1 5 1-66; and Lewis R. Gordon,
'"When I Was There, It Was Not': On Secretions Once Lost in the Night," Performance
Research 2, no. 3 (September 2007): 8-1 5 .
7. See W.E.B. D u Bois, Th e Souls of Black Folk: Essays and Sketches (Chicago:
A.C. McClurg & Co., 1 903). For discussion, see Lewis R. Gordon, Existentia Africana:
Understanding Africana Existential Thought (New York: Routledge, 2000), chapter 4,
"What Does It Mean to be a Problem?"; and Eleni Varikas, Les Rebuts du monde: fig ures
du paria (Paris: Editions Stock, 2007), chapter 3.
8. Frantz Fanon, Peau noire, masques blancs (Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1 952), 9.
9. Karl Jaspers, Philosophy of Existence (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania
Press, 1 97 l ).
1 0. For more detailed discussion, see Lewis R. Gordon, Disciplinary Decadence:
Living Thought in Trying Times (Boulder, CO: Paradigm Publishers, 2006).
l l . Fanon, Peau noire, 8.
1 2. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Du contra! social, ou principes du droit politique (Am­
sterdam: MetaLibri, 2008).
1 3 . Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri, volume 1, Inferno (To­
ronto: Bantam Books, 1 982), XXXIII, line 1 39.
14. Frantz Fanon, Les damnes de la terre (Paris: Editions Gallimard, [ 1 96 1 ] 1 99 1 ),
376. Cf. L 'Internationale:
C 'est la luttefinale
Groupons-nous, et demain
L 'Internationale
Sera le genre humain
1 5. Jacques Roumain, Bois-d'ebene (Port-au-Prince: Imp. H. Deschamps, 1 945).
1 6. Jose Ortega Y Gasset, The Revolt of the Masses (New York: W.W. Norton &
Co., [ 1932] 1 994).
18 Lewis R . Gordon

17. See, e.g., John Agnew, Hegemony: The New Shape of Global Power (Philadel­
phia: Temple University Press, 2005).
 Chapter 2
Opening up the Academy :
Fanon ' s Lessons for Inclusive Scholarship

Tracey Nicholls

In the introduction to Frantz Fanon's analysis of the Algerian struggle for inde­
pendence in A Dying Colonialism, Argentine journalist Adolfo Gilly asserts that
post-World War II humanity is living in "the age of revolution." 1 The "age of
indifference," in which European empires colonized the globe to serve their own
economic interests, has passed and humanity has been forever changed. 2 As we
now know, this brief age of revolution gave way almost immediately to a new
age of indifference in which the United States and the USSR carved out their
own spheres of influence but, when Gilly wrote his preface in 1 965, there was
still considerable hope that so-called Third World nations could shake off both
their colonial pasts and the neocolonial interference of these superpowers in
order to achieve their own self-determination. The thesis of both A Dying Colo­
nialism and The Wretched of the Earth is that, in the wave of anti-imperialism
which flourished during the early days of the Cold War (the 1 950s and 1 960s),
the anonymous and oppressed masses who suffered under this past indifference
would reclaim their voices and begin to speak their own truths to power. 3
My analysis in this chapter will take up that historical thesis as an ideal
through which we can examine contemporary academia, positing multivocity
and empowerment as characteristic features of liberatory and progressive scho­
larly communities. I also examine contributions to progressive politics by some
feminist thinkers and theorists of decolonization whose insights and practices,
either inspired by or consistent with Fanonian thought, nurture emerging chal­
lenges to traditional Eurocentric academic discourse. I want to make clear, how­
ever, that I am not asserting a claim that the repressiveness of (many) contempo­
rary academic communities is morally comparable to the damages perpetrated
by European colonization. 4 My argument is not that academia is the equivalent
of Western imperialism but that both academia and colonized societies share a
common feature: social control. 5 I further contend that Fan on' s analysis of how
social control has been resisted and, sometimes, overthrown in the colonial con­
text can reveal ways in which we, as members of academic communities who

19
20 Tracey Nicholls

are committed to progressive scholarship, can open up academic circles to in­

clude more diverse voices and more pluralistic thought.

Frantz Fanon: the Moral Core of Decolonization

In many of the classroom interrogations of The Wretched ofthe Earth to which I

have been a party, the Frantz Fanon who emerges is all too often the opposition­
al and controversial theorist of the necessity to embrace revolutionary violence
in decolonizing struggles. But, ultimately, my discussion here is inspired by the
steadfast humanity that Fanon displays in all his discussions of the Algerian
people, a facet of his character and his writing that careless readings can mista­
kenly let fade into the background. A Dying Colonialism, in particular, is a
forceful assertion by Fanon of the value of each and every human being, princi­
pally those who are too frequently dismissed as the anonymous and inconse­
quential "masses." For Fanon, the moral core of decolonization is its commit­
ment to the idea that no one is inconsequential, ever. That is, his analysis of
oppression is always accompanied by reflections on how oppressed groups can
empower themselves through resistance. I suspect that those who read Fanon as
licensing violence are reading these reflections on resistance without attention to
the analysis of oppression which reveals his persistent and engaged humanism. I
want to take up this commitment to engaged humanism as the focal point of my
discussion on how academic scholarship can be-indeed, needs to be­
liberated.
Fanon's analysis of the Algerian revolt against French rule identifies two
mutually-supporting aspects of their challenge to European power: language and
technology. He notes that one of the characteristics of decolonizing struggles is
a rejection of the values associated with the colonizing culture, even those val­
ues which an individual might find "objectively" worth choosing, because the
price of affirming them-homogenization-is too high. 6 In particular, the Alge­
rian "natives" rejected the French language, and all of the elements of imposed
culture that would require them to function within the linguistic framework
brought to their country by the "settlers." 7 Early in the struggle for liberation,
this rejection included a collective decision to avoid owning (or even listening
to) radios because they were perceived as the technology of the colonizer. 8 In­
deed, Fanon notes that the colony's primary radio station, Radio-Alger, had been
dismissed by Algerians as "Frenchmen speaking to Frenchmen."9 Algerian resis­
tance to French language and technology was motivated by awareness that co­
lonial communication rejects any respectful exchange of views in favor of a un­
idirectional transmission of the dominant class' ideology. As Fanon states, "it is
precisely the opening of oneself to the other that is organically excluded from
10
the colonial situation."
But the language of the oppressor can be subverted, Fanon tells us, and its
liberatory revisions can be broadcast to the proto-revolutionary population
 Opening up the Academy 21

through technology that had previously been understood by both the colonizers
and the colonized as the exclusive tool of, in this case, French imperial inter­
ests. 1 1 Kenyan author and decolonization activist Ngiigl wa Thiong' o presents
this challenge as a need to get beyond the ways in which using the language of
imposed powers "colonizes our minds." 12 Ngiigl describes languages as having
"a dual character: [they are] both a means of communication and a carrier of
culture." 13 Language colonizes in the sense that power congeals in written signs
and the history of how language is used (that is, its role in carrying culture). But
its plasticity in adapting to our real-life communication and our "image­
forming" projects implies that language also always carries the potential to be
the means by which we liberate ourselves, even though that potential may fre­
quently go unrecognized. 14 Fanon tells us that after 1 956 revolutionary Algeria
gave up its previous boycott of the French language and embraced French as a
means of spreading its nationalist message. 15 The reason French was adopted
was not because, as the French believed, Arabic was too primitive a language in
which to describe the operational concepts of revolution. Instead the Algerian
resistance began to co-opt the colonizer's language in order to cast doubt on the
simplistic view that all supporters of imperialism were French speakers and all
resistance members spoke Arabic. Segments of the resistance were in fact non­
Arabic-speaking so using the French language in revolutionary broadcasts and
other communications served the practical purpose of a "lingua franca," a com­
mon tongue, to unite the various segments of colonized Algeria, and also served
the ideological purpose of suggesting that people who chose to communicate in
French were not necessarily loyal to the colonial government and could be se­
cretly working for the resistance. 16
As early as 1 955, the year after the revolution began, the Algerian boycott
of radios ended, largely due to the colonial government's suppression of news­
papers unsympathetic to French rule. 17 Once the revolutionaries began broad­
casting their messages on a new station, the Voice of Fighting Algeria [La Voix
de l 'Algerie combattant], the radio-formerly the voice of colonization­
became "the sole means of obtaining news of the Revolution from non-French
sources." 1 8 Fanon says of this development: "It was in the course of the struggle
for liberation and thanks to the creation of the Voice of Fighting Algeria that the
Algerian experienced and concretely discovered the existence of voices other
than the voice of the dominator which formerly had been immeasurably ampli­
fied because of his [the Algerian's] own silence." 19 Stripped of its authority, the
voice of French rule no longer spoke unchallenged. Instead, it now competed
with the nationalist perspective, expressed in Arabic and also in the occupier's
own language. 20 In this context, listening to the radio was "hearing the first
words of the nation," and this new nation, communicating across tribal, linguis­
tic, and religious lines, was using its first words to express a non-racial concep­
tion of Algerian nationhood.21
This conception of national unity-"every individual living in Algeria is an
Algerian"22-was empowering because it recognized membership in the catego­
ry nominally and as a matter of personal choice, rather than postulating some
22 Tracey Nicholls

definitive essence that one must possess in order to qualify as a citizen of this
new nation. The policy which announced this inclusive attitude put Algeria at
the forefront of the movement toward human liberation, a move reminiscent of
the first Haitian constitution of 1 805 which attempted to disrupt racial categories
and hierarchies by declaring that all citizens of the newly-created Haitian nation
would henceforth be known as "black."23 It is specifically the pluralism implicit
in both of these moves that I want to suggest academia needs to adopt. Neither
the Algerian conception of nationality nor the Haitian conception of race is ho­
mogenizing in the colonial sense because application of their labels does not
presuppose an underlying sameness of all members. Individual differences can,
and do, co-exist within these nominal identities which amount, I believe, to po­
litical declarations of solidarity.
Acknowledging the diversity of the individuals who are all deemed legiti­
mate members of the community in question requires us to learn to respect dif­
ferences of speech: different languages, of course, but also the diverse contribu­
tions to discourse that arise from different perspectives and life experiences. The
discovery of other voices is, in other words, the discovery of other bodies of
knowledge and other ways of knowing. Thus we discover a mutually-reinforcing
dual process of liberation: the empowerment of each individual through a decla­
ration of solidarity encourages multivocity, and the climate of respect for many
and diverse voices that the practice of multivocity requires becomes a context
for empowerment.

Feminist Theory: Empowering Marginalized Groups

This political model for decolonization has an academic counterpart particularly

prevalent in the humanities: much of the groundbreaking scholarship in feminist
theory, multiculturalist strands of deliberative democracy theory, and postco­
lonial studies is devoted to exploring the mutual reinforcement of multivocity
and empowerment. Like the Algerians Fanon describes, the academy has been
discovering other voices and a richer scholarly literature is emerging from them.
An early and influential analysis in the postcolonial feminism literature, Chan­
dra Mohanty's "Under Western Eyes," identifies three presuppositions that rela­
tively-privileged (often First World) scholars bring to their analyses of so-called
Third World people: the assumption that categories like "woman" exist prior to
culturally-specific socialization; the uncritical production of "evidence" that is
universally applicable; and the belief that oppression is, or means, the same
thing in a variety of cultures. 24 The net effect of these presuppositions is a theo­
rization of women, for example, in all our diversity, as reducible to "woman," a
"raw material" that different socializations act upon in ways which are com­
pletely transparent (to the knowledgeable 3cholar) and transportable from one
context to another such that what counts as oppression in the first culture must
necessarily also be oppressive in the second. 25 We can quite easily expose the
 Opening up the Academy 23

conceptual weakness of this last point by considering the veiling practiced by

some Muslim women. When a government like that in Taliban-ruled Afghanis­
tan or Sudan imposes the burqa (the robes that completely conceal all of a wom­
an's body, leaving only a small, netting-covered cut-out through which she can
see) and enforces this dress code with the threat of public whippings, veiling
takes on an obviously oppressive character, regardless of the perspective­
Western or Islamic-from which it is viewed. However, when female university
students living in the West adopt the hijab (headscarf) as a way of protesting
what they see as post-9/ 1 1 Islamophobia, veiling clearly takes on a different
character and meaning.
In the research to which Mohanty objects most strenuously, "Western fe­
minists alone become the true ' subjects' . . . Third World women, in contrast,
never rise above the debilitating generality of their ' object' status." 26 Mohanty is
obviously challenging the social control that scholarship shares with political
colonialism,27 and her conclusion is that good (read: responsible and sensitive)
research-like decolonization-resists generalization. The type of research Mo­
hanty promotes constructs its theoretical categories and findings out of a careful
analysis of the context and lived experience of those whom one studies---or,
more to the point, of those with whom one studies. 28 This respectful research,
committed to principles of decolonization, begins from a sympathy with Fanon's
point that no one is inconsequential and no group is a homogenous mass.
One can also see this careful attention to diversity within groups in Seyla
Benhabib' s analysis of cultural pluralism and negotiation. She presents a view of
culture in some ways similar to NgilgI' s "dual character" of language, 29 arguing
that cultures are only seen as homogenous when viewed from outside and that
this homogeneity is posited "for purposes of understanding and control."30 But
these selfsame cultures are experienced by those who live within them as "con­
tested and contestable."3 1 This contestability is a crucial aspect of democratic
political relations because others can be revealed to us only through the narra­
tives they create for themselves (which, in being individual, will involve at least
some contesting of received narrative patterns), and we can develop our own
agency only through the capacity to produce individual life stories and identities
out of the narrative webs into which we are born. 32 Benhabib ' s view is that so­
cieties dedicated to democracy and equality are obligated to promote and pre­
serve the cultural space where this mutual narrative-driven recognition of each
other can flourish without oppression and domination. 33 Her presentation of de­
liberative democracy is consistent with ideals of decolonization insofar as it ac­
knowledges empowerment as the overall measure of a successful society, and
insofar as it takes seriously the notion that failure to recognize and respectfully
mirror all of the segments, or subgroups, of a culture is a genuine harm suffered
by the members of that demeaned or diminished group. 34 "[E]galitarian reciproc­
ity," Benhabib tells us, " . . . stipulates that within discourses each should have
the same right to various speech acts, to initiate new topics, and to ask for justi­
fication of the presuppositions of the conversation, and the like."35
24 Tracey Nicholls

Respectful and egalitarian communication is presented in postcolonial fe­

minism not only as a right that we all have, but as a primary normative obliga­
tion to others that Uma Narayan, borrowing a term from Judith Butler' s work on
ethical responsibility, parses as "giving an account of oneself." For Narayan,
offering such an account includes revealing the social standpoint from which
one speaks and thinks, the relation of one's concerns to one' s lived experience,
and the epistemological and value commitments that one brings to analysis. 36
Basically, one is asked to show how one' s situation might be germane to the
assessments one makes of the things and events one encounters in the world. An
account of oneself, Narayan tells us, is not easy; "unsettled and unsettling," are
her words for the process of articulating one ' s identity. 37 But, for those willing
to do the work, it offers tangible rewards. Chief among them is self-awareness,
the opportunity to see how much one' s contingent situation in the world shapes
what and how one thinks, and how one interacts. But, for the purposes of show­
ing its similarity to political decolonization, I would like to emphasize the per­
formativity of "giving an account": it is not simply a reflection to oneself on
how one' s situation in life has influenced one's opinions. It is also the act of
offering that analysis to others for them to scrutinize. Being willing to engage in
dialogue (of which multivocity is obviously a prerequisite) and being willing to
be judged by those with whom one speaks (an invitation to empowerment) are
central aspects of the solidarity-building that emancipatory scholarship re-
qmres. 38
•

These phenomena sometimes, to some people, appear to be power-neutral

features of discourse but, of course, analyses of power relations contained within
decolonization literature expose this "neutrality" as a fiction. Contesting the
notion that empowerment is equally accessible to all speakers within academic
discourses is a crucial move made within Linda Tuhiwai Smith ' s analysis of
research methodologies that empower and respect indigenous populations. One
of the key distinctions Tuhiwai Smith employs is between "postcolonialism" and
"decolonization"; she argues that, far from being an equivalent term, postcolo­
nialism is just a "convenient invention of Western intellectuals which reinscribes
their power to define the world."39 Fanon's thinking and the scholarship he in­
spires, she argues, is more properly located in a body of work that she prefers to
call "anticolonial."40 To use the term "postcolonial" is to imply that the project
and impact of colonialism is finished, whereas both "decolonization" and "anti­
colonialism" recognize that colonizing relations and assumptions continue to
exert power, and that the task at hand is to help those who suffer under colonial
power to find creative and life-affirming ways to develop the agency that will
recenter their political, cultural, and psychological lives. 41
 Opening up the Academy 25

Academic Professionalism: an Object Lesson

One of the points that I hope readers will observe about my discussion in the
previous section is that not all scholarship which uses the language of dialogue,
negotiation, and empowerment actually achieves the goals to which it claims to
be committed. Sometimes, an account of oneself can appear to be offered in
good faith, can perhaps even really be offered in good faith, but can still fail
when it comes to hearing what is being said by unfamiliar voices or when re­
ceiving the judgments of those to whom the account is offered. Such failure can,
for example, easily occur in academic scholarship, and can be perpetuated so
that, unfortunately, it happens over and over again. Part of the reason for this
ongoing failure to communicate-which then, in its repetition, becomes repres­
sion-is the conservative and categorizing nature of academic social control: the
very nature of peer review in publishing and conference submissions can filter
out voices and ideas that are radically new or cut across often arbitrary discipli­
nary boundaries. The kind of scholarship I have been discussing recognizes that
these features of traditional academia are problematic. It positions itself in oppo­
sition to the repressive mainstream, but it does not always fully make good on
its oppositional and liberatory promises. Feminist scholarship is an instructive
example in this regard: projects in ethics of care and standpoint epistemology
are increasingly being given voice in journals and even at the most prominent
and conservative of conferences, but in some cases, that only happens to the
extent that expansion of the peer review gatekeeping system by these new voices
does not destabilize the academic mainstream.
Because new entrants into the academy are assessed by those already on the
inside, success tends to favor those who can speak the language, fit in, and fulfill
standard expectations of collegiality and scholarship. In and of themselves, there
may be nothing intentionally regressive about these demands, but we do need to
be aware that, if we stay in the comfort zone of mainstream academia, our as­
sessments of both those who petition for entry and the ideas they are trying to
contribute will trend in favor of already-intelligible projects which cleave to the
mainstream. This consideration troubles Mohanty in particular; she worries that
relatively privileged First World scholars could appropriate the ideas that di­
verse, and potentially more radical, Third World scholars are trying to introduce,
and that these relatively privileged candidates will succeed because, in addition
to being better able to "translate" their insights into the standardized disciplinary
jargon, they seem more familiar, and therefore better bets, to those already in
power.42
Fanon describes this same move in the case of colonial governments who
are trying to slow an inevitable process of decolonization: they form alliances
with the elite of native populations, those whose interests are most closely tied
to colonial power and who have assimilated themselves most closely to the im­
posed value framework of the colonizers.43 Of course, the most likely outcome
of this conservatism in selection is that, in the short-term, any progress made
26 Tracey Nicholls

towards human liberation is fitful, slow, and easily dismissed. And that, of
course, is exactly the point: conservatism rarely successfully rolls back progress,
but it does delay, hinder, and frustrate progressive movements. This observation
gives force to Tuhiwai Smith' s contention that we need to avoid confusing post­
colonialism with decolonization: a postcolonial attitude towards scholarship will
point to the emergence of feminist theory, queer theory, peace studies, and other
progressive projects, and argue that this new era has already fully emerged so
we can stop the discomforting changes and settle back down into a new compla­
cency. A decolonizing attitude, on the other hand, should consider new devel­
opments in academia in terms of how well they succeed in making all would-be
scholars feel welcome, visible, and heard, and in terms of how respectfully they
treat contributions "at the margins."
At this point, the parallel with Fanon's discussion of decolonization in Al­
geria becomes apparent. The desire to avoid homogenization, or assimilation,
which leads the Algerian native to reject French medicines, French technology,
and other trappings of culture that might reduce him or her to being a second­
class member of the colonial society, mirrors the psychological conflict that can,
and does, drive new and prospective scholars out of the academy. We too en­
counter what I described earlier as "the unidirectional transmission of the domi­
nant class' ideology" and encounter it functioning as the price of admission into
a privileged population-although, far too frequently these days, many of us
encounter it in the role of adjunct labor (that is, as second-class members) rather
than as tenure-track scholars. Junior scholars are treated, talked to, and talked
about in exactly the way Mohanty objects to: as if we were pre-social malleable
material, all coming out of different graduate programs with the same motiva­
tions and goals (preferably tenure at a research university or, perhaps, an elite
liberal arts college) and capable-in varying degrees, depending on the essential
spark of scholarly merit that we may or may not carry in us--0f conforming to
the departmental needs and demands of the institutions who grant us admission.
Our projects must be suited to publication in accepted venues and formats, and
capable of attracting prestigious funding, which means these projects must be
within the realm of the "already-familiar." To be genuinely revolutionary or
cutting-edge in scholarship is to risk writing one ' s way out of membership in the
academy. Our teaching profiles must support the institution's conception of it­
self and its students, which means that the unique insights and unorthodox
teaching methods a "non-traditional" scholar might bring to the classroom can
work against that scholar's reputation, especially if students are presented with
content and methodology too far removed from what they expect.44 Of course,
these alienating and conformist mechanisms assume that one has already suc­
cessfully navigated the "civilizing" structures of graduate school-a process
from which no one emerges unchanged (unscathed).
On a very basic level, a prospective scholar should expect to be changed as
a result of his or her graduate school experience; a years-long experience that
leaves one as he or she was found would be the epitome of pointlessness. It is
the nature, not the mere fact, of the change that needs to be scrutinized: graduate
 Opening up the Academy 27

students are socialized into a set of power relations in which tenured senior
scholars have the power to set the terms of speech, to determine whether a stu­
dent's project will be supervised and funded, and to write letters of reference
which will either open doors to a future career or telegraph to prospective inter­
viewers that this job candidate lacks the "essential spark" of scholarly merit. We
stand on the threshold of the academy having been taught, throughout our pro­
fessional training, that any attempt to insist on our right to participate in the kind
of inclusive discussion that Benhabib describes-the right to select topics of
discussion, to contest framing assumptions, to ensure that discussion happens or
not--could, in the wrong context, end one ' s career. This is the pressing problem
of academic professionalism: it breeds a carefulness, a learned passivity, which
suppresses bold, original scholarship in the name of safeguarding rigor.
Rigor, the prized virtue of scholarly quality-control, is the justification for
the strict gatekeeping that makes academia a conservative enterprise and pro­
motes legitimacy crises in those students who do not look like, think like, or
speak like the gatekeepers. The unwillingness of people from diverse back­
grounds to homogenize themselves into traditional scholars is at least part of the
reason for the high attrition rate in humanities programs; roughly 50 percent of
students who enter these graduate programs do not finish them.45 Not finishing
is typically explained within academic culture as a matter of individual failure,
rarely as a failure of institutions-which it often is, in its unwillingness to insu­
late students from poor supervisory habits and petty tyrannies inflicted by te­
nured faculty. But to empower individuals in the ways that decolonization
theory, feminist theory, and deliberative democracy theory recommend requires
us to examine very critically our assumptions about the need for quality control
and the locus of failure. In particular, in order to expose the controlling propen­
sities of academic culture, we need to consider the ways in which "rigor" is used
as a mask for privilege. Turning academia into an open community, respectful
of, and eager to engage with, new perspectives and projects does not mean we
have to throw out all hope of careful and conscientious scholarly work. Indeed,
if we follow Mohanty' s desiderata for respectful scholarship, we can facilitate
high-quality work. So the standard justification-academia has to be a closed,
conservative, "entry upon recommendation only" type of community in order to
maintain quality research-proves to be an empty one. Social control does not
always ensure quality control; in its commitment to conservatism, it may even
protect sloppy arguments in support of mainstream theses from stringent critique
by those whose perspectives better situate them to see the inadequacies in these
arguments and theses.
Organizing academic communities so that the gatekeepers filter out differ­
ence instead of making space for it does not make for good scholarship. Our
communities become rigid and assimilationist, like French Algeria, and rigor
becomes a codeword through which privilege is maintained. To be fair, though,
I need to acknowledge that academic communities are not monoliths; some
groups and departments do practice a conservative and elitist exclusion whereas
others are more committed to inclusion and diversity. The problem for aspiring
28 Tracey Nicholls

and developing scholars with non-mainstream perspectives and projects is that

which kind of community we end up in is basically a crapshoot, and sometimes
a career-ending one.

Liberatory Pedagogy: Decolonizing the Classroom

There is little beyond our own moral compasses to ensure that our participation
in scholarship supports an inclusive and questioning attitude instead of retreating
into a more comfortable and reassuring conservatism. But, when it comes to the
commitments we bring to the classroom, we do have an external monitor: our
students. We can gauge our pedagogical support of multivocity and empower­
ment by how free our students feel to bring themselves and their lived expe­
riences into classroom discussion and coursework, and by the willingness they
exhibit to critically examine the assumptions that underpin the texts we assign
and the ways in which we present them. Although Western philosophy has a
history of reinforcing features of social organization like male dominance and
authoritarianism, the language of philosophy does not have to be the language of
betrayal regarding individual empowerment. As Gilly asserts in his introduction
to Fanon's Dying Colonialism, "[t]he essence of revolution is not the struggle
for bread; it is the struggle for human dignity . . . [which c]ertainly . . . includes
bread."46 A decolonizing academic revolution, by extension, is not about specif­
ic content but about the negotiation of every voice, although specific content can
either harm or help that negotiation. Basically, bringing revolution into the
classroom is not primarily effected through what we teach and learn, but how.
Even canonical texts can be taught in liberatory ways, and even progressive or
revolutionary texts can be subverted or assimilated into a canon. 47
In emphasizing the importance of liberatory pedagogy, I am following the
lead of bell hooks in Teaching to Transgress, her account of education as the
practice of freedom. She introduces this account by speaking of the sense she
has always had of education as a fundamentally political activity, and the life of
the mind as "a counter-hegemonic act, a fundamental way to resist every strate­
gy of white racist colonization." 48 By way of illustrating her point, hooks (who
spells her name all in lower case letters as another counter-hegemonic act) re­
counts her early childhood experiences in both segregated and integrated schools
in Kentucky. Paradoxically, it was the segregated classrooms in which black
women educated black children that were, for hooks, spaces of liberation and
anticolonialism, not the integrated school that she attended later. 49 As she recalls
the experience, in black schools, she and her classmates were taught to respect
and honor the life of the mind, and gifted black children were nurtured. The
teachers in these schools strove to impart a sense of intellectual destiny and
strategies for fulfilling that destiny in a world where the students would have to
combat racial hostility. 5° Contrary to the general impression we have today of
how Brown v. Board of Education changed the world of these children, hooks
 Opening up the Academy 29

testifies that racial integration thrust her into a narrower and more impoverished
learning environment: "Knowledge was suddenly about information only," she
recalls. 5 1 The integrated school taught black children obedience so that they
would not be a threat to white authority whereas the segregated school had been
a place where hooks could explore her intellectual possibilities, a place where
she could forget the conformity demanded of her at home and reinvent herself. 52
I, on the other hand, as a white suburban schoolchild educated in the Brit­
ish-inflected public schools of New Zealand and the equally conformist (if less
tradition-bound) Canadian public schools, had only ever experienced the kind of
learning environment hooks describes in the integrated schools, institutions that
transmitted information for students to memorize and regurgitate in the appro­
priate testing situation. 53 This considerably more authoritarian structure instilled
in me a much lower opinion of the value of education, although I always saw
clearly the liberating nature of knowledge. Until I encountered education at the
university level, I simply assumed that everyone had to scrounge that knowledge
for themselves-somehow. The idea of education became much more exciting
and valuable once I replaced my notion of its purpose as social control with a
conception of it as a collaborative gaining of knowledge. When I started teach­
ing university courses of my own, I looked for a book that would help me devel­
op my classrooms as empowering spaces, and Teaching to Transgress helped
me accomplish this goal.
It is not enough to just be excited about ideas, or content. To build commu­
nity and solidarity in the classroom, we must also have an interest in each other
as fully participating community members-that is, a process that works along
the same lines as decolonization. 54 Vital to "any radical pedagogy," hooks says,
"[is] that everyone's presence is acknowledged."55 Part of the instructor' s re­
sponsibility in this regard is teaching students how to listen to each other, rather
than just allowing them to focus all their attention on the one "authority figure"
at the front of the class. 56 Leaming to listen, though, can only happen as students
also learn to speak, and this prospect can be intimidating for some students.
When speaking requires engagement with the great works of great thinkers, it
may appear to a student that criticism of these works presupposes, or is only
warranted by, intensive and specialized knowledge of the text and its historical
context. That is, silence might not be an expression of disinterest; it may, alter­
natively, indicate an erroneous perception that one can only engage in critique
from a standpoint of expertise (which the silenced student perceives himself or
herself to lack). Progressive pedagogy can help students overcome this sense of
inferiority or invisibility, even as it challenges both instructor and student to step
outside of their comfort zones. The instructor can learn to facilitate students'
liberation by encouraging them to focus on their own lived experiences, and by
legitimizing those experiences as a knowledge base that students can bring to
their engagement with the texts. 57
Multivocity in the classroom definitely involves encouraging students to
speak their own thoughts in their own voices, but it also involves the instructor
being able to adapt his or her own voice, to communicate in ways that take note,
30 Tracey Nicholls

as much as is possible, of the individuals who form the classroom community

and the knowledge bases they bring to the course. 58 However, this adaptation
needs to be conducted in ways that do not descend into an essentialist tokenism
which assumes that, for example, only women can understand the harms of sex­
ism, only people of color can understand racism, only Jews can understand anti­
Semitism, only LGBTQ students can understand homophobia, especially if this
tokenism leaves unchallenged the idea that only straight white male students
occupy the space of the universal subject. 59 This allocation of perception to
people based on some supposedly essential identity trait is problematic on many
levels, not the least of which is the implicit assumption, for example, that a
classroom of students cannot gain any deep understanding of the work of Fanon
unless we have a French-Caribbean student, to translate for us, and we cannot
gain any deep understanding of Edward Said or Linda Tuhiwai Smith without
Palestinian or Maori students. On this point, hooks says:

If we really want to create a cultural climate where biases can be challenged

and changed, all border crossings must be seen as valid and legitimate. This
does not mean that they are not subjected to critique or critical interrogation, or
that there will not be many occasions when the crossings of the powerful into
the terrains of the powerless will not perpetuate existing structures. This risk is
ultimately less threatening than a continued attachment to and support of exist­
ing systems of domination, particularly as they affect teaching, how we teach,
and what we teach. 60

Border crossing, then, is as fraught with possibility as it is with danger; it is the

common source of both colonialist and postcolonialist appropriation, and of ge­
nuine, decolonizing solidarity. Drawing this insight back into the academic con­
text, we can observe that exposing students to perspectives from groups they
have little experience of can succeed or fail in the same ways, and for the same
reasons, that exposing them to non-canonical texts can. Just presenting these
differences about the world around them is not enough; they need to also be
shown how and why these differences matter.61
In a student population that is mostly white, mostly straight, and at least ca­
pable of "passing" for middle class, casting border-crossing as suspect or illegi­
timate limits the extent to which we can perform one of the primary tasks of
Iiberatory and enlightening pedagogy: bringing to students a greater awareness
of the ways in which their social privilege insulates them from the struggles that
many of the people in the world face every day. But as those of us who fit this
white, more or less straight, more or less middle-class profile already know,
keeping the insulating effects of social privilege in the forefront of our minds
can be difficult. A curious fact about social privilege is that it is invisible to
those who have it and blindingly obvious to those who don't. Privilege-be it
grounded in class, race, gender, personal wealth, or any of the other features that
visibly mark us as "normal"-brings with it a sense of entitlement, a sense that
you are the person who the police and other government agencies serve and pro-
 Opening up the Academy 31

tect, and it i s all too easy to assume that everyone feels this entitlement. This
makes the privileged conclude, quite wrongly, that people who are not standing
up and demanding their due-which, in the classroom, takes the form of an ex­
pectation of visibility, attention, and respect-are choosing not to do so.
To the contrary, when these demands are not made, it is often because the
person in question occupies a social position that precludes a reasonable expec­
tation of being able to claim this legitimacy. Helping students of privilege see
that the silence of others is not always chosen is, I think, as important as encour­
aging every voice. And whether or not we can clearly see that the academic
counterpart of colonialism is dying, committing ourselves to multivocity and
student empowerment is a moral obligation of teaching. This can take many
forms-mentoring, foregrounding questions of social justice in the classroom,
reviewing reading lists to ensure a balance of perspectives, maintaining dialogic
classrooms through attention to student response to readings, creating assign­
ments that teach students how to listen to and evaluate each other' s views-but
it must take some form, and it must explicitly reinforce the principle that each
person is a valuable member of the community, with full participation rights.
Considering what we are left with as specific insights of a decolonizing atti­
tude, it seems clear to me that the reliable path to multivocity and empowerment
is through hooks' injunction about the importance of making space in the class­
room and in scholarly forums for lived experience. This message that one can
legitimately use one' s own personal standpoint as a basis from which to criticize
the implications and assumptions of texts, research programs, and social pheno­
mena can be-should be-promoted in the classroom by the instructor, and the
constraining norms of criticism (charity and constructiveness, for example) can
be effectively modeled. If students encounter a pedagogical commitment to res­
pecting the views they bring to academic study, they will, I think, feel freer to
stand their ground when they find it necessary to defend their chosen masters
and doctoral projects, their methodological commitments, and their challenges
to traditional understanding of disciplinary content and its relevance to human
liberation and progress. This is how we underscore to others the Fanonian (and,
if you like, Kantian) principle that no one is an inconsequential means to the
ends of others.

Postscript

Some months after I finished the revisions for this chapter, and just after I had
been appointed to serve on a recently-constituted Diversity Task Force at Lewis
University, I had a blinding flash of realization about what I had been trying to
say. Rather than go back and try to seamlessly work that revision into the body
of the text, I decided to add a postscript-in part to acknowledge honestly that
this clarification was a delayed insight. Part of what goes on in the academic
world when we discuss the kinds of much-needed reforms I have been identify-
32 Tracey Nicholls

ing is that we tend to focus exclusively on a surface-level diversity of appear­

ances and fail to consider the more substantive diversity of thought that I have
been talking about as pluralism. 62 While it was always my intention to talk about
both the need for visible diversity (most notably, the need for faculty diversity
who can act as role models for an increasingly diverse student body) and the
need for pluralistic thought, I think that I did not fully appreciate how easily we
get distracted by surface-level diversity. I don't mean to suggest that the diversi­
ty we get from opening the academy up beyond its stereotypical straight, white
male population is unimportant: to the contrary, I think that, because it is so im­
portant that we have racial, cultural, and gender-based diversity, we need to
make sure we are practicing the pluralism that will make academia a more hos­
pitable and inclusive environment for all-whether our differences are visible or
unseen. To give a concrete example, I think that U.S. universities should be hir­
ing more African-American and Latino/Latina scholars but we need to be plura­
listic enough that we don't unthinkingly expect that the Latina sociologist we
hire will automatically be able to (or willing to) teach in Latin-American studies,
or that the African-American philosopher will fulfill teaching needs in Africana
thought but cannot help us meet student demand for metaphysics courses. This
is an essentialization that stereotypes and limits so-called minority hires. With­
out pluralism, any diversity we do achieve will be uneasy for all, and impossibly
confining for those marked as "visible minorities" (or worse, "diversity hires"),
whose contributions will continue to be judged by how well they conform to the
existing institutional culture that consistently and obsessively sees, for example,
the difference of race as prior to the sameness of professorial rank.
A diversity that is not accompanied by pluralism will mimic the collusion
that Fanon excoriates in nations whose transition from colonization to postcolo­
nialism consisted of a handover of power from white imperial rulers to a hand­
picked elite class drawn from "natives" who have been educated within impe­
rialist systems and have been conditioned by the values of the colonizing power.
What we have in these post-transition societies may look like a movement out of
colonialism and into independence, but systems of governance managed by a
visibly non-imperialist (that is, non-white) ruling class are still shaped by the
assumptions that justified and sustained colonial rule, and enduring features like
university and public service entrance exams are still often explicitly modeled
on their colonial predecessors. (I'm thinking here, for instance, of the civil ser­
vice exams in India which do not seem to have changed significantly from those
instituted during British rule.) The very reason Fanon identifies for this pheno­
menon is that the entrenched political and economic interests want to ensure that
nothing much changes.
Clearly, if the academy is to be opened up to all perspectives (as the spirit
of an academic commitment to free inquiry demands), change must be more
than superficial; it must be widespread enough and deep enough to amplify all
of the voices who believe they have something to contribute to our discourses.
The obligation to make discursive space for all voices is one that falls on each of
us-although realistically, we will not all be equally well-equipped to carve out
 Opening up the Academy 33

that space, nor, for that matter, will we all feel the weight of that obligation
equally keenly. Those of us who do feel it need to model liberatory and inclu­
sive practices as clearly, consistently, and comprehensively as our positions and
privileges allow. The test of our successes, I think, at both the local level of our
respective institutions and at the meta-level of prevailing norms of academic
discourse, will be when surveys, formal and informal, begin to result in subjec­
tive responses by an array of members-faculty and students who visibly appear
to meet existing but (one hopes) fading stereotypes of their roles, and those who
don't-that they encounter their academic cultures as the "contested and con­
testable" spaces of Benhabib's truly democratic political relations.

Notes

I would like to thank audiences of two different conferences for their feedback on earlier
drafts of this chapter: the Twelfth Annual Lewis University Philosophy Conference, Fa­
non and the De-colonization of Philosophy (intentionally hyphenated), and the panel
Frantz Fanon 's Phenomenology of Oppression at the 2008 meeting of the Society for
Existential and Phenomenological Theory and Culture, University of British Columbia.

I . Adolpho Gilly, "Introduction," A Dying Colonialism (New York: Grove Press,

[ 1 959] 1 965), I.
2. Gilly, Dying Colonialism, I .
3 . Fanon believes that ultimately decolonizing nations will go further that merely
speaking truth to power, and will seize power themselves. However, this "speaking truth"
is something he identifies as a crucial first step, and it is one that I want to highlight be­
cause of the concept of"multivocity" that I develop in this chapter.
4. The reason why one cannot, in my view, make a claim of moral comparability is
because repression in academia results in the frustration of some people's career plans
whereas repression in colonial contexts results in blood, violence, and death. As deeply
painful as it might be to lose one's chance at a chosen lifepath, the "death" involved here
could only ever be metaphorical, and it seems obvious to me that a metaphorical death is
a lesser moral harm than an actual death.
5. What I mean by the term "social control" is the Foucaultian concept, analyzed
most comprehensively in Discipline and Punish (New York: Vintage/Random House,
[ 1 975] 1 995), of forces that act to shape individuals into members of a society or discip­
line such that they conform to articulated social norms and monitor themselves to ensure
continuation of that conformity (a process Foucault refers to as "normalization").
6. Frantz Fanon, A Dying Colonialism (New York: Grove Press, [ 1 959] 1 965), 62-
63.
7. Fanon, Dying Colonialism, 89-9 1 .
8. Fanon, Dying Colonialism, 72.
9. Fanon, Dying Colonialism, 74.
1 0. Fanon, Dying Colonialism, 89.
1 1 . Fanon, Dying Colonialism, 90, 94.
1 2. NgugI wa Thiong'o, Decolonizing the Mind: The Politics ofLanguage in African
Literature (Oxford: James Currey/Heinemann, 1 986), 7.
34 Tracey Nicholls

1 3 . Ngilgi, Decolonizing the Mind, 1 3 .

1 4. Ngilgi, Decolonizing the Mind, 1 3-15.
1 5. Fanon, Dying Colonialism, 9 1 .
1 6. Fanon, Dying Colonialism, 9 1 .
1 7. Fanon, Dying Colonialism, 8 1-82.
1 8. Fanon, Dying Colonialism, 82.
1 9. Fanon, Dying Colonialism, 95.
20. Fanon, Dying Colonialism, 95.
2 1 . Fanon, Dying Colonialism, 93, 84.
22. Fanon, Dying Colonialism, 1 52.
23. Imperial Constitution ofHaiti, 1 805, article 14. Appendix A in Sibylle Fischer's
Modernity Disavowed: Haiti and the Cultures ofSlavery in the Age of Revolution (Dur­
ham, NC: Duke University Press, 2004), 275-8 1 . This article of the Haitian Constitution
was revolutionary because the former French colony (known as Saint Domingue) had
been elaborately hierarchical, both in terms of class/socio-economic status and in terms
of race. Categorizing all Haitians as black struck a blow against the social privileges that
the white, the mulatto, the quadroon, etc., exercised in colonial life, in contradistinction
to the exploited and enslaved blacks. It was, if you like, an instance of the Biblical refer­
ence Fanon was later to make, that the revolutionary message of decolonization means
"the last shall be first and the first last" (Mark 1 0:3 1 ; quoted in The Wretched of the
Earth (New York: Grove Press, [ 1 96 1 ] 1 963), 30).
24. Chandra Mohanty, "Under Western Eyes," Feminism Without Borders: Decolo­
nizing Theory, Practicing Solidarity (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2003), 2 1 -22.
25. From a colonizing perspective, the parallel assumption would be that the "na­
tive" is a raw material which must be molded into the civilized person of colonial society.
The variation we see, then, among colonized populations (e.g., between British-colonized
India and French-colonized Algeria) is explained by pointing to differences in the colo­
nizing civilizations; there is no difference-indeed, no humanity-attributed to the "raw
material."
26. Mohanty, "Under Western Eyes," 39.
27. For the purposes of this analysis, the key features of colonialism and academia
are the primacy of the center (mainstream), the demand of conformity to that mainstream,
assimilation of difference (rather than appreciation of it for, say, the enhancement of
perspectives it offers), and reorientation of the native object of colonization or non­
traditional scholar toward the seat of imperial power or disciplinary consensus as a pre­
condition of recognition and personhood.
28. Mohanty, "Under Western Eyes," 32.
29. On Ngilgi's view, language, like Benhabib's culture, homogenizes to the extent
that it pushes us toward a sameness of expression in order to be intelligible, but is also
plastic and therefore capable of supporting some degree of contestation.
30. Seyla Benhabib, The Claims of Culture: Equality and Diversity in the Global
Era (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2002), 5.
3 1 . Benhabib, The Claims ofCulture, 5.
32. Benhabib, The Claims a/Culture, 1 4-15.
3 3 . Benhabib, The Claims of Culture, 8. One might perhaps claim that there is noth­
ing about academia that requires it to be an open and democratic space, committed to
equality. Indeed, one might even claim that training new members into such a community
demands a hierarchical system in which the already initiated carefully test the merits of
newcomers in whatever ways the initiated deem fit. But this defense of exclusion, rigidi-
 Opening up the Academy 35

ty, and authoritarian power to confer status is, I believe, ruled out by the fundamental
commitment to free academic inquiry. If we are truly committed to finding and testing
the best ideas of which humanity is capable, then, by implication, we also need to be
committed to democracy and equality.
34. Benhabib, The Claims ofCulture, 50.
35. Benhabib, The Claims ofCulture, 1 07.
36. Uma Narayan, Dislocating Cultures: Identities, Traditions, and Third World
Feminism (New York: Routledge, 1 997), 3 .
3 7 . Narayan, Dislocating Cultures, 3 .
38. Alison Jaggar, "Globalizing Feminist Ethics," Decentering the Center: Philoso­
phy for a Multicultural, Postcolonial, and Feminist World (Bloomington: Indiana Uni­
versity Press, 2000), 5. Jaggar's scholarship also contributes a useful discussion of how
an invitation to empowerment can be practically meaningful through her consideration of
how recognition of power inequalities can be reconciled with a feminist commitment to
radically inclusive discussion. She notes that one central issue for feminist practice is the
recognition of power relations embedded in empirical discussions, relations which govern
phenomena such as participation and exclusion, who speaks, who is granted authority,
what topics are addressed, what assumptions are contested, even whether the particular
discussion ever happens.
39. Linda Tuhiwai Smith, Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous
Peoples (London: Zed Books, 1 999), 14.
40. Tuhiwai Smith, Decolonizing Methodologies, 23.
4 1 . Tuhiwai Smith, Decolonizing Methodologies, 98.
42. Mohanty, "Under Western Eyes," 1 7.
43. Fanon, Wretched, 35.
44. Using non-traditional teaching methods that take students outside their comfort
zones and push them to think harder about themselves and the world around them can be
especially fraught with danger for the progressive scholar's career in academic institu­
tions that place a great deal of weight on student evaluations when it comes to assessing
excellence in teaching.
45. Consideration of 'diversity' may take place in the graduate school recruitment
process (indeed, my subjective impression is that it does) but the value placed on differ­
ence of perspectives and lived experience at the admission stage does not always flow
through to a greater openness to new paths and methodologies in the graduate student's
scholarly work. Although data about retention and attrition rates in graduate schools is
incomplete and speculative (a lacuna often attributed to concerns about student confiden­
tiality), anecdotal information suggests that the 50 percent attrition rate I cited in the body
of the paper holds across the humanities, social sciences, life sciences, and science, engi­
neering and mathematics (SEM) programs (see the National Science Foundation's report
on its 1 999 workshop on graduate student attrition at http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/nsf
993 1 4/current.htm#context and Howard University's announcement of its collaboration
in a national 2005 Ph.D. Completion Project at http://www.gs.howard.edu/announce­
ments/pr_feb l 4a_2005.htm). These two sources offer conflicting information, however,
on the issue of whether so-called ' minority' students have higher attrition rates: the NSF
workshop includes a study conducted by the Urban Institute at Wake Forest University
which found that dropout rates for minority students were no higher than rates for non­
minority students whereas the Howard announcement cites an unattributed statistic that,
for African-American students, the ' failure to complete' rate rises from half to two-thirds.
46. Gilly, Dying Colonialism, 1 2.
36 Tracey Nicholls

47. As an example, Plato's Crito can either be read as a rigid, exceptionless injunc­
tion to rule-following or used to open up a classroom discussion space in which that in­
junction is challenged. Similarly, as I noted earlier, Fanon's Wretched ofthe Earth can be
read as an early and fearless study of social and psychological steps out of enslavement
and into autonomy, or if assimilated into standard political theory canons, simply an
overwrought attempt to justify guerrilla violence.
48. bell hooks, Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice ofFreedom (New
York: Routledge, 1 994), 2.
49. hooks, Teaching to Transgress, 2-3.
50. hooks, Teaching to Transgress, 2.
5 1 . hooks, Teaching to Transgress, 3 .
5 2 . hooks, Teaching t o Transgress, 3 . I hope i t is clear here that bell hooks is not de­
fending either the principle or the practice of racial segregation. She is simply recounting
her own experience of schooling--quite possibly unique-and saying that the black
teachers in the segregated schools of her elementary school years were more nurturing
and supportive than the white teachers of her high school years. This difference in the
support she received might not be attributable to overt racism; it could also have been
partly a function of black teachers' keener understanding of how black students need to
be prepared to achieve their life goals within, and despite, a racist society. In a way, I
think her reminiscence proves my point about the value of diversity in education: some­
one who has lived his or her entire life in the social mainstream is not necessarily going
to be adequately sensitized to the obstacles that marginalized students need to be pre­
pared for.
53. Again, I hope it is clear here that neither hooks nor I intend to claim that inte­
grated schools are always authoritarian and segregated schools are always nurturing and
liberatory learning spaces. The point I want to make is only that I had never had hooks'
experience of liberatory pedagogy.
54. hooks, Teaching to Transgress, 8.
55. hooks, Teaching to Transgress, 8.
56. hooks, Teaching to Transgress, 1 50.
57. hooks, Teaching to Transgress, 1 48.
58. hooks, Teaching to Transgress, 1 1 .
59. hooks, Teaching to Transgress, 82.
60. hooks, Teaching to Transgress, 1 3 1 .
6 1 . One example o f the need for a sustained analysis o f difference occurred during
an existentialism course I taught in Fall 2006. In discussion of Simone de Beauvoir's
thesis that one is not born, but becomes a woman, it became clear to the female partici­
pants in the discussion that the male participants had little grasp of the ways in which
socialization shapes girls' behaviors and a contentious exchange of perspectives ensued.
Upon reflection, I am not entirely certain that the border crossing was really successful in
giving the male students a conscious, critical, and ongoing awareness of the constructed­
ness of femininity, but I do hold out hope that the discussion may have created a more
fertile ground for future appreciation of differences they will inevitably encounter.
62. This distinction is inspired by B.F. Skinner's discussion of "surface freedom"
(the subjective belief that one is free because one has been conditioned to desire only
those things which are permitted to one) and "deep freedom" (an "objective capacity" to
set the terms of one's own existence). See B.F. Skinner, "Conditioning," Introducing
Philosophy: A Text with Integrated Readings (New York: Oxford University Press,
200 1 ).
 PART II

ON FANON

AND P SYCHIATRY
 Chapter 3
Fanonian Musings :
Decolonizing/Philosophy/Psychiatry

Marilyn Nissim-Sabat

Decolonization of both philosophy and psychiatry is an urgent task if we are to

recreate critical theory and practice for our time. For this task, we need not only
to return to the work of Frantz Farron, but in doing so to inquire whether or not
we have plumbed the full depth and scope of his unequaled attempt to bridge the
theory-practice divide, i.e., to simultaneously liberate both thought and practice.
In this chapter I develop ideas that are speculative in the sense that they are pur­
ported by me to be embedded in Fanon' s work but not explicitly stated by him,
and never yet propounded by his interpreters. I am referring, in particular, to the
idea that the mutative factor in the three overlapping Fanonian registers of ma­
ture actionality, revolutionary activity, and psychoanalytic method is inner per­
ception by the actor of his or her being as human. In view of this, I argue further
that Fanon' s philosophical perspective, existential phenomenology, is such that
decolonizing psychology and decolonizing philosophy are necessarily con­
joined. These insights, it seems to me, point towards a new postcolonial human­
ism that, by transcending extant lacunae in critical theory, will prove immune to
cooptation, i.e., to transformation into its opposite.

Fanonian Humanism

Fanon' s thought emanates from a schema of embodied thinking that I will refer
to as Fanonian humanism to indicate that it differs from and is critical of both
the Western humanist tradition and, by implication, the postmodernist critique of
that tradition. A brief discussion of these differences will assist in understanding
the meaning of Fanon' s humanism.
In some of its most influential manifestations, the postmodernist critique of
humanism can scarcely be called a critique in that its announced goal is to elim­
inate any conception of "humanity," "man," "self," or "subject" from the con­
ceptual vocabulary of philosophy and other disciplines. Althusser's highly in­
fluential notion of "interpellation," which means that the subject is constructed
39
40 Marilyn Nissim-Sabat

ideologically, that is, instantiated and perpetuated as the object of oppression is

one manifestation of the postmodernist call for the death of the subject; ' another
is Foucault' s notion that being a subject means being subjugated. 2 Clearly, then,
the humanism of the tradition, also referred to as modernism, is not so much
critiqued in such perspectives as it is obviated by the claim that it posits a non­
existent entity, the "subject," and, moreover, that positing its existence has both
generated and perpetuated colonialism, racism, sexism, apartheid, genocide, and
other crimes against individuals and societies. For these theorists, obviating the
subject entails the non-existence of universals and ideal entities as well.
Fanon' s critique of modernity is encapsulated in the famous lines from the
conclusion of The Wretched of the Earth: "[!]eave this Europe where they are
never done talking of Man, yet murder men everywhere they find them, at the
corner of every one of their own streets, in all the comers of the globe."3 Fa­
non ' s charge here is not that Man, the subject, is a construct that has functioned
as an instrument of oppression; his charge is, rather, that of systemic hypocrisy,
systemic bad faith: "[a]ll the elements of a solution to the great problems of hu­
manity have, at different times, existed in European thought. But the action of
European men has not carried out the mission that fell to them."4 That Western
humanism has coexisted with a culture that has committed mass atrocities
against those deemed inferior is evidence, for Fanon, that Western man, and
Western and Westernized societies, are fragmented, fractured, split, not whole:
"[i]t is a question of the Third World starting a new history of Man, a history
which will have regard to the sometimes prodigious theses which Europe has put
forward, but which will also not forget Europe' s crimes, of which the most hor­
rible consisted of the pathological tearing apart of his functions and the crum­
bling away of his unity."5 The result is that Western man has created a Mani­
chean world in which conformity to norms, usually of whiteness, maleness,
heterosexuality, and wealth confer superiority, while deviation from the norms,
blackness, femaleness, sex and gender differences, mental or physical disability,
poverty, ethnic m inority status, confer abnormality and with it, inferiority. Fa­
non is clear that transforming the Third World into a new Europe will not do.
Rather, " [f]or Europe, for ourselves, and for humanity, comrades, we must tum
over a new leaf, we must work out new concepts, and try to set afoot a new
man."6
Setting afoot a "new man" did not entail, for Fanon, as it does in the post­
modernist paradigm, repudiating human universals. 7 Throughout his tragically
short life, Fanon made clear his own commitment to the existence of human
universals. The centrality of this commitment to Fanon's life and thought is em­
phasized by Alice Cherki, who worked closely with Fanon, "from 1 955 to 1 961,
during the critical years that bracketed his involvement with the struggle for
Algeria's independence. The confluence of [their] joint political and medical
work brought [them] together from the moment Fanon arrived in Algeria until
his death."8 She writes that,
 Fanonian Musings 41

Difference, in the hands of the culturalists [e.g., Gardiner, Mead] is posited as a

challenge to the universalism that informs the great systems of Western know­
ledge. Fanon, on the other hand, views culture as a point of temporal and spa­
tial reference that is also a conduit to the universal; moreover, his insistence on
the way one culture can radically alter another clearly sets him apart from the
culturalists.9• • He [Fanon] believed that human beings, provided that they
•

were in possession of language and of their own history as subjects, could

progress from difference to the universal. 10

For this reason, his acute consciousness of the universality that inheres in human
existence as human, Farron emphasized with great poignancy and power
throughout his writings that the goal and consequences of colonial and other
forms of oppression is dehumanization: "[b ]ecause it is a systematic negation of
the other person and a furious determination to deny the other person all
attributes of humanity, colonialism forces the people it dominates to ask them­
selves the question constantly: ' in reality, who am 1?"' 1 1 Thus, Fanon's charge
that it is just the hypocrisy of the West, its espousal of the values of the tradition,
the universal human values of, for example, freedom and justice, and its hubris­
tic claim to possess unique knowledge of the meaning of those values and
unique societies that give expression to them, and thus to be the bearer and cus­
todian of them, that enables the dehumanizing character of oppression by justi­
fying, even mandating, brutality against those who are deemed to be outside the
scope of those values, to be, that is, "animal" or "non-human." Fanonian human­
ism, then, is indeed humanism in that Farron shows that victims of oppression
have been stripped of the actuality and inner sense of freedom and relation to
self and others, the sociality, that constitutes our humanness insofar as they are
expressive characteristics of our inner and outer, or social, lived experience. It is
as if the oppressor cannot sustain his sense of his own humanness without a non­
human other, even if he has to create that other himself. Most importantly, and
as a liberatory alternative to the postmodernist dismissal of all forms of human­
ism, Fanonian humanism affirms the human not as that which is complete, or
with a known essence, but, as we have seen, as that which must be born anew as
the new man, the new humanity.
To restate the point of difference with both traditional humanism and the
postmodernist critique succinctly, Fanon, one of the most important revolutio­
nary thinkers of the twentieth century, refused to throw out the baby with the
bathwater: he realized that continuing the tradition that has allowed for, and has
been and is globally infected with a value-vitiating hypocrisy is impossible. That
a debased, reified version of subject status has been a tool of oppression is
beyond question. Unfortunately however, this reified "subject" has led postmo­
dernist thinkers indeed to throw out the baby with the bathwater by jumping to
the conclusion that the debased, reified version of the subject operative in West­
ern societies is the only possible version of what it is to be a subject. In contrast
to the postmodernist dismissal, that there inheres in human beings a capacity to
become liberated subjects is, it seemed to Fanon, evident. Dispensing with the
42 Marilyn Nissim-Sabat

"subject" altogether is no panacea that will preclude reifying debasement of

concepts as they are lived. Indeed, from a Fanonian perspective the postmodern­
ist dismissal of the subject is just the dialectical other of the debased version that
has enabled the hypocrisy of the West. 12
Here several interrelated questions arise: how do the reified subject and the
self-negation of the colonized come into existence? What will be the characteris­
tics of the new man and the new humanity of which Fanon speaks, and, how will
the new man and the new humanity come into existence? Grasping the sense and
significance of these questions will thrust us into the heart of Fanon' s thinking
about the convergence of the decolonization of philosophy and psychiatry in a
new, postcolonial humanism.

Fanonian Psychiatry

Fanon's context was French colonialism in Martinique, his country of origin,

and in Africa, Algeria in particular. There he experienced first-hand that the op­
pression which the French imposed was total. Not only were the people econom­
ically, politically, and culturally oppressed and brutalized by the French; in addi­
tion, oppression was such that each individual was internally colonized as well.
Fanon describes the consequences of internal oppression in his first masterpiece,
Black Skin, White Masks: "[h]owever painful it may be for me to accept this
conclusion, I am obliged to state it: For the black man there is only one destiny.
And it is white." 1 3 Fanon' s remark that blacks' destiny is to be white is to be
understood ironically: he means that this destiny will come to pass only so long
as everything remains the same. In remarking that blacks' destiny "is to be
white," Fanon points out that colonialism induced in blacks a sense of inferiority
so profound that it culminated in self-negation. Of course, Fanon does not mere­
ly state this point. Black Skin, White Masks is in its entirety an extraordinarily
detailed account of exactly how self-negation comes into existence in the op­
pressed.
"Sociogeny" is Fanon' s term for the process whereby social structures and
meanings, including the ideology of racial inferiority, are formed and interna­
lized, resulting in self-negation. He used the term in order to differentiate the
process from both phylogeny, the evolution of a species, and ontogeny, the de­
velopment of an individual. It is important to note that Fanon describes and ex­
plains sociogeny in terms of the effect on individual psychology of socio­
economic processes-this is what Fanon means by "sociogeny": "[i]f there is an
inferiority complex, it is the outcome of a double process: primarily economic;
subsequently, the internalization--or, better, the epidermalization--of this infe­
riority." 14 Noteworthy here is Fanon' s explanation that antiblack racism is lived
as epidermalization-i.e., it is embodied in skin color, in the color of the skin of
blacks, their blackness. Note also that epidermalization is a psychic process­
that of the internalization of inferiority, of the oppressor's point of view regard-
 Fanonian Musings 43

ing blackness. I take Farron to mean that the process whereby the sense of infe­
riority comes to be located for the black in skin color is a process of psychic
internalization of a socially constructed and enforced ideology. Epidermalization
is both the terminus a quo and the terminus ad quern of the process of internali­
zation: it is a process whereby one takes what is externally constituted into one­
self.
To develop his own view on the origin of self-negation in the oppressed,
Farron critiqued Freud. His critique of the limitations of psychoanalysis, and
mutatis mutandis, of psychiatry, follows his remarks about the epidermalization
of black inferiority: "Freud insisted that the individual factor be taken into ac­
count through psychoanalysis. He substituted for a phylogenetic theory the on­
togenetic perspective." Fanon goes on to express his own view: "[i]t will be seen
that the black man's alienation is not an individual question. Beside phylogeny
and ontogeny stands sociogeny." 1 5 It is very important to be clear as to what
Farron means when he says that "the black man ' s alienation is not an individual
question." The origin of the black man's alienation is sociogenic: it originates in
social forces that affect all of the oppressed. Farron means further that disaliena­
tion must also be through social forces that will affect all of the oppressed:
"[b]ut," he wrote, "effective disalienation of the black man entails an immediate
16
recognition of social and economic realities." (Fanon's views on the socio­
economic aspect of sociogeny will be discussed below.) However, prior to dis­
cussing the impact of social forces, Farron stated that the analysis he is undertak­
17
ing is psychological. So, in locating the forces that generate epidermalization,
i.e., dehumanization in the intrapsychic domain through internalization of the
point of view of the oppressor, Farron viewed epidermalization as a psychiatric
condition. This means that the social process leading to black alienation affects,
as do all social processes, individual human beings as individual in both their
intrapsychic and intersubjective or social existence. Differently put, Fanon's
critique of Freud is not that the latter saw the development of the individual as
the object of psychoanalytic work, for, as a psychiatrist, Farron worked with
both individuals and groups; rather, it was that in so doing Freud at the same
time radically excluded sociogeny, with respect to either origin or cure. This is
quite consistent with one of the most prevalent critiques of Freud by post­
Freudian psychoanalysts: that he ignored environmental factors in the etiology
of mental disorders.
Understanding the sociogenic process, to be discussed at length below, re­
quires, at this point, consideration of philosophical themes and ideas.

Fanonian Philosophy

As we have seen, Farron asserted that the process of reversing sociogenic induc­
tion of the conviction of inferiority is a process of disalienation. (The original
title of Black Skin, White Masks was Essay on the Disalienation of the Blacks,
44 Marilyn Nissim-Sabat

or, in the original French, Essai sur la desalienation du Nair. 18) This, too, will
be a psychological process; but, it will be one that is induced by a radical trans­
formation of the sociogenic, including socio-economic, factors in psychological
development. Indeed, Fanon's goal in writing Black Skin, White Masks was to
reveal the sociogenic induction of inferiority with such a degree of incisive clari­
ty and unmistakable verisimilitude that it would inspire the oppressed to bring
about radical transformation of all of the conditions of their existence, including
the economic conditions, under colonialism that would engender disalienation,
the end of self-negation.
It is then interesting and important to note that in the course of developing
his account of the sociogenesis of black alienation, Fanon makes significant
philosophical interventions. These philosophical interventions are radically dif­
ferent from the type made in Western psychiatric, psychological, and psychoa­
nalytic studies, which are replete with uses of and references to Western philo­
sophers from Heraclitus to Derrida and beyond, including Deleuze and Levinas.
The use of philosophical materials in psychiatry and psychoanalysis can be cha­
racterized, with few exceptions, as parasitic on philosophy in the sense that con­
cepts and references to philosophers are generally ad hoc-they are used simply
to shore up ideas of the theorist whose work has no integral philosophical di­
mension at all and which usually bears within it a powerful resistance to an
integral philosophical dimension. But Fanon was not only a trained psychiatrist;
additionally, he knew the history of philosophy and was deeply influenced by
the existential phenomenological philosophical perspective as in the work, espe­
cially, of Hegel, Nietzsche, Sartre, and Merleau-Ponty. Fanon was also influ­
enced by prominent African and Caribbean philosophers, for example, Leopold
Senghor, Amilcar Cabral, and Aime Cesaire, to mention a few. Most important­
ly, we will see that Fanon does not just talk about philosophy; on the contrary,
he philosophizes concretely in order to reveal the lived psychological and philo­
sophical dimensions of the manner in which the Manichean world is sustained
and the manner in which it can and must be replaced by a new, more human, and
thus more humane, world. As we will see, these philosophical dimensions are
not separable from the psychological dimensions either of oppression or of libe­
ratory action. It will be clear as well to astute readers of Fanon that the philo­
sophical and psychological dimensions of his thought are interrelated in an orig­
inal manner. This alone renders his work of immense significance for both
disciplines. In particular, Fanon' s interrelation of the two disciplines reflects, as
we shall see, his phenomenological methodology of bracketing ontological as­
sumptions in order to see the object of investigation evidentially-that is, as it
gives itself in lived experience. 19
According to Fanon in chapter 5 of Black Skin, White Masks, "The Fact of
Blackness,"

As long as the black man is among his own, he will have no occasion, except in
minor internal conflicts, to experience his being through others. There is of
course the moment of "being for others," of which Hegel speaks, but every on-
 Fanonian Musings 45

tology is made unattainable in a colonized and civilized society . . . . In the Wel­

tanschauung of a colonized people there is an impurity, a flaw that outlaws any
ontological explanation. Someone may object that this is the case with every
individual, but such an objection merely conceals a basic problem. Ontology­
once it is admitted as leaving existence by the wayside---d oes not permit us to
understand the being of the black man.20

Fanon here does not rule out ontology as such, as a branch of philosophy or a
field of inquiry. What he says is that one would necessarily fail if one were to
attempt to understand the black man in terms of any of the historically consti­
tuted ontological categories.
Ontology as it developed in Western thought is a branch of philosophy in
which the questions are asked: what is? what sorts of things are there? These
questions refer to being, to what sort of being something is. For example, the
concept "human" designates a category every member of which is a human be­
ing. Since the statement that "some X's are human beings" is true, this category
is not an empty designator. We say that the category has existential import, that
the ontological status of human beings is that we are, we exist, as human. For
philosophers in the phenomenological tradition originating with Husserl, includ­
ing several who directly influenced Fanon, e.g., Sartre and Merleau-Ponty, hu­
man existence is a mode of being that differs ontologically from the being of
things. The question arises, then, as to what are the characteristics that define the
category "human." Whatever these characteristics are, an entity must possess
them in order to be designated as human. Therefore, none of the characteristics
will be contingent, i.e., true of some but not all vis-a-vis their qualification, so to
speak, to belong to or be members of the given category. However, how do
things stand if this category of being, of what is, is lived as if it has the follow­
ing characteristic: that being human means being white, i .e., having "white"
skin, and that being black therefore disallows inclusion in the category "hu­
man"? Understanding oppression in the form of antiblack racism requires, for
Fanon, understanding that it presupposes the ontologization of whiteness, an
assimilation of whiteness, a contingent attribute, to the very definition of the
human. This assimilation is irrational: a property that is inherently contingent
cannot be essential. According to Fanon, blacks knew that they were human (I
say this because his work presupposes such knowledge-nowhere in it does
Fanon state that black people lack this awareness); but, they also knew that their
survival depended on acceptance of inferior, non- or sub-human status and of
the superior status of whites. The lived incompatibility of these categories­
human and not human-in the context of a genocidal social structure generated
an act of self-negation such that colonized blacks internalized white superiority
and supremacy. Or, stated succinctly, the epidermalization of antiblack racism
and black self-negation is at one and the same time the internalization of the
ontologization of whiteness. For, if I must perform an inner act of self-negation
in order to survive, if I must negate my own humanity on the ground or evidence
of my black skin, then, in order to do so, I must internalize the ontologization of
46 Marilyn Nissim-Sabat

whiteness, of white skin: to be human is to be white: I am black, I am not hu­

man. However this compromise formation, grounded as it is in a lived contradic­
tion-I am human, I am not human-is unstable.
Put another way, oppression is a matter of dehumanization, and dehumani­
zation is not merely a matter of externally enforced conditioning; rather, it is a
matter of psychic incorporation, under severe duress, of the point of view of the
oppressor. Most importantly, we see here that the notion of dehumanization is
not to be bandied about casually as if its meaning is hyperbolic or merely a
far;on de par/er in the felicitous if facile French expression. Rather than this, our
lived experience, the flow of meanings constituted in and by us that in tum con­
stitute-both diachronically, that is, historically, in both societies and individu­
als, and synchronously, in the present constitutive activities-the world as we
know it, is a matter of our sociogenically and ontogenetically constituted beliefs
concerning the nature of our own being, our own existence, and our sense of
what there is. We live our beliefs, including unconscious ones, but also live the
possibilities that inhere in us and can be realized when the universality of our
humanness is the presupposition of our societies and our lives.

Fanonian Musings on the Interrelation of

Philosophy and Psychology/Psychiatry

In discussing the interrelation of philosophy and psychology in Fanon, Fanon

scholar, critical race theorist, and Husserlian phenomenologist, Lewis R. Gordon
writes:

It was my task in addressing the philosophy of existence to chart not only what
philosophy of existence may have meant for Fanon, but also to show the dis­
tinction between Fanonian existential phenomenology and Fanonian psycholo­
gy. The former includes elements of the latter, but it is an error to reduce one to
the other, especially since some of the concerns of the philosophy of existence
are the very conditions in which a science of psychology can exist at all.2 1

I n saying, a s I did above, that for Fanon "the epidermalization o f antiblack rac­
ism is at one and the same time the internalization of the ontologization of
whiteness," I did not intend, as one might hold, to reduce psychology to philos­
ophy or philosophy to psychology (which seems to be Gordon' s concern), for, I
agree with Gordon that they are not reducible to one another, and that such re­
duction was not in Fanon' s purview. I also agree with Gordon that "some of the
concerns" of existential phenomenology are "the very conditions in which a
science of psychology can exist at all." However, I would add to Gordon' s view
on the interrelationship of these disciplines, in particular or especially in this
exploration of Fanon' s thought, that the conditions for the possibility of a
science of psychology are the lived experiences that give rise to existential phe-
 Fanonian Musings 47

nomenology as a mode of philosophizing: those conditions are, too, aspects of

being human, of our humanity-that we as persons, as embodied subjects, are
not reducible to a scientistic notion of materiality; that our sociality, which, as
Gordon has shown,22 is fundamentally relational, cannot be reduced to a mate­
rially reductive ontology; that the self-consciousness that enables us to suspend
ontological commitments has a reflexive character that is a precondition for the
possibility of any science or philosophy. Put differently, not only psychology,
but our psyches in their very being and in their being as formed through deve­
lopmental psycho-social processes exist in and through the transcendental condi­
tions for their possibility. It is precisely in his insistence on the universal charac­
ter of humanity that Fanon implicitly recognizes the transcendental character of
human being-in-becoming. Thus, while philosophy and psychology are separa­
ble as disciplines, to say that existential phenomenology concerns itself with the
conditions for the possibility of any science is to say that these conditions for
possibility-i.e., this transcendentality which existential phenomenology aims to
explore through its evidential self-givenness in lived experience---co-constitute
lived experience as the actual psychic and psycho-social life of embodied sub­
jects.

Decolonizing Philosophy/Psychiatry

As stated above, to hold that a characteristic like skin color is an essential cha­
racteristic of the human is to attempt to ontologize, or, better, to essentialize,
what is contingent. This impossibility, this false consciousness, became the
structural foundation of European culture, a consciousness riven by the constant
need to justify to itself its own split self. What is to be done?
I take Fanon's meaning to be this: the Manichean world will be transformed
into a human world through a revolutionary process that will, in one of its essen­
tial moments, deontologize whiteness. This will involve showing that the onto­
logizing of the contingent property whiteness, its elevation to the status of an
essential characteristic of the human, is a logical-existential impossibility. Fa­
non 's work shows that logic and existence cannot be isolated one from the other
without a dehumanizing abstraction. This is intrinsic to the phenomenological
philosophical stance adopted by Fanon-the stance of abjuring any claim to
know the ultimate ontology of the world or of ourselves. The reform will be in
the lived experience of the categories which structure our consciousness and as
such constitute our world through our individual and intersubjective acts of
meaning bestowal. How will this deontologization of whiteness come about?
What is needed is a method that will allow for self-investigation in order to
reveal extant individual and social commitment to belief in an impossible and
therefore irrational ontology. As we saw above, according to Fanon, "every on­
tology is made unattainable in a colonized and civilized society. . . . In the Wel­
tanschauung of a colonized people there is an impurity, a flaw that outlaws any
48 Marilyn Nissim-Sabat

23
ontological explanation." Fanon is referring to efforts to understand the being
of the black. He refers not only to white racist versions of the being of the black,
but to the oppressed black person's own conception of his or her being as a
black person as well. Why is ontology unattainable in a colonized and civilized
society? The reason is that our existential lived experience is always already
tainted by the ontologizing of whiteness. Our consciousnesses, our lived bodily
experience, and our cultural formations, our language, our signs and symbols, all
bear within them the all-pervasive aura of white privilege. In such a world, one
cannot critically examine ontology or raise ontological questions. Fanon points
to this when he writes in the same passage that "Ontology--once it is finally
admitted as leaving existence by the wayside-does not permit us to understand
the being of the black man."24 Nor, we can add, can any ontology that "leaves
existence by the wayside,'' i.e., that does not take lived experience as its point of
departure, understand any aspect of human being in the world. Fanon says here
that ontological questions in an antiblack world are necessarily abstracted from
the lived experience of the black, the black's existence. He points out that some­
one might say that this is just as true of the white-that ontology does not permit
us to understand the being of the white man. Fanon denies this converse proposi­
tion, but not because he does not understand that in an antiblack, Manichean
world all, including non-blacks, are oppressed, mutilated, and alienated. In fact,
Fanon frequently expressed this insight. His point was that as a consequence of
the ontologizing of whiteness, "[t]he black man has no ontological resistance in
25
the eyes of the white man." That is to say, for the white, the black has no in­
side, no inner life, no psychic being, and thus no existence as a person.26 The
being of the black is epidermalized, it begins and ends with his skin. For the
black man, in his vis-a-vis with the white man, his inner life is dominated by the
white imago and everything he thinks and does is controlled by this imago: As
Fanon says, "not only must the black man be black; he must be black in relation
to the white man."27 Thus, while Fanon denied that the being of the white man is
incomprehensible in the same way as in the case of the black, he meant, it seems
to me, that the white man has ontological resistance as it were; the white man is
experienced by other whites as being a person in the sense of having an inner
life of his own, however mutilated by racist beliefs. But for the black in an anti­
black world, there is no sphere of inwardness, no psychic life in the eyes of the
white. Nevertheless, without bracketing the ontological presuppositions of an
antiblack world, the presupposition that whiteness inheres in the essence of the
human, neither can the lived experience of the white be understood.
Thus, in order for a critical examination of oneself and one 's culture, one' s
social formations, to b e critical, one must abstain from positing i n one's beliefs,
and from infusing one's actions with, any claim to know ultimate being, for ex­
ample, the being of human being. By abstaining from commitment to ontologi­
cal beliefs, we can examine them as phenomena, as possibilities, and examine as
well their potential ramifications and consequences for human life. In the words
of Lewis R. Gordon,
 Fanonian Musings 49

The usefulness of a phenomenological analysis becomes obvious. It explores

the intersubjective framework of meanings and the impact of multiple mean­
ings and sociality; it also presents interpretations that, at the same time, do not
fall into the trap of bad faith. This is so because phenomenology distinguishes
between interpreting ontological judgments and making them. By suspending
the natural attitude, phenomenologists are able to explore the contours of the
social world while keeping their contingency in mind. 28

In this way, we can hope to free ourselves from the all-pervasive belief in white
privilege, the ontologizing of whiteness, and from all other existential-logical
meanings that are not compossible (not simultaneously possible), that cannot be
lived simultaneously without cost to oneself. To put the point another way, un­
less we abstain from ontological commitments as such, we cannot see that
whiteness, and with it white privilege, has been falsely ontologized, that it is
neither "naturally" nor "spiritually" founded and that its essentiality is not
grounded in evidence. Moreover, with this abstention, which Husserl referred to
as the phenomenological reduction, we can bring into view all of our most sig­
nificant prejudices, our non-evidential beliefs, for example, the scientistic reduc­
tion of psychiatry to a physicalist discipline. And, the existential-logical ratio­
nality of such constitutive intentions can be called into question and their world­
constituting impact can be reversed, undone. What will motivate this undoing?

The Interrelated Decolonization of

Philosophy and Psychiatry

Fanon is extremely clear regarding the path to liberation: what he says is that
liberation is a matter of realizing the universality, the oneness, or unity of hu­
manity. This is the place from which Fanon speaks in all of his writings. This
sense of the oneness of humanity was literally his genius, and Fanon was,
beyond doubt, one of the most extraordinary geniuses of the twentieth century.
Here are some of the ways in which Fanon expresses his sense of the human
universal: "I am a man, and what I have to recapture is the whole past of the
world. I am not responsible solely for the revolt in Santo Domingo."29 Fanon
refers, of course, to the Haitian Revolution, the first of the anticolonial revolu­
tions in the Caribbean. He points out that first he is a man, and as such, he is
implicated in the entire past of the world, as are all persons. Again, Fanon: "If
the question of practical solidarity with a given past ever arose for me, it did so
only to the extent to which I was committed to myself and to my neighbor to
fight for all my life and with all my strength so that never again would a people
on the earth be subjugated. It was not the black world that laid down my course
of conduct. My black skin is not the wrapping of specific values."30 What Fanon
expresses here, it seems to me, is that for human beings the motivation for trans­
formative action will spring from acute perception of the unity of humanity,
expressed by Fanon as his dedication to eliminate subjugation of all and any
50 Marilyn Nissim-Sabat

persons from the world. This commitment reflects an elevation to consciousness

of the lived experience of the unity of humanity. Moreover, the perception of
universality will spring, as we have seen, from the rejection of ontological pre­
suppositions and the radical self-critique that ensues therefrom.
For Fanon, the two most significant characteristics of the new man will be
maturity and actionality. These are concepts that are commonplace in psychiatry
and psychoanalysis. In these disciplines, maturity is usually defined as the ca­
pacity to delay gratification, or, put differently, the capacity to project long
range goals and to act realistically in pursuit of those goals. Fanon's term "ac­
tionality" can be analogized to the psychotherapeutic notion of "assertiveness"
or general ability to act in one's own interest and make one's needs and wishes
known to others without suppressing oneself or acting unreasonably against oth­
ers. For Fanon, however, given his vision of the unity of humanity, maturity and
actionality are not to be comprehended within the ethico-political frame of "en­
lightened self-interest" that characterizes the ideology of liberalism and that of
psychoanalysis as well. This liberal ethical-political stance has not altered the
fact that the disciplines of psychiatry and psychotherapy are today, as they have
been since their inception, permeated by racism and sexism. 3 1
Regarding h i s views o n the socio-economic aspect o f the sociogenesis of
racism, it is clear that Fanon saw himself as in the tradition of Marxism. It is
evident, for example, in that Fanon chose a quotation from Marx's famous
pamphlet The I 8th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, in which Marx wrote about
the struggles of the working class at the time of the coup d'etat, as an epigraph
for the concluding chapter of Black Skin, White Masks. In the epigraph, Marx
wrote that the social revolution must not draw its inspiration from the past but
32
must find its own content. The newness of the needed revolution is a pervasive
motif in Fanon's writings. Noted Fanon scholar Nigel C. Gibson remarks that,
"[t]his tum to Marx is manifested in the assertion that there is ultimately only
one solution-to restructure the world."33 Importantly, however, Lewis R. Gor­
don remarks that, "as for Marxism, it should be noted that Fanon' s philosophy
of the human sciences compelled him not to regard even Marxism as a closed
system of thought. Renate Zahar has shown, for example, that although Fanon
was more in line with Marxist-Leninism, his contribution was more as an inno­
vator, not a disciple."34
How, then, in the light of this discussion, and from the perspective of Fano­
nian humanism, can psychiatry and philosophy be decolonized? I leave open the
question as to whether or not such decolonization is possible short of a social
revolution, a total transformation of the socio-economic structure of society. The
purpose of the following discussion is to present what I take to be a Fanonian
assessment of the motives that can lead to the decolonization of philosophy and
psychology/psychiatry.
In view of the above, I believe that a Fanonian response is that decoloniza­
tion must begin with a move toward recognition of the need to deontologize
whiteness in order to eradicate white privilege. However, pursuit of this liberato­
ry goal requires, from the perspective of Fanonian humanism, recognition that
 Fanonian Musings 51

philosophy can no longer be, if it ever was, an abstract, disembodied meditation

on concepts divorced from the lived experience of human beings. As we have
seen, for Fanon the lived experience of oppression and of liberation is at the
same time the lived experience of the beliefs that structure our experience re­
garding what we take to be real and regarding the meaning of our existence.
These beliefs and meanings count because being a human being counts, being a
human being matters; our sufferings matter and our joys matter. This is the same
as to say that we matter to ourselves and to one another for we are not selves
without others, other selves. The core of Fanonian humanism is just this sense of
the unity of humanity, our universality. Universality in this sense is an indication
of, in the existential phenomenological perspective, the freedom that we are, of
the philosophical dimension of our existence, of the openness that we are. For
Fanon, mental disorders, those of both oppressed and oppressors (as Fanon
showed in the penultimate chapter of The Wretched of the Earth, "Colonial War
and Mental Disorders"35) are to a significant degree a consequence of denial of
the philosophical dimension of our experience, denial of the universals that in­
here in human lived experience that is at the same time denial of the universality
of humanity, or, put another way, of sociality. Thus, the decolonization of phi­
losophy will be simultaneously the decolonization of psychiatry in that a deco­
lonized view of the conditions for the possibility of a science of psychology will
be simultaneously decolonization of philosophy and of psychology.

The Agent of Disalienation

Regarding decolonization, it is not my purpose in this chapter to elaborate on

Fanon' s discussions of how, concretely, disalienation will come about. This is a
topic that has stirred much controversy, in particular surrounding Fanon' s dis­
cussion of revolutionary violence. Rather, the contribution I wish to make here
is in regard to the conditions for the possibility of disalienation. What I mean by
this claim is a discussion of the vision of humanity that animated Fanon' s work,
and, in particular, the identification of a mutative agent of human transformation
embedded in it. For, unless such a mutative agent exists, and unless we can iden­
tify it as such, how will be able to bring about the new which is not a repetition
of the old in another form?
One of the most significant issues in psychoanalytic theory is the question
of its mutative effect. The issue turns upon various theories of what constitutes
this mutative agent, what brings about change in the patient. In the history of
psychoanalysis, many candidates for mutative agents have been proffered, e.g.,
insight (Freud); analysis of the transference (Freud and numerous successors);
gratification (some object relations theorists); development of a conflict-free
sphere (Hartman and ego psychology); empathy (Kohut); intersubj ective third
between patient and analyst (relational theory); demystification of the analyst as
Master and appropriation of one' s own desire (Lacan); and so on. In my study of
52 Marilyn Nissim-Sabat

the work of Fanon, I have concluded that for him the mutative factor in psy­
choanalysis, and indeed in all disciplines that seek to liberate both individuals
and humanity, is the consciousness or experience of being a human being
amongst other human beings, where "human" includes a directionality towards
maturity and the sociality that both grounds maturity and is its consequence.
Here I am not suggesting what some psychoanalysts, as well as many analytic
patients, have already experienced: that when patients in analysis get better, they
experience themselves as more human, more as human beings amongst others;
rather, in what I take to be the Fanonian spirit, I maintain that it is the acute in­
ner perception of one' s humanness, this consciousness, that enables the matura­
tional process in patients to be restarted. From this point of view, when patients
begin to feel more human as a result of their therapy, they are not becoming
more human as a result of therapy; rather, in actuality they are experiencing
growth towards maturity motivated by the inner perception of their humanness.
That is, they are experiencing the humanness that they are and with which they
have reconnected. Thus, where any process that is psychoanalytic is hostile to
the notion of the universality of our humanness, to that extent the treatment is
less likely to transcend the disciplinary decadence36 of medicalization or other
forms of scientistic reductionism and this will compromise the outcome. As is
well known, psychoanalysis and other modalities of treatment can relieve symp­
toms, but treatment of symptoms is not treatment of the underlying condition
that eventuates in symptoms. For Fanon, that underlying condition is alienation
from one ' s own humanity, which includes the human universals that structure
our existence, through ontogenetic and sociogenic processes. Neither the psy­
choanalysis that takes the individual as its object of investigation and treatment,
nor the philosophy that explores the universals that inhere in all individuals and
in our socius, taken in separation from the other is adequate to the task of bring­
ing about a new humanity. It is for these reasons-its phenomenological groun­
ding, its encompassing scope----0ntogenesis and sociogenesis, and its renewal of
humanism as postcolonial-that acknowledges human universals, that, in the
context of phenomenology are not essentialist, and its incisive grasp of the
mutative and motivating capacity of these-that I maintain that Fanonian hu­
manism does and will resist cooptation by forces of oppression.

Notes

1 . Louis Althusser, "Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses," Lenin and Phi­
losophy and Other Essays (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1 97 1 ), 1 27-86.
2. Michel Foucault, "Afterword," Michel Foucault (Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 1 982), 2 1 2.
3. Frantz Fanon, The Wretched ofthe Earth (New York: Grove Press, 1 963), 3 1 1 .
4 . Fanon, Wretched, 3 14.
5. Fanon, Wretched, 3 1 4.
6. Fanon, Wretched, 3 16.
 Fanonian Musings 53

7. For a similar view of the difference between Fanon's thought and that of postmo­
dernism, Foucault in particular, see Ato Sekyi-Otu's magisterial book, Fanon 's Dialectic
ofExperience (Cambridge, MA.: Harvard University Press, 1 996), I 0-3 1 .
8 . Alice Cherki, Frantz Fanon: A Portrait (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press,
2006), 8.
9. Cherki, Frantz Fanon, 34.
1 0. Cherki, Frantz Fanon, 35.
1 1 . Fanon, Wretched, 250.
1 2. Although Fanon had a significant critique of Hegel's version of the Master-Slave
dialectic (Frantz Fanon, Black Skin, White Masks (New York: Grove Press, 1 967), 2 1 6-
20), he did not reject the Hegelian dialectic.
1 3 . Fanon, Black Skin, 1 0 .
1 4. Fanon, Black Skin, 1 1 .
1 5. Fanon, Black Skin, 1 1 .
1 6. Fanon, Black Skin, 1 1 .
1 7. Fanon, Black Skin, I 0.
1 8. Cherki, Frantz Fanon, 24.
1 9 . For a thorough discussion of the ways in which Fanon's thought coincides with
Husserlian phenomenology, see Lewis R. Gordon, Fanon and the Crisis of European
Man: An Essay on Philosophy and the Human Sciences (New York: Routledge, 1 995).
20. Fanon, Black Skin, I 09-1 1 0.
2 1 . Gordon, Fanon and the Crisis, 93.
22. For a thorough analysis and discussion of Gordon's work on sociality, see Ma­
rilyn Nissim-Sabat, "Lewis Gordon: Avatar of Postcolonial Humanism," The C. L. R.
James Journal 1 4, no. 1 (2008): 46-70.
23. Fanon, Black Skin, 1 09.
24. Fanon, Black Skin, 1 09-1 1 0.
25. Fanon, Black Skin, 1 10.
26. In her novels, Toni Morrison reveals black persons as possessing "ontological
resistance," i.e., inner lives. This was her express aim in writing Beloved. This theme is
explored in depth in "Neither Victim nor Survivor Be: Who is Beloved's Baby," in Ma­
rilyn Nissim-Sabat, Neither Victim nor Survivor: Thinking toward a New Humanity
(Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2009), 1 63-93 .
27. Fanon, Black Skin, 1 1 0.
28. Lewis R. Gordon, "Sociality and Community in Black: A Phenomenological Es­
say," The Quest for Community and Identity: Critical Essays in A.fricana Social Philoso­
phy (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2002), 1 1 6.
29. Fanon, Black Skin, 226.
30. Fanon, Black Skin, 227
3 1 . For information regarding, and a thorough discussion of racism in psychiatry,
see: Marilyn Nissim-Sabat, "Race and Culture," The Philosophy of Psychiatry: A Com­
panion (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 244-57.
32. Fanon, Black Skin, 223.
33. Nigel C. Gibson, Fanon: The Postcolonial Imagination (Cambridge, UK: Polity
Press, 2003), 82-83.
34. Gordon, Fanon and the Crisis, 93. For extensive discussion of Fanon' s relation
to Marx, see Sekyi-Otu, Fanon 's Dialectic, passim, esp. 1 53 ff.
35. Fanon, Wretched, 249-3 1 0.
54 Marilyn Nissim-Sabat

36. For a thorough discussion of the notion of disciplinary decadence in the context
of Africana philosophy, see Lewis R. Gordon, Disciplinary Decadence: Living Thought
in Trying Times (Boulder, CO: Paradigm Publishers, 2006).
 Chapter 4
Fanon, Foucault,
and the Politics of Psychiatry

Chloe Taylor

A critique of the psychological disciplines and discourses is, as Todd May

states, "a leitmotif in Foucault' s texts." 1 Foucault provides lengthy critical ana­
lyses of psychiatry in works such as The History of Madness and Psychiatric
Power, while he argues consistently in works such as The History of Madness,
The History of Sexuality, and "Psychiatry, Confinement, Prison," that psychoa­
nalysis is but a subtler and more advanced form of psychiatric or disciplinary
power. So opposed was Foucault to the psychological disciplines and the psy­
chologization of the modem subject that he stated that "the art of living is to kill
psychology," and that life was not worth living if one could not do so. 2 Fou­
cault' s final works on the aesthetics of the self were evidently an attempt to
theorize a de-psychologized relation to the self, or were a counter-attack against
psychological normalization. According to John E. Toews, however, Foucault
fails to realize that the problems with the psychological disciplines to which he
points had been auto-critiqued and transformed within the writing and practice
of psychoanalysis itself, and, we might suppose, within the other psychological
disciplines as well. 3 May is more skeptical, arguing that while there is nothing a
priori about Foucault' s arguments, and we might conceive of a future psycholog­
ical practice so transformed that it would not have the "onerous political effects"
of the psychological disciplines today, such a practice is yet to be seen. As May
writes, this "is because the general focus upon the self which psychology fosters
has become deeply entwined with the projects of normalization and discipline."4
5
As I have argued elsewhere, I agree with May that Foucault' s criticisms of
the psychological disciplines remain relevant with respect to their dominant,
popular, and pervasive forms in contemporary society, from the most respected
schools of academic psychology to the phenomenon of Dr. Phil. Contra Toews,
psychological practices and discourses, including psychoanalysis, have, for the
most part, not auto-critiqued themselves sufficiently to have become non­
normalizing practices. Nevertheless, the first thing that I want to do in this chap­
ter is to pursue Toews' argument-which he himself does not substantiate-that
Foucault's critiques of the psychological disciplines had already been made

55
56 Chloe Taylor

within those disciplines themselves. More specifically, I will show that several
of Foucault' s critiques of psychology and psychiatric power are anticipated in
the writings and practices of the psychiatrist, psychoanalytic theorist, and post­
colonial philosopher Frantz Fanon. 6 To mention but a few of the overlaps be­
tween Foucault and Fanon that will be explored below: both philosophers identi­
fy the disciplinary tactics of colonialism which they associate with psychiatry;
both note systematic collaborations between psychiatrists, psychologists, tortur­
ers, the army, and the police; both observe the manners in which the medical and
scientific qualifications of psychiatrists are exploited in order to lend validity to
what are in fact unscientific, politically-motivated claims; both describe psychia­
try as politics rather than science, even if Fanon embraces this connection, while
Foucault condemns it; and both, in different ways, resist psychology' s depoliti­
cizing sexualization of subjectivity.
Given these overlaps between Fanon and Foucault, my second objective in
this chapter is to consider the significance of the fact that Fanon opted to raise
and respond to these criticisms from within the psychiatric and psychoanalytic
disciplines, whereas for Foucault these same problems were reasons to resist all
psychological practice. With respect to May's question as to whether the psy­
chological disciplines are necessarily oppressive and must therefore be aban­
doned, Fanon, unlike Foucault, evidently thought that psychiatry and psychoana­
lysis could be transformed in order to function as counter-disciplines and anti­
colonial forces, and it is this position which I would like to explore. While I will
argue that Fanon's works effectively resist certain forms of disciplinary coercion
and colonial normalization, it will be seen that they simultaneously participate in
reinforcing sexist and heterosexist norms, and, like the psychiatrists he critiques,
Fanon exploits his medico-scientific authority to participate in certain forms of
normalization. This point indicates that although Fanon anticipates Foucault's
critiques and to some extent responds to them, his own practice was not immune
to these criticisms. We are perhaps, as May suggests, still waiting to see a truly
non-normalizing psychological practice, whatever strides some radical psy­
chiatrists and psychoanalysts have made.
While I will have been discussing Foucault's early and middle works in re­
lation to Fanon's writings, Foucault's final works have been compared to Sar­
trean existentialism. In the last part of this chapter I will argue that this compari­
son is appropriate, given the different notions of freedom at play in the various
periods of Foucault's work. Whereas Foucault's focus on the autonomy­
cultivating practices of elite male subjects in his final works is aptly compared
to Sartre's privileged and tacitly white male perspective on human freedom,
Foucault's more qualified and pessimistic view of freedom in his early and mid­
dle works, focusing on the constraints placed on the freedom of (often margina­
lized) subjects by practices of oppression, is closer to Fanon's discussion of the
possibilities of self-determination within racist and colonial contexts.
 Fanon, Foucault, and the Politics of Psychiatry 57

Colonization as Discipline

In Psychiatric Power, Foucault uses the term "colonization" interchangeably

with "disciplinarization," calling, for instance, the "disciplinarization of student
youth" a "colonization of youth [which] was one of the first points of applica­
tion and extension of the disciplinary system."7 This equivalence between dis­
cipline and colonization is not merely metaphorical, for Foucault will go on to
argue that the colonization of peoples is in fact an application and extension of
disciplinary power:

We find another application of these disciplinary apparatuses in a different type

of colonization; no longer that of youth, but quite simply of colonized peoples .
. . . How disciplinary schemas were both applied and refined in the colonial
populations should be examined in some detail. It seems that disciplinarization
took place fairly unobtrusively and marginally to start with, and, interestingly,
as a counterpoint to slavery. 8

Foucault suggests that the kind of power exercised within slavery is sovereign­
it is violent, blatant, brutal: an oppression which begins with conquest and which
is maintained through physical constraint and threat of bloodshed. Colonization,
on the other hand, although it may begin with enslavement and be enforced with
spectacular brutality, is eventually psychologized, developing more subtle, dis­
ciplinary tactics. In an argument familiar to readers of Discipline and Punish,
Foucault argues that slavery, like other instances of sovereign power, proves
unwieldy and economically unsound, and is thus replaced by the apparently
gentler forms of disciplinary power, not because human beings became more
humane, but because they found strategies that were more effective.
Foucault' s example is unfortunately not taken from close to home-he does
not consider his own country' s recent and ruthlessly bloody colonization of Al­
geria-but rather a much earlier colonization by Spanish Jesuits in Paraguay. 9
The Jesuits, Foucault argues, were opposed to the practice of slavery not only
for religious or moral reasons, but for economic ones. Slavery, they found, "in
terms of the consumption of human lives," was "extremely costly and poorly
organized." The Jesuit colonizers therefore replaced it with "a different type of
distribution, control and exploitation by a disciplinary system." 10 This system
involved a better employment of time, improved supervision, an individualiza­
tion of the colonized, and a system of punishments which could be lighter than
that exercised under slavery because it was more constant. Briefly, then, and in
the context of a study of psychiatric power, Foucault describes a shift in the tac­
tics of colonial power from the inefficient exercise of brutal force and enslave­
ment to a more effective and less apparently violent application of disciplinary
control. The shift occurs not through any moral enlightenment on the part of the
colonizers, and not due to any recognition of the humanity of the colonized, but
simply as an amelioration in tactics.
58 Chloe Taylor

In The Wretched of the Earth, Fanon first analyses what may be described
as the initial stage of colonial power, in which the sole language spoken is that
of physical force. The consequence of this systematic violence on the part of
colonizers is that the colonized will sooner or later realize the pointlessness of
responding in any other manner than with counter-violence. The attempt at a
sovereign exercise of colonial power ends up being costly in terms of lives and
manpower and will eventually fail. As in Foucault's account of sovereign pow­
er, Fanon observes that spectacular shows of power will alienate colonized sub­
jects, will lead to revolts and resistance, will backfire in their applications, and
are thus ineffective and expensive. When these shortcomings of sovereign pow­
er are realized in a colonial context, Fanon writes that the colonizers will shift
tactics, making "concessions" to the colonized peoples. As Fanon makes clear,
however, this "masquerade of concessions and the heavy price paid by certain
countries have ended in a servitude that is not only more discreet, but also more
complete." 1 1 What the colonizers are in fact doing when they grant certain privi­
leges to the colonized or treat them with certain signs of respect is using psycho­
logical tactics in order to facilitate colonialism:

These psychological devices defuse their hatred. Experts and sociologists are a
guiding force behind these colonialist maneuvers and conduct numerous studies
on the subject of complexes-the complex of frustration, the complex of ag­
gressiveness, and the complex of colonizability. The colonized subject is up­
graded, and attempts are made to disarm him psychologically . . . The colo­
nized subject is so starved of anything that humanizes him, even if it is third
rate, that these trivial handouts in some cases manage to impress him. 12

As Fanon explains, the colonizer now realizes that he "can easily phase out the
violent aspects of his presence. In fact, this dramatic phasing out not only spares
the occupier much expense but also has the further benefit of allowing him to
better concentrate his powers [and to exercise] a more coercive control over the
country' s future." 13
Colonizers, according to both Foucault's and Fanon's accounts, made the
same disciplinary discoveries as the first psychiatrists described by Foucault in
The History of Madness and Psychiatric Power. These doctors "liberated the
insane," removing their chains and transplanting them from dungeons to asy­
lums, humanizing them in the process, recognizing them as humans rather than
animals, treating them with a certain degree of respect. According to Foucault,
this simply spelled a more psychological form of bondage. The insane feel in­
debted to their doctors, value their judgments, and thus submit to medical con­
trol. There is no longer any need for material chains because the mad are
chained by their souls. This form of control is more effective, requires less exer­
tion on the part of the doctors, and is less costly. Likewise in the colonial con­
text Fanon notes that many colonized subjects, having become accustomed to
bestialization and brutalization, will respond with pacified gratitude to even a
limited recognition of their humanity on the part of their colonizers. While the
 Fanon, Foucault, and the Politics of Psychiatry 59

colonized think that the colonizers have relinquished some of their control, giv­
en up some of their power, in fact the colonizers have only moved their control
onto the psychological plane and consolidated their powers. This power, as Fa­
non recognizes, because more coercive and less obviously violent, may in fact
be more pernicious.
In an essay on psychiatry in colonial North Africa, Frans;oise Verges writes
that "The psychology of colonization competed with the other components of
the colonial discourse, because it advocated a progressive assimilation through
seduction, rather than a subjugation by force." 14 Discipline, as seduction and
assimilation, may be harder for the colonized subject to recognize as power, and
thus he or she may be less motivated to resist. Fanon recognizes the increased
difficulty of resistance on the part of colonized subjects who are being assimi­
lated into the values of the colonizer rather than simply brutalized, much as Fou­
cault describes the effectiveness of disciplinary power as relying on our syste­
matic internalization of societal norms. In short, while Foucault describes
colonialism and psychiatry as two successive paradigms of disciplinary power,
Fanon provides an account of the manners in which later exercises of colonial
power incorporate the psychological tactics of discipline in order to improve
upon the more overtly violent tactics of first-phase colonization.

The Politics of Science

In Madness and Civilization, Foucault stresses that "No medical advance, no

humanitarian approach" was responsible for the birth of psychiatry, for "the fact
that the mad were gradually isolated, that the monotony of insanity was divided
15
into rudimentary types." Foucault attributes the establishment of asylums and
the birth of psychiatric practice to "a political more than a philanthropic aware­
ness." 16 Medical certificates were necessary from the end of the eighteenth cen­
tury onwards in order to commit a patient to an asylum, and were moreover cru­
cial to the kind of power wielded within these asylums. However, Foucault
insists that medical knowledge was never usefully drawn on in the treatment of
the mad. The intervention of the doctor was political rather than medical, and
the medical certificate functioned solely as a "moral guarantee," a testament to
normalcy rather than to any knowledge which was required for the practice of
psychiatry. According to Foucault, early psychiatrists recognized the technical
irrelevance of their medical training. Tuke notes of one of the first doctors at the
Retreat that "the medical means were so imperfectly connected with the
progress of recovery, that he could not avoid suspecting them, to be rather con­
17
comitants than causes."
Fifteen years after The History of Madness Foucault would continue to ar­
gue that the function of psychiatry is moral and political rather than medical. In
"Psychiatry, Confinement, Prison," he argues that asylums were called "hospit­
als" as a form of "cover operation":
60 Chloe Taylor

Psychiatry immediately perceived itself as a permanent function of social order

and made use of the asylums for two purposes: fi rst, to treat the most obvious,
the most embarrassing cases and, at the same time, to provide a sort of guaran­
tee, an image of scientificity, by making the place of confinement look like a
hospital. The renaming of the place of confinement as a hospital was a way of
declaring that the practice of psychiatry was indeed medical-since it, too, like
medicine, had a hospital. 18

Having an institution and calling it a "hospital" is an "operation of justification"

for what psychiatrists are really occupied with, which is "public hygiene." 19 In
both his early and later works, Foucault argues that the role of psychiatrists and
psychoanalysts is to assimilate patients into their own norms and the norms of
the society in which they live.
Although disciplinary strategies increasingly replaced more overt uses of
violence, Foucault stresses that punitive treatment of the so-called insane would
continue even in late twentieth century psychiatry and operated to enforce moral
and social norms on those who resisted synthesis and who represented political
dissent. Foucault argues that the cooperation of psychiatrists with the KGB in
the USSR was not an abuse of medicine, but was simply an overt case and "con­
densation" of psychiatry's "inheritance," an "intensification, the ossification of a
kinship structure that has never ceased to function."20 He observes the use of
psychosurgery such as lobotomies in the United States and the Soviet Union for
"political purposes,"2 1 and the Soviet use of Pavlovian reflexology to "cure"
homosexuals. 22 Also indicating the "kinship structure" shared by the police and
psychiatry, Foucault discusses the participation of psychiatrists as well as a psy­
choanalyst in police interrogations involving torture in Brazil.23 The psychoana­
lyst, like the psychiatrist, functions, Foucault observes, quite literally in this case
as a "torture-advisor." Cases such as these, far from being aberrations or abuses
of psychiatric power, in fact reveal something structural about psychiatry and
psychoanalysis.
Fanon, like Foucault, notes the manner in which psychological studies func­
tion as political and ideological tools rather than as scientific advances. Fanon
contests psychiatric and psychoanalytic works which posit essential identities,
and, like Foucault, points out their political motivations. Fanon considers argu­
ments which explain psychopathological behavior on the part of colonized
peoples through recourse to heredity. Rather than seeing antisocial behavior as
an effect of colonization, psychiatry has used that behavior as a justification for
colonization. In both Black Skin, White Masks and The Wretched of the Earth,
Fanon discusses and refutes uses of psychiatry to ascribe an essential inferiority,
violence, and difference to colonized and racialized subjects. In the earlier work
Fanon attacks the work of Mannoni, who argues that black subjects have an in­
nate inferiority complex which results in a dependency complex toward Euro­
peans. Fanon argues that these inferiority and dependency complexes result
from the pathological colonial context rather than from any essential difference
between the races. 24 In The Wretched of the Earth, Fanon considers the doctrine
 Fanon, Foucault, and the Politics of Psychiatry 61

o f the Algerian School o f psychiatry, which claimed that the North African had
only a limited use of the cerebral cortex, that part of the brain which makes hu­
mans different from other animals. According to the Algerian School, the North
African is essentially a "lobotomized European,'' and this explains the "born
criminality" of their race. 25 Psychiatric arguments, Fanon shows, thus give
scientific pedigree to racist beliefs in the superiority of Europeans over their
colonized subjects. Fanon exposes and refutes such uses of psychiatry and psy­
choanalysis for unacknowledged politically conservative ends. 26
"Experts" such as psychologists and psychiatrists are used by colonial pow­
er not only for their racist works, but, as Fanon notes, quite literally to brain­
wash and torture. 27 Fanon, like Foucault, draws parallels between psychiatrists
and psychoanalysts and the police and army, writing that the police and army in
Algeria serve the same function as "counselors" and "professors of morality" in
Europe,28 and drawing attention to the use of psychologists as torturers. 29 He
discusses the use of "psychological warfare" and the "brainwashing centers in
Algeria" to which Algerian intellectuals in particular were subjected: "the intel­
lectual is counseled by a broad spectrum of 'political advisors' such as officers
for Native Affairs or better still psychologists, therapists and so-called sociolo­
gists."30 For non-intellectuals, the focus is on the body rather than the brain, and
they must be " ' knocked' into shape." 3 1 Fanon himself, in his work as a psy­
chiatrist in Algeria, was obliged to counsel police interrogators whose jobs were
primarily to torture Algerians. Fanon discusses the case of a police interrogator
whose work was negatively impacting his private life, causing nightmares, loss
of appetite, and violent comportment towards his wife and children. Fanon
writes:

This man knew perfectly well that all his problems stemmed directly from the
type of work conducted in the interrogation rooms . . . . As he had no intention
of giving up his job as a torturer (this would make no sense since he would then
have to resign) he asked me in plain language to help him torture Algerian pa­
triots without having a guilty conscience, without any behavior problems, and
with a total peace of mind. 32

Fanon would not give torturers the means to go about their work peacefully,
however. Instead, he advised members of the FLN how to resist torture and how
to carry out successful guerilla warfare. As Simone de Beauvoir describes Fa­
non 's work at this time:

Eight assassination attempts out of ten were failing because "terrorists," com­
pletely terrorized, were either getting discovered straight off or else bungling
the actual attack. "This just can't go on." They would have to train the Fi­
dayines. With the consent of the leaders, [Fanon] took the job on; he taught
them to control their reactions when they were setting a bomb or throwing a
grenade; and also what psychological and physical attitudes would enable them
to resist torture. He would then leave these lessons to attend to a French police
62 Chloe Taylor

commissioner suffering from nervous exhaustion brought on by too many "in­

terrogations. "33

Fanon thus put his psychiatric knowledge to political use, but to aid the Algerian
resistance rather than the French colonizers. While other psychiatrists, support­
ing the colonization of Algeria, disguised their political desires as medical scho­
larship, Fanon is explicit that his own use of psychiatry is political rather than
scientific, but that he deploys it in the service of decolonization rather than colo­
nization. He thus prefaces a description of psychiatric case studies he undertook
in Algeria with the declaration: "[i]t is superfluous to mention that we are not
providing a scientific work."34
In general, this is a distinction between Foucault and Fanon: while Foucault
raises the political rather than the scientific character of the psychological dis­
ciplines in order to oppose their practice, Fanon acknowledges but also takes up
the nonscientific and political function of psychiatry and psychoanalysis, using
them as tools for anticolonial engagement. As Verges writes, "psychiatry . . .
could as well be a weapon against the colonialist project," and Fanon, "as a psy­
chiatrist, . . . tried to redefine the goal and practice of psychiatry from within. " 35
Much as Fanon acknowledges in The Wretched of the .Earth that his case studies
are not "scientific" but, rather, political, so in Black Skin, White Masks he
writes: "I want to touch the misery of the black in this work. Tactilely and affec­
tively. I did not want to be objective. In any case, that' s false: it wasn't possible
for me to be objective."36 Fanon has no pretense, then, of presenting a scientific,
apolitical, or unbiased study. He is emotively engaged, and affirms rather than
masks his political bias. Fanon has shown that other psychiatrists, those writing
under colonialist and racist ideologies, are also biased, however the difference is
that they claim to be objective while their politics are oppressive. Fanon, in con­
trast, is forthright about the political nature of his psychiatric works, however
the politics which they avow are of a different order than those of the psychiatr­
ists he opposes.
In this sense, Fanon has an attitude towards psychiatry which parallels Fou­
cault's approach to history. Foucault insists in works such as "Nietzsche, Gene­
alogy, History" that all history is political, subjective, and biased in nature, and
he unmasks allegedly objective and universal historical studies which are in fact
of a political nature. In contrast to these histories, Foucault does not claim that
his own genealogies are any more scientific than the histories they oppose. The
genealogical method which Foucault takes up is honest about its biases, and
declares rather than dissimulates its "injustices." While Foucault recognized the
political nature of any attempt to write history, he did not see this as a reason to
forego the discipline. As is especially clear in his work leading up to Discipline
and Punish, Foucault's genealogical studies grew out of his political engage­
ments. Similarly, while it is sometimes said that Fanon gave up psychiatry for
politics when he resigned from the hospital in Algeria in order to work openly
with the FLN, he in fact continued to practice psychiatry in Tunisia, and his psy­
chiatric work was always intertwined with his political activism.
 Fanon, Foucault, and the Politics of Psychiatry 63

In Black Skin, White Masks, Fanon makes clear his objective of using psy­
chiatric practice as a positive political force, helping his patients to overcome or
to resist the damages done to them in a racist society. He writes, for instance, of
his treatment of black patients with inferiority complexes, of preserving the
structures of their psyches as they risk dissolution under the pressures of racist
oppression: "[w]hat appears is the necessity of an action directed at both the
individual and the group. As a psychoanalyst, I need to help my patient render
his unconscious conscious, to no longer attempt a hallucinatory lactification, but
to engage in bringing about structural social change."37 While attempting to use
psychiatry and psychoanalysis to undo the negative affects of racism on the
psyches of his black patients, Fanon also discusses his treatments of white pa­
tients. Interestingly, when he concludes that a white patient' s symptoms are
caused by racism, Fanon does not claim to cure them or even to greatly alleviate
their symptoms. 38 Fanon indicates as early as Black Skin, White Masks that he
cannot cure patients with neuroses which are caused by the internalization of
racism. The white patient's case will not be resolved through her individual
treatment by Fanon so long as she is still living in a racist world. Similarly,
while Fanon attempts to help his black patients to resist "lactification," he makes
clear that there must be societal change and group engagement if these patients
are to be cured of the psychological affects of oppression. He writes: "Freud,
through psychoanalysis, demanded that we take account of the individual factor.
He substituted the ontogenetic perspective for the phylogenetic thesis. We will
see that the alienation of the Black is not an individual question. Beside the phy­
logenetic and the ontogenetic, there is the sociogenetic . . . let's say that it has to
do with a sociodiagnostic."39 Because the problem of racism takes place at a
societal level, Fanon can help his patients primarily by working with others to
transform society, or through political engagement rather than medicine. As
Verges writes, "Since "madness was one of the means man has of losing his
freedom" and colonialism was the systematic organization of the deprivation of
freedom, therapy was impossible except if the psychiatrist entered the service of
40
the struggle for decolonization."
These points are made clearer in The Wretched of the Earth. In this work,
Fanon argues that "the all-out national war of liberation waged by the Algerian
people for seven years has become a breeding ground for mental disorders."41
Fanon goes on to describe a number of psychiatric cases each of which demon­
strate that the etiology of the mental illness lies in colonialism and the torturing
of Algerians. He suggests no medical cure for any of the cases he recounts in
this work and does not describe any of the patients being cured as a result of his
psychiatric treatment. Fanon' s objective is not to describe a medical cure for
mental illnesses arising from the Algerian war, but to show that their cause is
colonization and the war against decolonization. There will be no "talking cure"
for these cases because the cause of the ailments is not discursive but political,
and the solution must also be political.
Fanon, then, like Foucault, recognizes the ascientific and political nature of
psychiatric and psychoanalytic practices. However, while Foucault seems to
64 Chloe Taylor

think that this revelation is a damning unmasking of the psychological discip­

lines, Fanon embraces the political character of his discipline in order to engage
in societal change-much as Foucault would do with history. Why Foucault
thought that the political nature of history could be put to positive use, whereas
the similarly political nature of the psychological sciences was grounds for dis­
missal, remains an open question. Perhaps the answer is simply that the psycho­
logical sciences, because of their immense prestige in a society such as ours, and
dealing directly as they do with captive human bodies and souls, have a more
immediately coercive, pernicious, and disciplinary effect than the work of an
academic historian. The disciplinary power of doctors, and psychiatric power in
particular, is of a different order and kind than the power wielded by historians,
and, Foucault thought, was to be resisted at all costs.

Psychology, Sex, and Politics

One way in which psychiatry and psychoanalysis claim scientific objectivity is

by assuming that the values they represent as well as the story they construct of
the human psyche are universal. Dreams are assumed by Freud to reveal univer­
sal desires and to include transhistorical symbols, while Jung thought that he
described universal archetypes and a universal collective unconscious. Such
universal accounts are clearly depoliticizing. When a description is said to be
objective and universally true, true of all people at all times, it does not allow for
a political explanation rooted in a particular socio-historical context, nor does it
allow for the possibility of changing what is described through political activity.
Both Foucault and Fanon resist the depoliticizing assumption that psychoanaly­
sis and psychiatry discover ahistorical truths about the human psyche. Against
Jung, Fanon argues in Black Skin, White Masks for a culturally-specific rather
than universal collective unconsciousness, in a manner which might be com­
pared to Foucault's account in The Order of Things of a historical rather than a
transcendental a priori. While, by the time Fanon was writing, colonialist psy­
chologists had already resisted universalizing theories of the human psyche by
arguing for ethnically specific psychological structures, they nevertheless
claimed these differences to be hereditary and biologically inherited, whereas
for Fanon, as for Foucault, differences are culturally produced.
One manner in which both Foucault and Fanon resist the universalizing
constructions of the psychological sciences is by showing that dreams have radi­
cally different meanings in different socio-historical contexts. While Freud as­
sumed that a dream had the same meaning at all times, Foucault argues that the
same dreams would be given diverse interpretations in ancient Greece and Vic­
torian Vienna: in the Greek context, dreaming that you had sex with your mother
was an indication that you would succeed in a career as a magistrate, since the
42
mother was a symbol of the city or the country. In this context, the story of
Oedipus' relation with his mother might simply have been associated with his
 Fanon, Foucault, and the Politics of Psychiatry 65

kingship, rather than revealing something about his, Freud' s, and everyone
else' s unconscious desires. Similarly, Fanon notes that the same dream has a
different meaning for the subject in Madagascar than for the European: "know­
ing what the Senegalese archetype might be for a Malgache, Freud's discoveries
are of no use. It is a matter of placing this dream in its time . . and in its place,"
.

Fanon explains, and "this time is a period during which eighty thousand indi­
genous people are being killed, that is to say one in fifty inhabitants."43 In this
context: "The gun of a Senegalese sniper is not a penis, but is really a 1 9 1 6 Le­
bel pistol."44
Crucially, both Foucault and Fanon dispute Freudian interpretations not on­
ly for claiming to be universal rather than attending to the particular socio­
political context of the dreamer, but moreover dispute specifically sexual inter­
pretations of what they see as strictly political dreams. Foucault insists that the
Greek dream of sleeping with one's mother is about kingship, not incestuous
sexual desire, while Fanon insists that the dream of a Senegalese sniper' s gun is
really about a gun, and moreover a gun which he will use to shoot colonists, and
not about genitals. Fanon, like Foucault, resists the simultaneously universaliz­
ing, individualizing, and depoliticizing tendencies of psychology to find the
source of all pathology within the sexualized family and self, arguing for social
rather than individual diagnostics and etiologies of psychopathologies.
Importantly, in none of the case studies in The Wretched of the Earth is the
cause of the mental illness sexual. At one point, Fanon notes that "the possibility
of unconscious incestuous drives" is a potential interpretation of the patient' s
troubles, however he states that further conversations with the patient "led u s i n
45
a completely new direction." A s in every other case study i n this book, that
new direction is the colonial context. In each instance, the etiology of mental
illness leads us to colonization and the torturing of Algerians. Nowhere does
Fanon describe the patient' s childhood, or make any reference to the patient's
sexuality,46 or describe innate or universal psychological complexes or desires,
or attempt to discover and liberate the patient' s real self. In each case the patient
has been made ill not in early childhood, not by family, and not by repressing
his or her sexual instincts, but either by being colonized or by being a colonizer.
Many times the mental illness arose either from being physically tortured or
from working as a torturer.
For Fanon, the Algerians must end their colonization by themselves in order
to be cured, for they are psychically eaten up by their repressed anger, resent­
ment, and aggressivity-and not, notably, by their repressed sexuality. These
affects of oppression will not be given an outlet if the colonized do not bring
about decolonization by themselves. The repressed hostility of the colonized has
found temporary outlets in frenzied dances and in violence against one another,
Fanon notes, but none of these outlets solves the problem once and for all be­
cause the aggressivity involved has been misdirected and does not remove the
cause of neurosis, and thus the symptoms always return and require a new out­
let. Only by acting against their colonizers, Fanon argues, or by acting political­
ly, will the Algerians decolonize their psyches and cease to engage in intra-
66 Chloe Taylor

racial violence. With the liberation movement, he observes, some such results
have already been achieved in both Algeria and France.47 Consequently, when
psychiatrists argue that North Africans are hereditarily pathological, as demon­
strated by their pointless and ruthless violence against one another, Fanon re­
sponds that their violence is merely contingent and that it is actually on the right
track from a psychological perspective. In these cases the violence has taken the
wrong target as a result of the internalization of colonization which inhibits the
colonized from attacking their colonizers, however such an attack is the only
cure for the affects of colonization.
Far from advocating psychoanalytic, discursive, or confessional practices as
therapeutic, then, Fanon repeatedly underscores that the Algerians must act, that
they have no use for discussion, for words, for talk of equality and human rights,
that all these terms strike them as vacuous while only their own actions will heal
the debilitating psychic affects of colonization. Consequently, when hearing the
discourse of the colonizer, Fanon says that the colonized subject will pick up his
machete, or at least make sure it is ready at hand.48 The language of colonization
has not been reason but corporeal violence, and thus the cure must also take
place through bodily action and not through discussions or ideas, whether these
words take place on a psychoanalyst's couch or elsewhere. This claim is similar
to Foucault' s perspective regarding de-normalization: it is the body which is
disciplined, and thus the work of discipline will not be undone through rational
discussion, but only through physical practices. 49 Fanon argues that the subject
will only change his or her situation and change who he or she is through action,
and not through confessional, discursive, and individualizing practices such as
psychoanalysis, nor through any other kind of introspection or "discovery" of an
innate self. There is no such innate self: the current self is a product of racism
and colonization, and may be undone through decolonization of geographical
spaces as well as psyches. Crucially, the cause and cure of mental illness is so­
cio-political, and the function of psychiatry and psychoanalysis is, likewise, po­
litical, whether it is used to preserve colonization, as in the cases Fanon criti­
ques, or, as in his own use of psychiatry, to aid the process of decolonization. In
short, Fanon, like Foucault, sees specific psychological discourses as contribut­
ing to the production rather than to the cure of the psychopathologies they de­
scribe, but he differs from Foucault in so far as he envisions and enacts his own
psychological discourses as counter-attacks against this process.

Tactics

Clearly, criticizing a discipline does not necessarily mean that the discipline
needs to be discarded, but only that it needs to be enacted otherwise, as Foucault
demonstrated with his approach to history. In response to some of the critiques
seen above, as well as in response to the generally carceral and punitive aspects
of early twentieth century asylums which Foucault would criticize, Fanon in-
 Fanon, Foucault, and the Politics of Psychiatry 67

itiated radically-reformed psychiatric practices in both Algeria and Tunisia. He

removed segregation in the service in Algeria, and abolished coercion and incar­
50
ceration in the hospital in Tunisia. In the latter case Fanon also introduced a
voluntary day hospital system, arguing that psychiatry should work to bring
about the freedom of patients, and not their domination.
In most cases Fanon' s psychiatric reforms, like his political uses of psychia­
try, seem obviously positive. With respect to Fanon's efforts to decolonize sub­
jects, to undo the inferiority and dependency complexes disciplined into blacks
through colonization, to diagnose negrophobia on the parts of whites, to abolish
some of the blatantly punitive and coercive aspects of psychiatric treatment, his
writings and practice actively escaped the normalizing and disciplinary func­
tions of psychiatry and worked as a transgressive political force. Nevertheless,
with respect to other aspects of Fanon' s psychiatric reforms, such as his wish to
integrate asylums into regular hospitals, we might debate the normalizing func­
tions of his suggestions. In yet other cases, such as his expression of sexist and
heterosexist perspectives within psychiatric discourses, Fanon is clearly in­
volved in the inculcation of oppressive social norms through the exploitation of
his medical authority, and in these cases his arguments seem as politically sus­
pect as those he refutes.
In an article on psychiatric day hospitalization, Fanon argues that psychia­
tric hospitals should be integrated into regular hospitals, and that psychiatrists
should collaborate with regular doctors in the treatment of mental patients with­
51
in these merged spaces. He advocates this change because it would rehabilitate
the image of psychiatrists and psychiatry in the minds of colleagues, patients,
and society at large. Psychiatrists would seem more like doctors if they were
interacting with other doctors, Fanon argues, becoming "doctors among other
doctors," and mental institutions would seem more like regular hospitals if they
were actually set in those hospitals. Integrating the asylum and the hospital
would serve to medicalize madness, Fanon argues, rehabilitating the current
image of the psychiatrist as a "fantasmatic and mysterious character."52 Fanon' s
objective i n urging such a medicalization o f madness is t o destigmatize mental
illness and to cease cutting patients off from their social world. The psychiatric
cure must work to reintegrate the patient into society, and cannot do so if the
patient is isolated from society in specifically psychiatric institutions. Such an
integration of the asylum into the hospital, Fanon suggests, would make mental
illness into an ailment no more blameworthy or mysterious than other medical
afflictions, and this would facilitate the social reintegration of patients.
While the benefits of such a move are clear and defensible, from a Foucaul­
tian perspective we might nevertheless identify this integrationist approach as
just the sort of move which masks the political function of psychiatry in order to
facilitate its application of disciplinary power. While Foucault deems the very
naming of an asylum a "hospital" a "cover operation," Fanon' s suggestion of
actually integrating asylums into hospitals takes this disciplinary disguising of
politics as medicine one step further.
68 Chloe Taylor

In this same article, as noted, Fanon is arguing for a voluntary system of

day hospitalization for psychiatric patients. Patients would be free to come and
go from the hospital, and those who came would be submitting willingly to
treatment. Although this is seemingly positive, in The History of Madness Fou­
cault argues that psychoanalysis-also voluntary and occurring in a non-carceral
context-is able to do without the physical walls of asylums and a system of
obligatory internment only because the analysand has already submitted to the
analyst before the treatment even begins. In other words, the fact that one can do
away with confinement is not necessarily a sign of a patient' s freedom, but may
be an indication and simultaneous augmentation of disciplinary power on the
part of doctors. This may be but another stage in the process through which ma­
terial constraints are removed because the coercion in question has become psy­
chological. Submission to psychiatric power has been internalized, accepted in
advance, partly out of gratitude for the "concessions" made by doctors such as
day hospitalization, and patients can be assimilated into the values and norms of
these doctors all the more effectively when their treatment is experienced as
voluntary.
For this reason we might be suspicious that the reason that there would no
longer be any need for forced psychiatric treatment in Fanon' s hospital is be­
cause he has insisted on giving psychiatrists the prestige of other doctors by si­
tuating the asylum within the hospital. It is then not surprising that Fanon would
simultaneously be arguing for voluntary day hospitalization and the integration
of asylums with regular hospitals. Even as he is alert to the disciplinary strate­
gies of psychology in the colonial context, and the manners in which these im­
prove upon sovereign power, Fanon arguably employs these very same strate­
gies in his own hospital. He offers to give up his sovereign power, his ability to
confine patients against their wills, but in exchange he augments his disciplinary
power by urging the medicalization of madness, the situating of asylums within
hospitals.
In a less ambiguous case of psychiatric normalization on Fanon' s part, in
Black Skin, White Masks Fanon "diagnoses" all male negrophobes as latent ho­
mosexuals and all female negrophobes as sexually "abnormal," by which he
means that the latter are unmarried or not heterosexually active: "[t]he negro­
phobe is a latent homosexual . . . All the female negrophobes whom we have
known had an abnormal sex life. Their husbands had left them; they were wi­
dows; they didn't dare to replace the deceased; divorced, they hesitated before a
new object investment . . . And then, there intervened an element of perversity,
53
the persistence of a child-like structure." Fanon, like Freud, assumes that a
woman who is without a husband, whether because separated, divorced, or wi­
dowed, has an "abnormal" sex life. Sexual normalcy for a woman, Fanon sug­
gests, means institutionalized, heterosexual monogamy or marriage to a man.
Fanon moreover assumes that homosexuality is a negative phenomenon, psy­
chosexually abnormal, and argues that it is one of the pathologies arising from
colonization. While by claiming that all male negrophobes are homosexuals,
Fanon is basically asserting that most if not all European men of his day were
 Fanon, Foucault, and the Politics of Psychiatry 69

"pederasts," he goes on to say that there is no pederasty in his own country of

Martinique. He acknowledges that there are some men in Martinique who dress
as women, but, without offering any explanation, he "remains persuaded that
they have a normal sex life," by which, again, he means a heterosexual sex
life. 54 On the other hand, Fanon observes that some men from Martinique be­
come homosexuals once they are placed in a European context, and in these cas­
es they are always passive "pederasts." This issue seems related to Fanon's
claim that "a normal black child, having grown up with a normal family, will
find himself abnormal[ized] [s 'anormalisera] from the slightest contact with the
white world."55 Fanon suggests that black men from Martinique become passive
homosexuals in Europe as an expression of their submission to or internalization
of the racist context in which they are disempowered, emasculated, and passive
in relation to the white man. He gives no evidence for this series of assertions,
and yet surely some married European women and some straight European men
are negrophobic, some men in Martinique are gay, some men from Martinique
are active rather than passive homosexuals in Europe. Fanon' s claims appear to
be speculative and dubious, and he seems merely to be asserting his prejudice
against homosexual men and non-heterosexually active women in this series of
statements.
Also showing his homophobia, in response to a Frenchman who wrote of
the "sensuality" of the "negro," Fanon replies: "[a]nd then, M. Salomon, I will
make a confession to you: I have never been able to hear without nausea a man
saying of another man, 'How sensual he is ! ' I don't know what the sensuality of
a man is. Imagine a woman saying of another woman: ' She is frightfully desira­
ble, this doll. "'56 Here, although he calls it a "confession," Fanon proudly asserts
his own sexual normalcy and superiority, while telling the European that his
racism makes him homosexual, simultaneously expressing physical disgust for
this "abnormal" sexuality. Fanon pathologizes what are in fact merely his preju­
dices, deeming homosexuality an illness arising from a politically sickening
context. Like the racist psychiatrists whom he criticizes, then, Fanon passes off
his own moral and political biases as scientific truths and medical discoveries.
He employs the terms "normal" and "abnormal" to do so, situating his own work
in the service of social and sexual normalization.
While Fanon was acutely aware of racist and colonial oppression, and al­
though he admirably combated such oppression in his philosophical and psycho­
logical writings as well as in his psychiatric practice, he seems oblivious to other
forms of oppression. He is complicit in the oppression of non-heterosexuals,
women, and, although I will not discuss this here, non-human animals, 57 even
while focusing exclusively on the sorts of issues which affected him personally
as a heterosexual black man: for instance, and clearly with a personal axe to
grind, he returns repeatedly to the particular injustice of white and mixed-race
women not wanting to sleep with black men. Significantly, when Fanon is writ­
ing about racism and colonialism he is sure to note that what he says is political
rather than scientific. When he writes in a sexist, speciesist, and homophobic
vein, however, he does not pause to acknowledge his political biases. In these
70 Chloe Taylor

cases, Fanon authorizes and disguises his morality as psychiatric science. While
Fanon thus illustrates Toews' claim that Foucault's criticisms of the psychologi­
cal sciences had already been made from within those disciplines themselves, he
also validates May's argument that even if Foucault' s criticisms are not a priori,
in a society such as ours, those practices will almost certainly fall into the pit­
falls of normalization.

Foucault and Existentialism

Why does Foucault never write of Fanon, given the fact that, as this chapter has
hoped to show, Fanon is both a natural ally of Foucault, and, in some respects,
could have served as yet another target of Foucault's anti-psychiatry arguments?
I think that Foucault probably did not read Fanon for the same reason that he did
not read Sartre very well-as indicated by some of his claims about the latter­
which is that he rejected existentialism without demonstrating a very accurate
knowledge of it.
In an interview with Hubert Dreyfus and Paul Rabinow given at the very
end of his life, for instance, Foucault was asked how his recent work differed
from Sartrean existentialism. In response, Foucault claims that Sartre' s notion of
"authenticity" posits a "true self': "he turns back to the idea that we have to be
ourselves-to be truly our true self." 58 But of course this is not what Sartre
means by authenticity. Foucault goes on to say in this interview that our rela­
tionship to ourselves has to be one not of authenticity, but of creativity. Rather
than trying to find our "true" selves, we need to make ourselves as works of art.
Foucault associates this kind of project with Baudelaire, Flaubert, and Nietzsche
rather than Sartre, however, as Thomas Flynn has argued, Foucault's final works
in fact have a lot more in common with Sartre' s existentialism than Foucault
thinks. Foucault may have not read Fanon because he associated him with Sar­
trean existentialism, a school of thought which Foucault identified with a pre­
vious generation of philosophers and against which he saw himself as both phi­
losophically and politically opposed. While Flynn has shown that Foucault's late
works do, in fact, share many insights with Sartrean existentialism, in this chap­
ter I have been comparing Fanon's views not to these final writings, but to Fou­
cault' s earlier and middle works, especially Madness and Civilization, Discip­
line and Punish, and Psychiatric Power. By way of conclusion I want to briefly
suggest two things. First, I think that the comparison of Fanonian existentialism
to Foucault' s early and middle works, in contrast to Flynn' s comparison of Sar­
trean existentialism to Foucault's late works, is appropriate, given the different
perspectives on freedom in Sartre and Fanon, and in these different stages of
Foucault's writings. Foucault's argument in his late works that we need to
choose ourselves through our practices, approaching ourselves as (artistic)
projects rather than as objects of (scientific, psychological, sociological, anthro­
pological) knowledge, is comparable to Sartre' s idea of man as for-itself or fun-
 Fanon, Foucault, and the Politics of Psychiatry 71

damentally free, and o f man' s being a s the sum o f h i s actions. Foucault does not
follow Sartre' s view of freedom entirely, however: when Foucault turned to
consider the freedom of subjects, it is significant that he chose to focus on elite,
privileged, male subjects-free citizens in Ancient Greece and Rome-and, to a
lesser extent, figures such as Baudelaire and Flaubert. He turned away from his
earlier subjects (madmen, delinquents, and "perverts") in his works on freedom,
and in this way he turned to the sorts of subjects whom Sartre tacitly assumes.
In contrast, when we think about Foucault's early and middle works, the pe­
riod during which he focused explicitly on the targets of psychiatric power, Fa­
non is a more likely existentialist ally, since he is also concerned with margina­
lized and oppressed subjects. Although Fanon and the early and middle Foucault
are considering different sets of subjects-<:olonized and racialized subject on
the one hand, and madmen, delinquents and perverts on the other-both are fo­
cusing on subjects whose freedom is curtailed within the societies in which they
live, and who are privileged targets of the kinds of disciplinary functions of the
human sciences which both men critique. In his early and middle works, Fou­
cault' s view of freedom as something limited by hierarchical and diffuse power
relations is in clear opposition to Sartre' s, but close to Fanon's. When he turned
to elite male subjects in his final works on Ancient Greece and Rome, Foucault
emphasized that he did so because the slaves and women in these societies were
unable to practice freedom. Foucault at no point generalized human freedom, as
Sartre would do, but, like Fanon, he thought that the kind of self-determining
aesthetic freedom which Sartre described was a privilege which few human be­
ings have and which we must struggle to attain. Foucault, like Fanon, therefore
follows Sartre to a certain extent, especially in his late works, but he holds that
Sartre' s view only explains a privileged subject, whereas he, like Fanon, spent
most of his writing career criticizing the oppressive practices and discourses
which prevent colonized (disciplined) subjects from being able to realize the
Sartrean model of subjectivity as self-creation/self-constitution.
The last point I want to make is that although Fanon's writings have more
in common with Foucault's early and middle works than with his final writings
on freedom, we may nevertheless see some of the ideals behind Fanon ' s psy­
chiatric practice in terms of Foucault' s writings on the care of the self. Fanon
argued that psychiatry should cure patients by helping them to become free, both
on an individual basis, liberating them from their neuroses, and, in what is per­
haps the prerequisite for this latter move, politically, or by aiding them in their
struggles against colonial power. Fanon thus constructs his psychiatric practice
as a care of selves which cultivates freedom, much as Foucault, in his late
works, was interested in practices of self care which cultivate autonomy. How­
ever, while Foucault, in these late works, saw himself as turning away from poli­
tics and towards ethics, Fanon's interest in caring for selves to cultivate their
freedom always remained political. Correspondingly, while Foucault, in his late
works, turns from considering marginalized subjects to elite subjects, and also
turns from considering inter-human relations to the relationship a person has to
himself, Fanon perseveres in his focus on marginalized and oppressed subjects,
72 Chloe Taylor

and his concern is not with how those subjects care for themselves, but with how
he can care for others, and how autonomy can be cultivated on a group rather
than an individual basis.

Notes

I . Todd May, Between Genealogy and Epistemology: Psychology, Politics, and

Knowledge in the Thought of Michel Foucault (University Park: The Pennsylvania Uni­
versity Press, 1 993), 1 0.
2. « L'art de vivre, c'est de tuer Ia psychologie . . . Si on ne peut pas arriver a faire
9a dans la vie, elle ne merite pas d'etre vecue. » Michel Foucault, "Conversation avec
Werner Schroeter," Dits et ecrits II (Paris: Gallimard, 200 1 ), 1 07 1 .
3 . John E . Toews, "Foucault and the Freudian Subject," Foucault and the Writing of
History (Oxford: Blackwell, 1 994), 1 33 .
4. May, Between Genealogy and Epistemology, 58.
5. See chapter 3 of Chloe Taylor, The Culture ofConfession from Augustine to Fou­
cault: A Genealogy ofthe 'Confessing Animal ' (New York: Routledge, 2009).
6. Foucault's Histoire de lafolie was published in the same year as Les damnees de
la terre-1 96 1 -while Peau noire, masques blancs significantly predates Foucault's first
major writings on psychology, psychiatry, and psychoanalysis.
7. Michel Foucault, Psychiatric Power: Lectures at the College de France, 1 9 73-
1 974 (New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2006), 66.
8. Foucault, Psychiatric Power, 67-{)8.
9. Foucault is trying to describe the historical emergence of disciplinary tactics, and
so it makes sense that he would take an early rather than more recent example of coloni­
zation. Nevertheless it is unfortunate that he does not extend his discussion to consider
twentieth-century colonization. Foucault has been criticized for not writing about current
or even recent political events, but always setting his studies in the eighteenth and nine­
teenth centuries, with the French rather than the Algerian revolution, for instance.
1 0. Foucault, Psychiatric Power, 69.
1 1 . Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth (New York: Grove Press, 2004), 9 1 -
92.
1 2 . Fanon, Wretched, 90.
1 3 . Fanon, Wretched, 9 1 .
1 4 . Fran9oise Verges, "To Cure and t o Free: The Fanonian Project o f 'Decolonized
Psychiatry, "' Fanon: A Critical Reader (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 1 996), 89.
1 5. Michel Foucault, Madness and Civilization: A History of Insanity in the Age of
Reason (New York: Vintage, [ 1 96 1 ] 1 965), 224.
1 6. Foucault, Madness and Civilization, 224.
1 7. Foucault, Madness and Civilization, 27 1 .
1 8 . Michel Foucault, "Psychiatry, Confinement, Prison," Michel Foucault: Politics,
Philosophy, Culture: Interviews and Other Writings 1977-1 984 (New York: Routledge,
1 988), 1 80.
1 9. Foucault, "Psychiatry, Confinement, Prison," 1 80.
20. Foucault, "Psychiatry, Confinement, Prison," 1 8 1 .
2 1 . Foucault, "Psychiatry, Confinement, Prison," 1 83 .
22. Foucault, "Psychiatry, Confinement, Prison," 1 83 .
 Fanon, Foucault, and the Politics of Psychiatry 73

23. Foucault, "Psychiatry, Confinement, Prison," 1 93 .

24. Frantz Fanon, Black Skin, White Masks (New York: Grove Press, 1 967), 68.
25. Fanon, Wretched, 22 1 -28.
26. Fanon, Wretched, 285. ff.
27. Fanon, Wretched, 275-77.
28. Fanon, Black Skin, 42.
29. Fanon, Wretched, 275-77.
30. Fanon, Wretched, 2 1 3 .
3 1 . Fanon, Wretched, 2 1 6.
32. Fanon, Wretched, 198-99.
3 3 . Simone de Beauvoir, Force of Circumstance (New York: Putnam and Sons,
1 965), 593 .
34. de Beauvoir, Force ofCircumstance, 24 1 .
3 5 . Verges, "To Cure and to Free," 85.
36. « Je me suis attache dans cette etude a toucher la misere du Noir. Tactilement et
affectivement. Je n'ai pas voulu etre objectif. D'ailleurs, c'est faux: ii ne m'a pas ete
possible d'etre objectif. » Frantz Fanon, Peau noire, masques blancs (Paris: Editions du
Seuil, I 952), 70.
37. « Mon patient souffre d'un complexe d'inferiorite. Sa structure psychique risque
de se dissoudre. II s'agit de !'en preserver et, peu a peu, de le liberer de ce desir incons­
cient . . . Ce qui apparait alors, c'est la necessite d'une action couplee sur l'individu et sur
le groupe. En tant que psychanalyste, je dois aider mon client a conscienciser son incon­
sient, a ne plus tenter une lactification halucinatoire, mais bien a agir dans le sens d'un
changement des structures sociales. » Fanon, Peau noire, 80.
38. Fanon, Black Skin, 1 65--69.
39. My translation from Fanon, Peau noire, 8: « Freud, par la psychanalysc, dcman­
da qu'on t'int compte du facteur individuel. A une these phylogenetique, ii substituait la
perspective ontogenetique. On verra que !'alienation du Noir n'est pas une question indi­
viduelle. A cote de la phylogenie et de l'ontogenie, ii y a la sociogenie . . . disons qu'il
s'agit ici d'un sociodiagnostic. »
40. Verges, "To Cure and to Free," 93.
4 1 . Fanon, Wretched, 1 83 .
42. Michel Foucault, "Sexualite et Solitude," Dits et ecrits II (Paris: Gallimard,
2001 ), 993.
43. « Sachant ce que peut etre pour un Malgache !'archetype senegalais, !es decou­
vertes de Freud ne nous sont d'aucune utilite. II s'agit de replacer ce reve en son temps, et
ce temps c'est la periode pendant laquelle quatre-vingt mille indigenes ont ete tues, c'est­
a-dire un habitant sur cinquante; et dans son lieu, et ce lieu c'est une ile de quatre mil­
lions d'habitants, au sein de laquelle aucune veritable relation ne peut s'instaurer, ou !es
dissensions eclatent de tous cotes, ou le mensonge et la demagogie sont !es seuls
maltres. » Fanon, Peau noire, 84.
44. « Le fusil du tirailleur senegalais n'est pas un penis, mais veritablement un fusil
Lebel 1 9 1 6. » Fanon, Peau noire, 86.
45. Fanon, Wretched, 1 87.
46. The only instance in which anything sexual arises in one of these case studies is
in a case of a man experiencing impotence after the rape of his wife. Even in this case,
Fanon does not delve into the patient's sexual history, his sexual desires or proclivities. It
is simply a case of a man being unable to have sex with any woman because he thinks of
his wife who has been made "rotten" by the colonizers. The solution for Fanon, again, is
74 Chloe Taylor

not a question of either repressing or liberating sexual impulses, or even inquiring into
them, but ending the colonization of Algeria.
47. Fanon, Wretched, 296.
48. Fanon, Wretched, 46.
49. See Ladelle McWhorter, Bodies and Pleasures: Foucault and the Politics of
Sexual Normalization (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1 999).
50. See Hussein A. Bulhan, "Revolutionary Psychiatry of Fanon," Rethinking Fa­
non: The Continuing Dialogue (Amherst, NY: Humanity Books, 1 999), 1 4 1 -75.
5 I . Frantz Fanon and Geronimi, "L'hospitalisation de jour en psychiatrie: Valeurs et
limites." La Tunisie Medicate 38, no. 1 0 ( 1959). See Verges' and Bulhan's articles for
discussions of this paper.
52. Fanon and Geronimi, "L'hospitalisation de jour en psychiatrie," quoted in
Verges, "To Cure and to Free," 94.
53. « Le negrophobe est un homosexual refoule . . . Toutes Jes femmes negrophobes
que nous avons connues avaient une vie sexuelle anormale. Leur mari !es delaissait; e!Ies
etaient veuves, et e!Ies n'osaient pas remplacer le defunt; divorcees, et elles hesitaient
devant un nouvel investissement objectal . . . Et puis, ii intervient un element de perver­
site, persistence de Ia structure infantile. » Fanon, Peau noire, 1 27-28.
54. Fanon, Peau noire, footnote: 1 46.
55. Fanon, Peau noire, I I 7; Black Skin, I 43.
56. « Et puis, M. Salomon, je m'en vais vous faire un aveu: je n'ai jamais pu enten­
dre sans nausee un homme dire d'un autre homme: "Comme ii est sensuel ! " Je ne sais pas
ce que c'est que la sensualite d'un homme. Imaginez une femme disant d'une autre: "Elle
est effoyablement desirable, cette poupee." » Fanon, Peau noire, 1 63 .
5 7 . What i s probably o ff the radar of most readers is that Fanon was also complicit
in anthropocentric violence, as when he writes in his Conclusion to The Wretched of the
Earth that "Europe has denied itself not only humility and modesty but also solicitude
and tenderness. Its only show of miserliness has been toward man, only toward man has
it shown itself to be niggardly and murderously carnivorous" (235-36). Is this true? Is
killing and eating colonized humans the only form of slaughter and meat-eating that Eu­
ropeans engage in? If Europeans didn't consume the lives of colonized peoples, would
they cease to be carnivorous? Are Europeans vegetarians and pacifists, other than in their
exploitation and consumption of non-European homo sapiens? Throughout his works, in
his references to animals and the animalization of non-Europeans, Fanon is in fact obli­
vious to the suffering of non-human animals and complicit in their oppression, as he is
complicit in the oppression of women and homosexuals.
58. Michel Foucault, "On the Genealogy of Ethics: An Overview of Work in
Progress," Michel Foucault: Beyond Structuralism and Hermeneutics (Chicago: Univer­
sity of Chicago Press, 1 982), 237.
 PART III

ON FANON

AND VIOLENCE
 Chapter 5
Fanon on Turtle Island:
Revisiting the Question of Violence

Anna Carastathi s

I n this chapter, I explore the role o f violence i n colonial rule and its role i n deco­
1
lonization struggle by posing the question, "what is alive in Fanon' s thought?"
What can Fanon tell us about white settler state power and Fourth World deco­
lonization struggles? How can phenomenology's growing interest in Fanon be
exploited to open in the settler academy a discussion about colonial state vi­
olence and our/my complicity in it? Phenomenologists in the Anglo-American
academy have begun to pay attention to Fanon's account of racism, but often do
so in a way that decontextualizes racism from its material origins in colonialism.
For instance, some philosophers invoke Fanon to discuss antiblack racism in the
United States, but without any discussion of Black people as one of its internally
colonized peoples. Revisiting the question of violence through Fanon can help
us politicize phenomenologies of race, racism, and racialization. It can also help
illuminate bases for solidarity between Third and Fourth World peoples, against
the neocolonialism and imperialism ravaging the Third World, and settler colo­
nialism in the Fourth World. It could even help us imagine and enact solidarity
between settlers and Indigenous nations.
First, I introduce the problematic of reading Fanon 's "Concerning Vi­
olence" as phenomenology. I argue that it is important to understand Fanon's
description of colonialism in that text as a phenomenological description (as
opposed to, say, mere polemic). Then, I examine his famous account of the co­
lonial situation, and of the normative necessity of violence in liberation struggle.
Finally, I explore the relevance of Fanon's account to the ongoing colonial situa­
tion on the northern part of An6wara Kawennote (Turtle Island), occupied by
Canada. In this analysis, I am informed by a compelling discussion of colonial
and anticolonial violence by Kanien'kehaka political philosopher Taiaiake Al­
fred. 2 I juxtapose Alfred' s theory of "nonviolent militancy" with Fanon's con­
cept of "violence in action." I perform a reading of Fanon and Alfred to glean an
understanding of the phenomenality of colonial state power. Each bases his
praxiology on a descriptive account of colonial state power. So, in approaching
both thinkers, we can say that understanding their conception of resistance is

77
78 Anna Carastathis

understanding their conception of colonial power. 3

Before I begin, I want to clarify how this analysis relates to my own loca­
tion and to my own commitments. As an immigrant-settler political philosopher,
my aim in exploring Fanon's relevance to the colonial situation in the territories
occupied by Canada is not to prescribe modes of struggle to Indigenous people
fighting for self-determination. This would be presumptuous, to say the least.
Rather, my aim is to learn from these struggles, to support them, and, toward
these two ends, to contribute to a space for reflection within the settler academy,
and, more broadly, within colonial society. The question of violence is an urgent
one for settlers to confront, given that our consent to colonial state violence
against Indigenous people lends it legitimacy, and thereby contributes to its per­
petuation. As we will see, Alfred argues that "legitimacy is the most impercepti­
ble yet crucial form of [state] power."4 As such, he goes on to suggest that "[t]he
first and most important objective of movements against state power must be to
deny the state's legitimacy in theoretical and concrete ways."5 If we are to effec­
tively support the struggles of status and non-status First Nations, Metis, and
Inuit peoples against the state, which continues to rule over them and oppress
them, then as a first step, non-Indigenous people need to engage in reflexive,
resolute critique of the state, of colonial society, and of the costs of our partici­
pation in it.
Settlers who are educators have a special responsibility to undertake and
promote this kind of critical reflection, and to engage in a sustained practice of
decolonizing our teaching. This is crucial given the fact that education has been
and continues to be a primary force in the assimilation of Indigenous people and
in the legitimation of colonial society. In Canada, the most harrowing historical
case of this is the Indian Residential School System. Part of a systemic program
of assimilation, residential schools had as their deliberate aim to "kill the Indian
in the child."6 The legislative context for residential schools was the Gradual
Civilization Act ( 1 857) and the Indian Act ( 1 874). Between 1 870 and 1 9 1 0,
"aggressive assimilation" was the explicit objective of the federal government,
which provided the necessary funding to the missionaries who ran these
schools. 7 In 1 920, attendance became compulsory for all First Nations children.
Children were stolen from their families by Indian Affairs agents, missionaries,
and police. This policy of assimilation through education was not only a con­
temporary instance of cultural genocide. It led to tens of thousands of deaths due
to malnutrition, forced labor, physical violence, and tuberculosis. The death toll
of the residential school system-the unknown number of murdered and missing
children-was not mentioned in the Prime Minister' s recent official apology,
nor was it part of the investigative mandate of the Indian Residential Schools
Truth and Reconciliation Commission. 8 While the precise number of children
who died in residential schools remains unclear, some estimates indicate that
50,000 children-approximately one third of the 1 50,000 children who were
forced to attend residential schools--died from neglect and abuse. 9 These num­
bers are hard to establish because of the lengths to which residential school ad-
 Fanon on Turtle Island 79

ministrators-the United, Roman Catholic, and Anglican churches-went to

conceal the deaths of children at their hands-burying them in mass graves, un­
marked graves, even burning their corpses.
It is important to notice two things about Canadian residential schools when
we reflect on the role of education in Indigenous people ' s subjugation by co­
lonial governments, and our responsibility as educators to dissent. First, the bru­
talization of Indigenous children occurred with the full knowledge of Canadian
settlers. Settlers either tacitly complied with, or actively assisted the project of
residential schools, and some of them-priests, nuns, teachers, social workers,
RCMP (Royal Canadian Mounted Police), Indian Affairs agents-inflicted un­
told abuses on vulnerable children, all in the name of "education." The Depart­
ment of lndian Affairs (DIA) itself issued a report in 1 907, authored by its chief
medical officer, the findings of which-that schools paid "absolute inattention
to bare necessities of health" -were published on the first page of the Ottawa
Citizen. 10 The report showed that the death rate among the 1 ,537 children in the
DIA survey of fifteen schools was 24 percent after just one year of attendance. 1 1
However, the report showed that this figure might have risen to 4 2 percent if the
children who survived had been tracked for three years after they were returned
12
to their reserves. Then-chief medical officer of DIA, Peter Bryce, denounced
the government' s "criminal disregard" for the "welfare of the Indian wards of
this nation." 13 But Bryce 's denunciation of the government's "disregard" elides
the real aim of the government in establishing the Indian Residential School
System. Bryce constructs the death toll of residential schools as an accident,
while it was in fact quite consistent with the government' s project of "aggressive
assimilation" of Indigenous communities. The mantle of "education," or more
contemporarily, "child welfare," serves to exonerate neglect, abuse, and even
murder as "accidents." Thus, we hear about Canadian residential schools to­
day-in settler classrooms, in settler media, and in settler government apolo­
gies-as having failed. But tragically, this system succeeded in advancing the
colonial state' s obj ectives. And these objectives remain in place, even if the me­
chanisms through which the government attempts to achieve them have
changed. Residential schools were succeeded by the child welfare system, which
during the infamous "60s Scoop" (which lasted well into the 1 9 80s), child wel­
fare workers abducted thousands of Indigenous children and placed them in
white middle-class adoptive homes. This continues today, as a disproportionate
number of First Nations children are placed "in care"-sometimes as a condition
to receive medical care or support for a developmental disability. In 2005, ap­
proximately one in every ten status "Indian" children was in child welfare cus­
tody as compared to one in 200 for non-Indigenous children in Canada. 14 There
are currently between 22,500 and 28,000 Indigenous children in the child wel­
fare system. 15 In fact, three times as many children are now "in care" than were
16
enrolled at residential schools in 1 940. Further, the number of children who
were placed "in care" is rising: between 1 995 and 200 1 , it rose by 7 1 .5 percent
nationally. 17
80 Anna Carastathis

"Reconciliation" might be on the government's radar, but the material con­

ditions of most First Nations, Inuit, and Metis communities remain unchanged,
and the colonial relationship remains in place. The continuity of assimilation
through education-if by "education" we understand not only what happens in
schools, but also in families and in other institutions in which children are
placed-is one of the clearest and yet one of the most mystified instances of
ongoing colonialism. It is mystified because it is amenable to one of the oldest
justifying discourses for colonialism: namely, the discourse of "white man's
burden" and beneficence. White families who adopt Native children are seen as
doing something charitable and selfless. White social workers who take Native
children into "care" -in many cases making them wards of the state-are seen
as protecting these children from abuse or neglect. If Canadians know about and
support the attempted genocide of First Nations through assimilation into the
Canadian body politic, as I want to claim, it is because the belief that Indigenous
people will benefit from assimilation has a deep hold on the settler imagination.
After all, assimilation is achieved through education-and education, we all
agree, is a good thing.
Of course, some settlers will always claim that "we didn't know" about
abuse at residential schools, or poisoned water supplies on reserves, or rates of
infant mortality among on-reserve First Nations, or the violent suppression of
Indigenous rebellion. These claims of ignorance are nearly always meant to se­
cure innocence. "Not knowing," the speaker hopes to convince us, entails not
doing, and therefore not being responsible for what has been done. But not
doing means idly standing by while slow motion genocide takes place. It means
lending tacit support to, and benefiting from someone else's doing. And these
claims to ignorance, I want to say, are almost always belied in moments of co­
lonial crisis, when settlers evince how well they know the relations of property
and entitlement that subtend their occupation of Indigenous land, and the system
of residential and socio-legal segregation upon which Canadian society is based.
In the third section of the chapter, I discuss such moments of colonial crisis­
when business as usual is disrupted by Indigenous resistance and settlers vio­
lently retaliate, revealing not only the state's and civilians' capacity for violence,
but also the mundane and normalized ways in which violence is inflicted upon
Indigenous communities in times of ostensible "peace." In other words, what is
revealed is the low-intensity warfare that the colonial state is continually waging
on Indigenous people, with the consent and-at times, the active cooperation­
of settler-citizens.
Anticolonial phenomenology can be a tool of conscientization (conscious­
ness raising) for educators who are "teaching to transgress" inside settler institu­
tions, to delegitimize state authority, and to unsettle colonial hegemony. 18 Too
often, we teach about colonialism and imperialism as something foreign to Can­
ada, something far away, or something past. We need to learn and teach about
internal colonialism and our participation in it. Internal colonialism is the pre­
condition of the imperialist aspirations of the Canadian state. For instance, the
 Fanon on Turtle Island 81

dispossession of Indigenous people of anything but surface rights to their land

means that various levels of Canadian government can expropriate Indigenous
land and lease it to corporations for subterraneous resource exploitation. Simi­
larly, in the United States under the Bush administration, the so-called "war on
terror" served as the pretext for energy policy that called for accelerated re­
source extraction on Gwich'in lands in the Arctic Circle, and nuclear waste
dumping on Yucca Mountain, which is sacred to the Western Shoshone. 19 What
these concrete examples show is that the same colonial logic underlies settler
entitlement and imperialist aggression. The borders of settler nations should not
blind us to annexation, expropriation, and other transgressions of Indigenous
sovereignty. The low-intensity warfare that the Canadian state is waging against
Indigenous people is entirely apace with the war it is waging with NATO in
Afghanistan, or the coup against Jean-Bertrand Aristide it helped orchestrate in
Haiti. But to make these connections, we need to confront what Farron called the
"atmosphere of violence" pervading our own colonial society, and connect it to
the imperialist violence "our" state is visiting on other societies. To this end, I
now turn to Fanon' s phenomenology of colonial violence.

"Concerning Violence" and Phenomen ology

As is well known, Farron gave a speech at the All Africa People' s Conference in
Accra in 1 958, which was later published as the influential essay "Concerning
Violence" in The Wretched ofthe Earth. Some readers reduce Farron to this con­
troversial essay. Others dismiss it as an aberration or as disconnected from his
"psychological" and "phenomenological" works. Both responses are mistaken. It
is mistaken to dismiss "Concerning Violence" as mere polemic, since the prob­
lem of violence is a central theme in Fanon' s thought. For this same reason, it is
important to take a holistic perspective when trying to understand Fanon' s views
on violence, since they were formed through a careful, sustained observation of
the colonial societies in which he lived. "Concerning Violence" is not the rash
statement of a frustrated revolutionary. From Martinique to Algeria, over his
foreshortened lifetime Fanon developed the view that colonialism is inherently
violent, and that it can only be overthrown through the self-determining, collec­
tive action of colonized peoples. This action took on a violent character (as Fa­
non called it, "violence in action"), because colonizers-settlers and colonial
European nations-would not just cede the territories they colonized. They
would respond with violence to any attempt at self-determination on the part of
the colonized people. Indeed, this is the principle underlying any racial forma­
tion.
In Black Skin, White Masks, Farron elaborates a "socio-diagnostic" of the
psychosocial effects of colonial violence, which crystallize in racialization. 20
There is a large body of philosophical work on Fanon's account of the violence
of racialization. Specifically, his concept of "epidermalization" has been taken
82 Anna Carastathis

up recurrently in contemporary philosophical treatments as a phenomenological

description of how race becomes embodied under a white gaze. Yet, surprising­
ly, much less time has been devoted to the etiology of this phenomenon. While
contemporary treatments tend to focus on intersubjective encounters as the
"moments" at which racializing intentional acts take place, Fanon traces the eti­
ology of race to the colonial situation. To be fair, this etiological account re­
mains largely at the margins of Fanon' s work. I think this is likely because, in
his political milieu, it seemed uncontroversial: race is a product of European
colonialism. This account is elaborated more explicitly in the work of his teach­
21
er, Aime Cesaire. Nevertheless, it is clear that Fanon agrees. He conceptualizes
race as a political economic relation that emerges from the Manichean colonial
situation, which is secured through systemic violence. 22 In the colonial situation,
race is the way class distinctions are lived. Race is the guarantor and the index
of dispossession, hyperexploitation, subjugation, social death, humiliation. Ra­
cial ideologies, for Fanon, are justificatory discourses, the ideological reposito­
ries of relations of domination and exploitation. Macrological relations of rule
are embodied in intersubjective encounters-we imbibe them, become them,
enact them, reproduce them. But race does not originate in our individual con­
sciousnesses. Nor is it inherent in our bodies. Through colonial relations of pro­
duction, certain human bodies are reduced to instruments of production. 23 Those
bodies, then, come to be seen in this way. Racialization is a radical form of feti­
shization, in the Marxist sense, in which human beings appear as things to be
used, manipulated, instrumentalized, and then discarded. The influence of
Cesaire is evident here, as well. As Cesaire famously puts it, "colonization =
thingification."24 To put it another way, the existential and ontological reality of
the colonial system reduces to a property relation. 25 At the macrological level,
Fanon is explicit that in colonial political economy, race and class determine
each other in a closed circuit.26
But Fanon' s account is not a reductive, economistic one. On the contrary,
his insight is that through imperialism and its attendant practices of slavery, in­
dentured labor, settlement, and expropriation, the economic became a diffuse
and totalizing category, which pervades all regions of social life, including the
microspace of the human body. Human bodies become instruments of produc­
tion in which other human bodies take property. Violence saturates colonial so­
cieties, to fulfill the expansionist tendencies of capitalism.
The connection between Fanon' s account of racialization and the imperialist
phase of capitalism has insufficiently been dealt with in the literature. Specifi­
cally, what is lost in many contemporary phenomenological treatments is his
insight that the economic devours the social as capitalism "reinvents" itself as
imperialism. Maybe this is because phenomenologists tend to focus on inten­
tional acts, individual subjects, and intersubjective encounters. The violence of
racialization is then read as psychological violence. And "alienation," the term
Fanon uses to describe the psychosocial effects of colonial violence, becomes
narrowly understood as an individual, if intersubjective, psychological pheno-
 Fanon on Turtle Island 83

menon. The macrological systems of power that these acts reproduce remain
invisible in such treatments.
So far, I have argued that we should avoid selective readings of Fanon that
embrace his phenomenological descriptions of racializing encounters, but ignore
the fact that the condition of possibility for such encounters is imperialism. That
is because such readings cannot account for the etiology of race, and end up
turning it into a psychological phenomenon. There is a second way to misread
Fanon that we should be careful to avoid, to which I have already alluded, but
will elaborate now. This is to celebrate his "phenomenological" work (epito­
mized by Black Skin, White Masks) while at the same time dismissing his nor­
mative account of violence in "Concerning Violence" as mere polemic. Such
readings evade a difficult realization. For Fanon, anticolonial violence is not a
means to an end, or an unfortunate last resort after diplomacy has failed. It is
unfortunate, but it is the only path to liberation from the atmospheric violence
that characterizes colonialism. It is not a metaphor, or a Hegelian allegory; it is
the normative conclusion of Fanon ' s phenomenological description of the co­
lonial situation. It is the only way to destroy racialized regimes of rule. There­
fore, we cannot evade or dismiss Fanon's normative account of violence. We
cannot take the descriptive parts of Fanon that suit our philosophical purposes
and leave the unsettling parts behind. They are part and parcel of the same phe­
nomenological description of the colonial situation.
My sense is that most phenomenologists who read "Concerning Violence"
view it as a non-phenomenological text-at best they see it as a work of political
theory, at worst as polemic. Against this tendency of phenomenology to ignore
"Concerning Violence," I want to suggest that we can understand what Fanon is
doing in that essay as phenomenology. Specifically, his description of the co­
lonial situation can be compared to an essence uncovered through a phenomeno­
logical reduction. This description, like any description achieved through phe­
nomenological reduction, distills the colonial situation to its essence: a
Manichean relation between colonizer and colonized, secured through vi­
olence.27
To bring out what is at stake in reading "Concerning Violence" as phenom­
enology, I want to consider a critique of Fanon, elaborated by Robert Young.
Young argues that Fanon' s prescription of violent anticolonial struggle is only
applicable or practical in the context of settler colonies with relatively small
settler populations. 28 The problem, for Young, is that "Fanon writes at a high
level of generality, with the result that The Wretched of the Earth reads as if it
constitutes a general handbook of the experience and procedures for anti­
colonial revolution."29 Young claims that this "handbook" was erroneously ap­
plied by liberation movements as "different" as Black Power in the United
States and Black Consciousness in South Africa. 30 This is the crux of Young' s
objection:

[a]lthough situated so clearly in the Algerian situation, Fanon writes as if he is

articulating the process of history itself, opening The Wretched of the Earth
84 Anna Carastathis

with a grand, and in fact inaccurate generalization: "decolonization is always a

violent phenomenon." . . . Although he concedes that it forms an historical
process, decolonization, according to Fanon, can be treated in the abstract. He
speaks of "that kind of tabula rasa which characterizes at the outset all decolo­
nization." Decolonization has no prior historical, cultural, or political identity .
. . . From this, it follows that all colonial situations can be written about in
common, as the dialectical struggle between the native and the settler, colo­
nized and colonizer: "the colonial world is a world cut in two." The result is
that Fanon's arguments have been applied widely across all colonial situations,
often on the apparent assumption-which Fanon himself invites-that they are
all essentially the same. In terms of power and domination, they are of course
all comparable. But in terms of specific politics, it made a difference whether
the activist, to take the most obvious example, was dealing with a colonial
power in a settler or exploitation colony. 31

Young claims that Fanon "abstracted" "revolutionary principles to a general

level of applicability."32 He says, dispara &ingly, that Fanon had "a constant ten­
dency towards conceptual abstraction."3 As evidence for this interpretation,
Young offers Fanon 's own statement that the purpose of his writing was to "ar­
ticulate 'the common nature of struggle of all the colonized. "'34 From these two
premises (that Fanon was always abstracting and that he was intent on finding
common cause among colonized peoples), Young concludes that Fanon "delib­
erately universalized" abstract concepts gleaned from the specific situation of
Algeria to colonialism in general in order to motivate the normative c laim that
the colonized share a common struggle.35
I think this is a misreading of Fanon, which stems from a more general fail­
ure to consider his account in "Concerning Violence" as phenomenology. If
Fanon's account is phenomenological, then where Young sees "abstraction" we
should instead look for "reduction." Where he sees empty universalisms, we
should find phenomenological essences. Young finds Fanon to be ahistorical,
because his analysis in "Concerning Violence" does not involve a great deal of
empirical detail. Further, Young asserts that Fanon's c laim that "decolonization
is a lways a violent phenomenon" is an "inaccurate generalization."36 The basis
for this assertion is unclear. We can only speculate as to what Young is alluding.
With the exception of independence granted by a retreating imperialist state,
which Fanon would not consider to be decolonization in the full sense, the most
often-cited instances of "nonviolent" decolonization are those of India and
Chile. In both cases, this characterization needs to be complicated. In the case of
India, Ward Churchill suggests that Gandhi 's "calculated strategy of nonvio­
37
lence" was successful "only by the existence of violent peripheral processes."
But even the Gandhian "passive" movement of non-cooperation (satyagraha)
can hardly be described as a "nonviolent" instance of decolonization. "Gandhi 's
followers perished by the thousands, allowed themselves to be beaten and
maimed en masse, and c logged India's penal system in their campaign to end
British rule."38 The broader point is that any movement for decolonization, to
 Fanon on Turtle Island 85

the extent that it is opposing colonial rule, is a response to violence. Further­

more, it will always be met with violence. This is precisely what happened in
Chile. There, decolonization was attempted through the electoral process. But as
Mike Ryan, Churchill's collaborator, points out, Salvador Allende's democrati­
cally elected government was quickly "smashed by U.S. imperialism with such
ease and brutality as to virtually eliminate the last vestiges of any illusion that
Western imperialism will allow nonviolent decolonization."39 The coup d'etat
that Henry Kissinger and the CIA orchestrated in September 1 973 was the origi­
nal "9/ 1 1 ." The United States backed the military dictatorship of Augusto Pino­
chet who held power for seventeen years, until 1 990. During that time, his re­
gime murdered over 3 ,000 people, tortured over 2 8,000, and forced over one
million Chileans into exile. Kissinger personally assured Pinochet in 1 976 that
he could expect no reprisals from the United States for human rights violations,
such as the infamous "Caravan of Death": the jailing and execution of seventy­
three dissidents in the weeks following the coup. Indeed, Pinochet enjoyed U.S.
support until the end of his political career in 1 998.40 As we can see from these
two examples, it remains unclear on precisely what historical grounds Young
bases his assertion that decolonization is not always a violent phenomenon.
In response to Young, it is helpful to distinguish the conceptual act of "re­
duction" from that of "abstraction" or of "generalization." Critiques like
Young's mistake the method and purpose of Fanon' s account. But I want to say
that Young also mistakes the problem with Fanon's account-and I do think
there is a problem with his description. We can say that Young takes Fanon's
error to be one of extension. That is, he argues that those who applied "Concern­
ing Violence" as a "blueprint" or "handbook" were wrong to think Fanon' s de­
scription extended across empirical situations. I want to suggest that we should
instead see the limitations of Fanon' s account as internal to his description. The
problem is not one of extension. Instead, there was a problem internal to Fa­
non 's method such that his reduction went too far. A more complex set of power
relations than Fanon accounts for make the colonial situation what it is (i.e.,
characterize its essence), and these cannot be reduced to the binarism "coloniz­
er/colonized."
I want to emphasize this point, because it leads us to the heart of the prob­
lem of violence. In saying that Fanon' s reduction went too far, I am informed by
a quite different set of critiques of Fanon, which demonstrate that his analysis
overlooks the gendered dynamics of the colonial society-both among and be­
tween colonizers and colonized.41 I find this line of criticism compelling, and in
the third section of the chapter, I say why. There, I argue that if we overlook the
gendered dynamics of colonialism-specifically, its enactment through sexual
violence-we miss something central about how colonial violence is interna­
lized and reproduced by its targets. I want to be clear, however, that the project
of "complicating" colonial power relations should not be mistaken with using
their complexity and multiplicity in order to mask the directionality of lines of
power. The binarism colonizer/colonized elides a number of power relations, but
it also captures a fundamental division that characterizes any colonial system.
86 Anna Carastathis

Nevertheless, it is too reductive. If we are to understand how colonialism func­

tions, how it has survived the anticolonial struggles of the mid-twentieth cen­
tury, and how it remains hegemonic in An6wara Kawennote, we cannot stop
there. Fanon' s account should push us to uncover the complex essence of colo­
nialism. Colonialism, as a mode of capitalist expansion, and as a global system
that has reconfigured itself in response to resistance, is rife with contradictions.
Over time, it has evolved into a complex-though not at all inscrutable-social
formation. The task is not to shy away from this complexity, but to attempt to
distill it. But in so doing, we must be careful not to reduce too much, and there­
by lose sight of what makes it what it is.

Agency, Violence, and Decolonization

I have argued that Fanon is doing phenomenology in "Concerning Violence."

We can better discern Fanon taking a phenomenological approach if we contex­
tualize "Concerning Violence" in his broader conceptions of history and histori­
cal agency. These are global themes in Fanon's thought. He tells us, in Black
Skin, White Masks, "[e]very human problem must be considered from the stand­
42
point of time." Fanon' s conception of history is the basis for the normative
necessity of violence in decolonization struggles. This conception, in tum, is
grounded in Fanon' s view of existential freedom. The dialectic progression to­
ward freedom and authentic human existence must be initiated by the colonized
subject. In more concrete political terms, this means that true decolonization
cannot take the form of national independence conferred by the colonizing em­
pire. Instead, the first moment in the progression must be an assertion of subjec­
tivity on the part of the colonized people, which radically disrupts their syste­
matic desubj ectification, their dehumanization by the colonizer. For Fanon,
"[t]he colonized man [sic] finds his freedom in and through violence."43 To the
violence of the colonial regime, the colonized people must respond with reci­
44
procal and proportionate counter-violence. In this period (the initial, "nega­
tive" moment of decolonization), "the primary Manicheanism which governed
colonial society," and set up an absolute division between settler and native "is
preserved."45 In other words, "the settler never ceases to be the enemy, the op­
ponent, the foe that must be overthrown."46 This is violence in action in the short
term. However, Fanon argues that revolutionary struggle also has a longer-term
obj ective. It also aims to destroy the Manicheanism of the colonial situation. In
so doing, it aims to destroy race. By destroying the settler, the racial bifurcation
of the colonial society is also destroyed. After all, it was the settler who created
this form of society. He made himself into a settler by "creating his inferior."
Fanon explains:

[t]heir first encounter was marked by violence and their existence together­
that is to say the exploitation of the native by the settler-was carried on by
 Fanon on Turtle Island 87

dint of a great array of bayonets and cannons. . . . it is the settler who brought
the native into existence and who perpetuates his existence. The settler owes
the fact of his very existence, that is to say, his property, to the colonial sys­
tem. 47

The settler is his property, which is conferred through the colonial system.
If this seems reductive, in the negative sense, it is in part due to the real reduc­
tion that colonialism itself accomplishes. That is, it reduces concrete individuals
into two ontologically distinct kinds: "settlers" and "natives." The settler expro­
priates the native, and the settler is identified with his property. This is demon­
strated by the fact that, according to colonial ideology, an assault on settler
property is equated with an assault on settlers. As we have seen, the distinction
between settler and native is an absolute one, based on violence. It is primarily
an economic, but also a political, social, and ontological48 distinction, which
forms the basic nature of the colonial situation: "the colonial context is characte­
rized by the dichotomy which it imposes upon the whole people."49 To destroy
that social formation one must destroy the dichotomy that organizes it. To do
that, one must destroy the settler, who imposes it, along with the identity "na­
tive," on the people he colonizes.
For this reason, Fanon thinks that anticolonial struggle must destroy-rather
than deploy-racialized identities. To adopt such identities seems to Fanon a
refusal of one' s freedom, of one's historical agency. 50 So, then, what response
on the part of the colonized people could bring about social transformation?
How could they, on a collective level, "introduce invention into existence"?5 1
Fanon' s answer: violence i n action.
This is not a term that Fanon clearly defines. Violence in action is variously
described as counter-violence proportional to the violence of the colonial re­
gime, and as absolute violence. 52 These two descriptions seem different, since
absolute violence would, presumably, have no sense of proportion (otherwise it
would be relative violence). 53 However, whether it is interpreted as proportional
or as absolute, it is important to notice that violence in action is always counter­
violence. That is, it is always a reaction to the violence of colonial rule.
Let me sum up. For Fanon, freedom for the colonized is bound up with vi­
olence. Not only is the Manichean division between settler and colonized in the
colonial situation secured and reproduced through violence; violence is the
means through which the colonized "find their freedom." This emancipatory
violence reciprocates the violence of colonial rule. It constitutes the negative
moment of decolonization, which is necessary for the disalienation of the colo­
nized (and, by extension, of the colonizer). This is the first point. The second
point is that in this period, the Manichean division between settlers and colo­
nized is preserved. It is preserved for the colonizers, who are intent upon main­
taining their dominion over the colonized. It is preserved for the colonized, who
struggle to destroy the system of colonial rule. Given this, Fanon claims that in
this period, "the settler never ceases to be the enemy, the opponent, the foe that
must be overthrown."54
88 Anna Carastathis

Fanon o n Turtle Island : Colonial Violence

and Nonviolent Militancy in "Canada"

I now want to tum to the third part of the chapter, in which I explore Fanon' s
relevance t o Canadian colonialism and Indigenous struggles fo r decolonization.
Bringing Fanon' s account to bear on this context seems urgent, since, as
Taiaiake Alfred argues, the question of violence is an "immediate" one for "any
serious conception of resurgent indigenous power."55 Alfred brings this urgency
to life by evoking two recent confrontations between the Canadian state and
First Nations: the so-called "Oka stand-off' in 1 990, and the "Gustafsen Lake
stand-off' in 1 995. Alfred and others have argued that we should not regard
these two incidents as exceptional. Rather, they constitute moments of crisis in a
long traj ectory of low-intensity warfare against Indigenous people on this conti­
nent. What these experiences teach is the willingness of the Canadian state to
resort to force in order to repress First Nations' resistance to the illegal expropr­
iation of their land. In Oka, Kanien'kehaka (Mohawk) communities around the
city of Montreal resisted the development of a golf course on their sacred territo­
ries by the town of Oka. In Gustafsen Lake, people of the Secwepemc (Shus­
wap) and other Coast Salish nations resisted annexation of their unceded territo­
ries by the provincial British Columbia government. In both cases, Indigenous
people were met by violence from the state., as well as from civilian settlers.
Drawing on these two recent moments in the long history of Indigenous resis­
tance to Canadian colonialism, Alfred suggests that

contending with state power is inescapable. I f contention is necessary to make

change, if contention leads necessarily to confrontation, and if confrontation
has an inherent element of potential or real violence, as the experiences in Oka
and Gustafsen Lake demonstrate, then we must be prepared to accept violence
and to deal with it. To continue advancing, the intelligent course of action is
contention. Dogmatically pacifist movements have only succeeded in making
change when they are backed by the support of the threat of violence . . . . Thus
we must contend, and we must confront, and we must be prepared to shoulder
the burden of conflict. 56

If contention is inescapable, the question is how? How to contend? "How to

fight against colonialism?"57 Rejecting the "guerilla posture," Alfred proposes
"nonviolent militancy" as a model for Indigenous struggles for the decoloniza­
tion of An6wara Kawennote. He describes nonviolent militancy as "remaining
firm in the face of fear, doing what is necessary for what is right, yet not allow­
58
ing negative thoughts and emotions to control us." Alfred compares nonviolent
militancy to the "middle path" between "raging violence" and "complacency,"
and likens it to the Gandhian strategy of non-·cooperation. 59 He rejects the guer­
rilla approach because historical examples show that only where a guerrilla war
escalated into a conventional war or became a proxy war (in the context of the
 Fanon on Turtle Island 89

Cold War between capitalism and state socialism), was this strategy effective in
60
bringing about the defeat of the oppressor state. The examples he cites are Cu­
ba and Vietnam. Alfred does not think these conditions obtain here, nor are they
likely to.
He rejects raging violence because, he argues, it largely responds to epi­
phenomena, rather than the structural sources of colonial relations: "raging vi­
olence is always more of a reaction to [the] internal and external hypocrisy of
colonial relations than to injustices in economic or political forms."61 For Alfred,
if Onkwehonwe (original people) are to "become warriors again," in the sense
that authentically emerges from their cultural, political, and spiritual traditions,
this self-transformation must be based on action, not reaction. 62 Alfred explains
that an active-as opposed to a reactive-politics of Indigenous resurgence has
five features. It depends on and is led by wornen. 63 It protects communities and
defends land. It seeks freedom and self-sufficiency. It is founded on unity and
mutual support. Finally, it is continuous-both with a history of struggle and an
64
existential tradition, and with future generations.
This conception puts Fanon's normative account into question on two
grounds. First, the question arises whether violence in action has the capacity to
target the real sources of colonial oppression, which on Fanon' s own account are
of a political economic order. Second, to th1� extent that violence in action is
counter-violence (to the colonial "atmosphere of violence"), it is reactive. Is it,
then, an adequate vision for contention? Does it embody the spirit of the warrior,
65
in Alfred's sense? That is, does it enable Onkwehonwe to "break through to
the freedom to recreate [their] persons, identities, and relationships"?66 For Fa­
non, as we have seen, revolutionary violence is a kind of self-assertion; but who
is the self that is asserted? Is this a still-colonized subject? Alfred's account of
"raging violence" might suggest that the colonized who asserts himself through
violence in action-whether that violence is "proportionate" or "absolute" -is
caught in a reactive posture, responding to the terms of colonial power with
counter-violence, but never truly transcending the colonized mindset.
At the same time, Fanon might respond to Alfred by pointing out that any
form of Indigenous resistance occurs in the context of an atmosphere of colonial
violence. It is in this sense that Fanon argues all resistance is "reactive." Further,
it will most certainly be met by violent suppression. Even nonviolent forms of
resistance, such as sabotage of settler property, blockades of settler roads, boy­
cotts, or non-cooperation with settler laws or institutions are so threatening to
colonial power that the state will respond with violence. Why should colonized
people be massacred while settlers and the colonial elite remain untouched by
anticolonial struggle? After all, what does the colonizer understand-if not vi­
olence?
The argument Alfred makes for "nonviolent militancy" is a strategic, not a
moral one. That is, it does not rest on the morality or immorality of countering
the violence of the colonial state with violence, or with other strategies of con­
tention. Instead, it asks, is violence the best (most efficacious) strategy for
achieving the goals of decolonization and self-determination? To answer this
90 Anna Carastathis

kind of strategic question, Alfred considers the form colonial power has taken in
what he calls the "post-modem imperialist state."67 The power of the state is not
reducible to its use of force, embodied in its military or its police. Alfred theo­
rizes the state as a tripartite system of power.68 The three facets of state power
are force, authority, and legitimacy. "These facets of power create a reality in
which the state' s capacity for and use of force is unquestioned."69 But, perhaps
surprisingly, Alfred suggests that force is not the primary or most crucial form
of state power. Even though as things stand "the state cannot be defeated milita­
rily because it has too much physical force at its disposal," force is not primarily
how the liberal democratic colonial state secures its authority. Alfred argues that
the authority of the state (for instance, its laws and legal institutions, which it
uses to regulate and discipline its subjects) needs our "cooperation."70
Specifically, it requires that we legitimate its authority. Legitimacy, Alfred
argues, "is the most important form of power the state possesses."71 Regimes
cannot survive without our legitimation of their authority and our consequent
acceptance of "their right to use force to maintain the social, political, and eco­
72
nomic order represented by the institutions that make up the state." In other
words, even the state' s monopoly on force rnquires that we, as citizens, legiti­
mate and defer to its authority.
What is at issue, then, is "[t]he very definition of 'power.'"73 Where we lo­
cate the crucial power of the state will affect the conception of anticolonial resis­
tance we advance. What kind of power do colonial subjects-both colonized
people and settler-citizens of colonial society-have vis-a-vis the state? Alfred
argues that while the postmodern imperialist state "possesses overwhelming
military force, the opponents of the state must use their resources and capacities
to prevent the state from carrying out its activities and agenda and so disrupt the
system."74 If Fanon-who was a trenchant modernist-was here to talk with
Alfred, he m ight wince at the description of contemporary states as "postmo­
dern." But Alfred' s point is just that we should avail ourselves of strategies of
disruption that recognize that "[o]ur bodies, our minds, and our cooperation are
all essential to the functioning of the colonial system."75 Possibilities for resis­
tance are further illuminated by the distinctiion Alfred draws between the de­
structive and productive operations of power that mark these facets of the state.
He says: "[a]lthough military force can create the fear needed to force com­
pliance, it must be recognized that it is a destructive force. It can only be used to
generate psychological states needed to coerce people. It is incapable of compel­
ling the positive operation of the political and economic relationships that form
the colonial system once it is employed for alienating and destructive purpos­
es."76 For instance, Alfred notes that military power can force people off their
land, take children away from their families, and harm people' s bodies. But it
cannot generate compliance and cooperation, without which, as a liberal demo­
cratic colonial state, it cannot function. Military power can coerce, but it cannot
produce consent. If Indigenous people cannot defeat the military power of the
 Fanon on Turtle I sland 91

Canadian state, i t is these productive operations o f state and economic power

that Indigenous resurgence might effectively disrupt.
Here is one way to parse the disagreement between Alfred and Fanon con­
cerning violence in anticolonial struggle: the nature of colonial rule has changed
with its integration into liberal democratic political systems, and this has
changed the nature of state power. The role of violence in colonial rule has
shifted. The significance of consent, compliance, and cooperation within coloni­
al societies has increased. The state now needs legitimation---even from those it
subjugates, but certainly from those it protects. Thus, there is a renewed oppor­
tunity for nonviolent militancy, which reveals the illegitimacy of the colonial
state and thereby undermines its authority and its monopoly on force. But notice
that similar to Young' s critique, this too is a critique of Fanon' s conception of
violence in action that focuses on the extension of his argument to other empiri­
cal scenes of anticolonial struggle.
I now want to turn to a second set of arguments concerning the adequacy of
Fanon' s violence in action in the present context. These arguments point to a
problem internal to Fanon' s description of violence in the colonial situation.
That is, they reveal that Fanon fails to theorize sexual violence-which mani­
fests both as interpersonal violence and as state violence-as a tool of colonial
oppression. In this connection, particularly in the context of An6wara Kawen­
note, it is crucial to see that interpersonal violence against Indigenous women
and children is an expression of a system of colonial power relations. Colonial
state violence structures, and is expressed in interpersonal, gendered, sexualized,
and intergenerational forms. 77 Colonial violence is internalized by colonized
individuals and communities, and is turned inward instead of outward, against
the oppressor. For these reasons, Patricia Monture-Angus has argued that under
colonial conditions, "[ v]iolence is not just a mere incident in the lives of Abori­
ginal women."78 It constitutes the atmosphere of their lives. Violence is systemic
and structural, but also intimate and personal. According to the Government of
Canada, Indigenous women between the ages of twenty-five and forty-four are
five times more likely to experience violence than are other women living in
Canada.79 Over the past two decades, more than five hundred Indigenous women
have been murdered or have gone missing in territories occupied by Canada. 80
Violence is inflicted on Indigenous women by police officers and sexual part­
ners, prison guards and parents, settlers, and members of Indigenous communi­
ties. Colonial discourse emphasizes violence within First Nations communities.
However, according to a report issued by the U.S. Department of Justice in
1 999, over 70 percent of violent crimes against Indigenous people, and 90 per­
81
cent of sexual assaults are committed by a non-Indigenous person. Interracial
sexual assault is most frequently committed by white men against Indigenous
women.
As Monture-Angus argues, colonial violence dissimulates. It deceives as to
the real origins of endemic violence within Indigenous communities. Based on a
feminist, woman-centered analysis of colonial violence, we can question wheth­
er Fanon' s conception of violence in action pays adequate attention to the gen-
92 Anna Carastathis

dered dynamics of violence in the colonial situation. If the atmosphere of vi­

olence, which Fanon argues characterizes colonial society, does not only target,
but implicates Indigenous people, where is the line between perpetrator and sur­
vivor of violence to be drawn?82 Another way to think about this is through a
distinction between violence across horizontal lines of power as opposed to vi­
olence along vertical lines. Violence in action is a strategy that conflates these
two kinds of violence. Both are produced by, and characterize the colonial situa­
tion. But horizontal violence is a form of internalized oppression, directed in­
ward against Indigenous people, particularly women and children. So, if vi­
olence in action is counter-violence against colonial violence, how does it
resolve violence across horizontal lines of power?
Finally, we can ask, with Alfred, whether Fanon failed to "recognize the in­
ability of a strategy of decolonization based on violence to transcend violence in
the society and the state which it achieves." 83 To put it another way, if decoloni­
zation in its first phase requires violence, can a decolonized society persist with­
out it? Fanon suggests that violence is an act of collective self-assertion. This
act, he tells us, can produce a new kind of subject who rejects a colonial identity.
But how does this subject transcend violence? Fanon is concerned with the ques­
tion, "how do we pass from the atmosphere of violence to violence in action?"84
In other words, how do the colonized reject their subjection and revolt? But we
also need to ask, "how do we pass from violence in action to a society beyond
violence?" Alfred argues that this question is no less central to strategizing Indi­
genous resurgence than is Fanon' s question.
Fanon claims that the passage from colonial, repressive violence to anti­
colonial, resistant violence occurs when a colonial society reaches "the point of
no return."85 This is the point at which, given "all-inclusive repression which
engulfs all sectors of the colonized people" it becomes "clear to everybody, in­
86
cluding even the settlers, that 'things couldn't go on as before. "' But this does
not serve to illuminate the process of transition from anticolonial violence to a
society beyond violence. In this case, it is not a question of a reactive response,
but a creative one. What is to guarantee that violence will not find new lines of
power to enforce? I think Barbara Christian' s insights about power and empo­
werment are instructive here. Christian reminds us that any "approach which
desires power single-mindedly must of necessity become like that which it
wishes to destroy." 87 But she distinguishes "the desire for power from the need
to become empowered-that is, seeing oneself as capable of and having the
right to determine one ' s life."88 Should violence in action be understood as a
"desire for power" or as the expression of "a need to become empowered"? I am
not sure Fanon gives us an answer. Perhaps his modernist and his Marxist sensi­
bilities would incline him to dispute the distinction. He was clear that colonized
people needed to take power, but with the aim of dismantling the global system
of imperial power. What is not clear is how they/we would create something
new in its place.
 Fanon on Turtle Island 93

Settler Solidarity?

In closing, I want to raise some questions about settler solidarity with struggles
for Indigenous self-determination. If Alfred is right that legitimacy is the most
crucial form of state power in settler democracies, and if the legitimacy the state
most desires is that which settlers confer, then settlers could be useful to Indi­
genous struggles for sovereignty. In this connection, we should remember that
many groups who are nominally "settlers" are themselves oppressed in ways
that ideally should compel them to shift their allegiances from the state to those
over whom it rules. Furthermore, Indigenous people have common cause with
other groups that are internally colonized-for instance, Black and Chicano/a
people in the United States. Lines of solidarity also could be formed between
Indigenous people and others whose lives have been ravaged by the global sys­
tem of neocolonialism-for instance, migrant workers, refugees, non-status
people, stateless people, and people living in poverty. Indeed, most migrant
workers are Indigenous people. If decolonization is the overthrowing of the sett­
ler system of property and the racial formation it engenders, and if it was
enacted so as to restore Indigenous people to self-determination, the majority of
Turtle Islanders would benefit materially. If societies on An6wara Kawennote
were led by women; if they were organized around the principle of mutual sup­
port; if they were freedom-loving; if they sustained themselves while defending
the land; and if they saw themselves as responsible to the legacy of their ances­
tors and the flourishing of future generations-who but those who benefit from
exploitation and oppression would oppose decolonization?
At the same time, many people strongly identify with settler states, or at
least with their promises of the immediate benefits of collusion. Property has a
strong role in cementing this identification. To illustrate the obstacles to settler
solidarity with First Nations, Alfred relates a conversation with Sakej, a warrior,
"a father and grandfather from the . . . Mik'maq community of Burnt Church,
New Brunswick." 89 Sakej was a main strategist in resolving fishing disputes
between Onkwehonwe and the federal government of Canada. One of the ques­
tions Alfred and Sakej explore is the strategic problem facing "a minority" -
more properly, a m inoritized populat ion surrounded by a majority society,
-

whose support the government enjoys. 90 Here is what Sakej says about settler
solidarity:

If you're asking a colonizer who lives right here on your land to completely
sympathize with your cause, you're going to ask him to go through the period
of decolonization and admit that his ownership of his private property is wrong;
that his job is based on exploitation of your resources and is wrong; that his
whole social, political, and economic structure is wrong. How many non-native
people in Canada are going to turn around and sympathize to that degree? . . .
civil disobedience will go nowhere in Canada because our population is too
small and because of the non-native population's inability to sympathize with
our cause.91
94 Anna Carastathis

Why are settlers unlikely or unable to sympathize with the cause of Indigenous
sovereignty? Does this reflect their/our objective interests? Or is it due to the
existing degree of conscientization among settlers and immigrant-settlers about
their/our complicity in violence against Indigenous people perpetrated by the
colonial state? To what extent are settlers' feelings about Indigenous people
actively produced by the state? Feelings ranging from indifference to overt rac­
ism, expressed in brutal violence toward Indigenous people, are not accidental
or merely "personal." These affects are part of the production of hegemonic ide­
ology. They play a crucial role in supporting systems of domination. For in­
stance, feelings of indifference about the realities facing First Nations people are
connected with beliefs about the inevitability or immutability of current forms of
colonial domination. These are in tum connected to the systematic alienation
most settlers experience from Indigenous people. Most settlers have little human
contact with Indigenous people, because of residential segregation, which is
institutionalized through the reserve system and through the racialization of ur­
ban space. When settlers do come into contact with Indigenous people, it is as
social workers, teachers, foster parents, police officers, researchers, resource
managers, or DNA harvesters. These institutionalized practices are based on the
Manichean dichotomy that Farron tells us characterizes the colonial situation.
The state has an indisputable role in the production of hegemonic ideologies and
affects among its settler population. For instance, while promoting Aboriginal­
ism under the banner of multicultural tolerance, the Canadian state creates the
impression that Indigenous aspirations and struggles for self-determination are
necessarily directed against settler citizens, rather than against itself.92 In other
words, the mystification of Indigenous demands for self-determination and for
the return of historical-unceded and stolen-territories is in part accomplished
through assimilationist policy which reduces claims of Indigenous self­
determination to cultural rights protected generically under official multicultu­
ralism.
Churchill argues that just as citizens of imperialist nations expressed soli­
darity with anticolonial struggles in what became known as the "Third World"
by struggling within and against their own imperialist "First World" state, so too
can "First World" citizens enact that same solidarity with "Fourth World" strug­
gles. 93 He writes that it is a "straightforward enough . . . transition."94 But is this
transition really that straightforward? Consider the general failure of the settler
left in Canada to connect imperialism with internal colonialism. For example,
the Canadian anti-war movement has missed the opportunity to connect the
Canada' s participation in the seven-year war waged on Afghanistan with its cen­
turies-long low-intensity warfare against Indigenous people within its borders.
Neither have leftists connected the immensely successful campaign to expose
Canada's imperialist intervention in Haiti to the imposition of the band council
system and governance codes on "Indian" reserves. Academics who reveal the
imperialist ideology undergirding the practice of "exporting democracy" to the
non-West, the Third World, and to the Muslim world, have done little to concep-
 Fanon on Turtle Island 95

tually connect these civilizational discourses to the assimilation of Indigenous

people through "enfranchisement." Environmentalist leftists decrying the devas­
tating effects of so-called "big development" projects in the Third World are less
vocal about the destruction and toxification of Fourth World territories through
resource extraction, like the James Bay hydroelectric proj ect on Cree and Innu
territories in Northern Quebec, or uranium mining on Dene territories in North­
ern Alberta. And, often, green activists participate in racist discourses about
Indigenous people, as we saw, for instance, in the campaign to ban seal hunting.
To take a final example, while Canadian NGOs took a critical view of the 2008
Olympics that were held in Beijing because of China's human rights abuses,
Native resistance to the 20 1 0 Olympics, held in Vancouver on unceded Coast
Salish territories, generated little support among settlers, let alone international
outcry about Canada' s treatment of Indigenous people. It seems that settler res­
ponses to Third and Fourth World exploitation and oppression are quite differ­
ent.
If Alfred is correct that today's colonial "[r]egimes cannot survive without
the legitimation by subjects of their authority," then the consent-active or pas­
sive-of settlers is crucial to the normalization of systemic state violence against
Indigenous people. 95 If we see legitimation as a relation rather than as a property
(legitimacy) of the state, it becomes clear that as citizens of the state, we are not
only coerced through domination (or force), but we consent through legitimation
to the state' s authority. In this connection, it is important to recognize that while
violent confrontation exposes the willingness and the readiness of the state to
resort to violence to repress resistance, the ideological unmasking of the state
and of settlers' role in legitimizing it can also be efficacious. Alfred suggests
that "[ w ]ords can, in fact, be powerful shocks to the system and are capable of
causing people to rethink their identity and their place within colonialism."96
Perhaps this is too convenient a conclusion for a political philosopher to reach.
At the very least, we need to speak in ways that reveal the reality of colonial
violence rather than obscuring it. Settler political philosophers can begin by re­
vealing the truth about liberal democracies, rather than allowing liberalism to
tell its own story. That is, we need to confront the fact that, whether as passive
beneficiaries or as active agents of colonial oppression, settlers are implicated in
"a dual state formation (a liberal democracy with a colonial heart) [which is]
matched by a dual economy."97 Are we determined by our objective social loca­
tion to reproduce colonial relations by lending our consent to colonial violence
against First Nations? I want to suggest that we can reconfigure our interests.
There are possibilities for solidarity with Indigenous struggles among settlers.
Fanon tells us that the settler created himself by expropriating the Indigenous
people whose territories he settled. We are actively choosing to align our inter­
ests with power rather than with justice. 98 The Canadian state and its law en­
forcement routinely awakes the fear among settlers of Indigenous counter­
violence, and in territorial conflicts between white towns and First Nations re­
serves, it sides with the former and criminalizes the latter. When Six Nations
formed a blockade to reclaim land to which they had treaty rights under the Hal-
96 Anna Carastathis

dimand Deed, the federal government bought out the corporate developer and
financially compensated settlers in the nearby town of Caledonia for the finan­
cial cost of the blockade. It unleashed the RCMP on Six Nations protesters, and
forced Six Nations to negotiate its land claim through the legal process stipu­
lated by colonial law.
Racist fears of Indigenous people constitute a major impediment to con­
fronting how violence actually operates in, and is endemic to colonial society.
Given all this, how can we initiate a conscientization process among settlers?
How can we draw on settlers ' other emancipatory commitments (for instance,
their commitments to antiracism, anticapitalism, and antisexism) that seem to
require decolonization and the eradication of colonial relations---e ither as a pre­
or as a corequisite?99 These are questions that I end by posing here, but which
will require an ongoing conversation-among settlers, migrants, refugees, im­
migrants, Indigenous, and other internally colonized people committed to deco­
lonizing not only our minds, but our world. Given the role that education has
played, on the one hand, and its liberatory potential, on the other, I think teach­
ers on Turtle Island have a special responsibility to begin engaging in this kind
of critical reflection. The question of violence will not go away so long as our
society is based on it. Fanon saw this clearly. I think the question Fanon cannot
decisively answer is whether violence can itself resolve this question.

Notes

1 . This chapter has been infinitely enriched through conversations with Riel Dupuis­
Rossi, who generously shared her research on Canadian colonialism, her insights, and her
passion for decolonization ofAn6wara Kawennote with me.
2. Taiaiake Alfred, Wasase: Indigenous Pathways ofAction and Freedom (Peterbo­
rough, ON: Broadview Press, 2005).
3. Lata Mani, "Multiple Mediations: Feminist Scholarship in the Age of Multina-
tional Reception," Inscriptions 5 ( 1 989): 1 -24.
4. Alfred, Wasase, 56.
5. Alfred, Wasase, 56.
6. Stephen Harper, "Prime Minister Harper offers full apology on behalf of Cana­
dians for the Indian Residential Schools system" (Ottawa: Office of the Prime Minister,
June 1 1 , 2008), http://pm.gc.ca/eng/media.asp?id=2 1 49.
7. Assembly of First Nations (AFN), "History of lndian Residential Schools,"
www.afn.ca/residentialschools/history.html.
8. Harper, "Prime Minister Harper offers full apology."
9. Kevin Annett, Hidden From History: The Canadian Holocaust. The Untold Story
ofGenocide ofAboriginal People, 2008-2009, http://www.hiddenfromhistory.org/.
1 0. Ottawa Citizen, "Schools Aid White Plague: Startling Death Rates Revealed" in
Ottawa Citizen, November 1 5, 1 907, http://canadiangenocide.nativeweb.org/keynews
schoolsandwhiteplague.html.
 Fanon on Turtle Island 97

I I . Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples, Report ofthe Royal Commission on

Aboriginal Peoples (Ottawa: Indian and Northern Affairs Canada, I 9 9 1 ), 1 9, www. col­
lectionscanada.gc.ca/webarchives/2007 1 1 1 5053257 and www.ainc-inac.gc.ca/ch/rcap/sg
/sgmm_e.html.
12. Royal Commission, Report, 1 9.
1 3 . Quoted in Royal Commission, Report, 1 9.
1 4. C. Blackstock, T. Prakash, J. Loxley, and F. Wien, Wen: de-we are coming to
the light ofday (Ottawa: First Nations Child and Family Caring Society of Canada,
2005).
1 5. Cindy Blackstock, "First Nations child and family services: Restoring peace and
harmony in First Nations communities," Child Welfare: Connecting Research Policy and
Practice, Waterloo (Waterloo, ON: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2003), 3 3 1 -43 .
1 6. Blackstock, First Nations.
I 7. B. McKenzie, "Block funding child maintenance in First Nations child and fami­
ly services: A policy review," (Montreal: Kahnawake Shakotiia'takehnhas Community
Services, February, 2002).
1 8 . bell hooks, Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice ofFreedom (New
York: Routledge, 1 994 ).
1 9 . Andrea Smith, '"War On Terror' Versus Native Sovereignty" in Solidarity Web­
zine, July-August, 2003, www.solidarity-us.org/node/588.
20. Frantz Fanon, Black Skin, White Masks (New York: Grove Press, [ 1 952] 1 967),
1 1.
2 1 . Aime Cesaire, Discourse on Colonialism (New York: Monthly Review Press,
[ 1 955] 1 972).
22. Frantz Fanon, The Wretched ofthe Earth (New York: Grove Press, [ 1 9 6 1 ]
1 963), 40.
23. Fanon, Black Skin, 1 1 .
24. Cesaire, Discourse, 2 1 .
25. Fanon, Wretched, 36.
26. Fanon, Wretched, 40.
27. Fanon, Wretched, 4 1 .
28. Robert Young, Postcolonialism: A n Historical Introduction (Oxford: Blackwell,
200 I ), 280-8 1 .
29. Young, Postcolonialism, 280.
30. Young, Postcolonialism, 280.
3 1 . Young, Postcolonialism, 28 1 .
32. Young, Postcolonialism, 28 1 .
3 3 . Young, Postcolonialism, 28 I .
34. Young, Postcolonialism, 28 1 .
3 5 . Young, Postcolonialism, 2 8 1 . Apparently, this line o f criticism has a long histo­
ry, starting with contemporaneous critics of Fanon. Michael Sonnleitner, writing in 1 987,
cites a number of representatives of this line of thought, dating to the mid-60s (see Son­
nleitner, "Of Logic and Liberation: Frantz Fanon on Terrorism," Dimensions of Terror­
ism (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2004), 77-94.).
36. Young, Postcolonialism, 28 I .
37. Ward Churchill, with Mike Ryan, Pacifism as Pathology: Reflections o n the
Role ofArmed Struggle in North America (Oakland, CA: AK Press. [ 1 998] 2007), 55.
3 8 . Churchill, Pacifism, 59.
39. Ryan, Pacifism, 1 37.
98 Anna Carastathis

40. Jack Epstein, "Augusto Pinochet: Chilean leader's regime left thousands of dis­
appeared," San Francisco Chronicle, December I O, 2006, www.sfgate.com/cgibin/article
.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/1 2/1 O/MNPinochet1 O.DTL.
4 1 . See Anne McClintock, Imperial Leather: Race, Gender and Sexuality in the Co­
lonial Contest (New York: Routledge, 1 995); Oyeronke Oyewumi, The Invention of
Women: Making an African Sense of Western Gender Discourses (Minneapolis: Univer­
sity of Minnesota Press, 1 997); Meyda Yegenoglu, Colonial Fantasies: Towards a Fe­
minist Reading ofOrienta/ism (Cambridge MA: Cambridge University Press, 1 998).
42. Fanon, Black Skin, 1 2-13.
43. Fanon, Wretched, 86.
44. Fanon, Wretched, 88.
45. Fanon, Wretched, 50-5 1 .
46. Fanon, Wretched, 50-5 1 .
47. Fanon, Wretched, 36.
48. Aileen Moreton-Robinson explicates the ontological distinction between settlers
and Indigenous people in terms of a differential relation to the land (See Moreton­
Robinson, "I Still Call Australia Home: Indigenous Belonging and Place in a White Post­
colonizing Society," Uprootings/Regroundings: Questions of Home and Migration,
edited by Sara Ahmed et al. (Oxford: Berg, 2003), 23-40). Fanon agrees:
[w]hat parcels out the world is to begin with the fact of belonging to or not be­
longing to a given race, a given species. In the colonies the economic substruc­
ture is also a superstructure. The cause is the consequence; you are rich because
you are white; you are white because you are rich. . . . In the colonies, the fo­
reigner coming from another country imposed his rule by means of guns and
machines. In defiance of his successful transplantation, in spite of his appropri­
ation, the settler remains a foreigner. . . . The governing race is first and fore­
most those who come from elsewhere, those who are unlike the original inhabi­
tants, "the others." (Fanon, Wretched, 40)
49. Fanon, Wretched, 45-46.
50. There is no Negro mission; there is no white burden . . . . I do not have the
right to be a Negro. I do not have the duty to be this or that. . . . I find myself
suddenly in the world and I recognize that I have one right alone: That of de­
manding human behavior from the other. One duty alone: That of not renounc­
ing my freedom through my choices. . . . I am not a prisoner of history. I should
not seek there for the meaning of my destiny. I should constantly remind my­
self that the real leap consists in introducing invention into existence. (Fanon,
Black Skin, 228-29, emphasis in original)
5 1 . Fanon, Black Skin, 229.
52. Fanon, Wretched, 70-72, 88. While Fanon is clear that the origins of violence lie
in colonial domination and rule, he writes that once the colonized rise up against the co­
lonizers, the
violence of the colonial regime and the counter-violence of the native balance
each other in an extraordinary reciprocal homogeneity. The reign of violence
will be the more terrible in proportion to the size of the implantation from the
mother country. The development of violence among the colonized people will
be proportionate to the violence exercised by the threatened colonial regime.
(Fanon, Wretched, 88)
 Fanon on Turtle Island 99

53. Critics usually focus on the latter description of violence in action (as absolute
violence), which seems not to exclude terrorism. In fact, in his political writing for the
FLN, Fanon repeatedly sanctions terrorism (see Sonnleitner, Of Logic). Fanon believed
that "in addition to revealing the violent reality of colonial capitalism and communicating
in a way that the oppressor understands, terrorism can clear the foundation upon which 'a
new history of man' may be created" (Sonnleitner, Of Logic, 84, quoting Fanon,
Wretched, 3 1 5). According to Sonnleitner, Fanon gives the following arguments for anti­
colonial violence, and specifically for terrorism: (I) Promoting Individual Self-Respect,
terrorism (a) destroys myths; (b) releases tension and aggression; (c) helps the oppressed
take charge of their own lives. (II) Realizing Political Independence, terrorism (a) reveals
the reality of capitalist/colonial violence; (b) communicates effectively to the colonial
oppression; (c) clears the foundation on which a new order may be built. (III) Creating a
New Humanity, terrorism (a) builds national identity; (b) promotes national culture; (c)
allows for a process of perpetual renewal (Sonnleitner, OfLogic, 87-88). I find this pars­
ing unconvincing-except for (II), which I think does describe Fanon's views. As I dis­
cuss in the third section of the chapter, I particularly disagree that violence can accom­
plish (III). I do not think Fanon believed this, either, though it is clear that his account
leaves unanswered the question of how this might otherwise be accomplished.
54. Fanon, Wretched, 50-5 1 .
55. Alfred, Wasase, 45.
56. Alfred, Wasase, 47.
57. Alfred, Wasase, 76.
58. Alfred, Wasase, 54.
59. Alfred, Wasase, 54.
60. Alfred, Wasase, 69-70.
6 1 . Alfred, Wasase, 58.
62. Alfred, Wasase, 79.
We can be sure that action is not reaction. It is not declarations or statements or
rhetoric by which people are affected and then decide to plan to take action.
Action is spirit and energy made into a driving force for change. Action is the
manifestation in physicality of the spiritual energy of the warrior. It is beha­
viours, methods, goals, desires, and beliefs, all expressed in real ways in rela­
tionships with other people and forces. (Alfred, Wasase, 8 1 )
63. Alfred does not elaborate a great deal o n this feature, except t o criticize the
"guerilla" posture for its masculinism. The inclusion of women's leadership in this list
might stem from the traditional matrilineality of the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois Confede­
racy), and represent a call to revive the traditional political and social roles of authority
and leadership women held within Kanien'kehaka society specifically. It might be Alfred
trying to respond to his critics for understating women's political agency in his previous
work. What is disappointing is that there is no sustained treatment of this requisite feature
of Indigenous resurgence in Wasase, which makes this reference seem rather like a thro­
waway.
64. Alfred, Wasase, 8 1 -82.
65. Alfred, Wasase, 77-97.
66. Alfred, Wasase, 88.
67. Alfred, Wasase, 59.
68. Here is how Alfred describes this tripartite structure of the state:
The basic structure of the state as a system of power is tripartite: it has power,
or force, in a physical or military sense; it has authority, or laws, which it uses
1 00 Anna Carastathis

to regulate and discipline people to its power; and it has legitimacy, which it
manufactures and manipulates to create and maintain support. These facets of
power create a reality in which the state's capacity for and use of force is un­
questioned. The state cannot be defeated militarily because it has too much
physical force at its disposal. To this kind of power we must defer. But the au­
thority of the state is something we can contest. The legal and bureaucratic
structures that manage the state's power are vulnerable because they rely on
people's cooperation in order to function. This kind of power we must defy.
And state legitimacy is the most imperceptible yet crucial form of power. It re­
lies on the psychological and social conditioning of people to create an accep­
tance of the state and the forms of power it normalizes: imperatives to obey the
state's offices and authorities and to fear the state's ability to enforce its rules
with violent repression of serious dissent and disobedience. The first and most
important objective of movements against state power must be to deny the
state's legitimacy in theoretical and concrete ways. In the long term, legitimacy
is the most important form of power the state possesses. Regimes cannot sur­
vive without the legitimation by subjects of their authority and consequent ac­
ceptance of their right to use force to maintain the social, political, and eco­
nomic order represented by the institutions that make up the state. (Alfred,
Wasase, 55-56)
69. Alfred, Wasase, 55.
70. Alfred, Wasase, 55-56.
7 1 . Alfred, Wasase, 55.
72. Alfred, Wasase, 55-56.
73 . Alfred, Wasase, 229.
74. Alfred, Wasase, 229.
75. Alfred, Wasase, 229.
76. Alfred, Wasase, 229, emphasis in original.
77. Patricia Monture-Angus, Thunder in my Soul: A Mohawk Woman Speaks (Hali­
fax, NS : Fernwood, 1 995), 1 69-75; see also Andrea Smith, Conquest: Sexual Violence
and American Indian genocide. (Boston: South End Press, 2005); and Incite! Women of
Color Against Violence, Color of Violence: The Incite! Anthology (Boston: South End
Press. 2006).
78. Monture-Angus, Thunder, 1 70.
79. Amnesty I nternational, Stolen Sisters: A Human Rights Response to Discrimina­
tion and Violence against Indigenous Women in Canada (October, 2004), 23, www.am­
nesty.ca/campaigns/resources/amr2000304.pdf.
80. Amnesty, Stolen Sisters, 24.
8 1 . Amnesty, Stolen Sisters, 26.
82. Monture-Angus, Thunder.
83. Alfred, Wasase, 5 1 .
84. Fanon, Wretched, 7 1 .
8 5 . Fanon, Wretched, 90.
86. Fanon, Wretched, 92.
87. Barbara Christian, "The Race to Theory," Cultural Critique 6 ( 1 987): 60.
88. Christian, "Race," 6 1 .
89. Alfred interjects into his theorizing an excerpt from his conversation with Sakej.
The reason he gives for this is that "to truly understand this [problem], we need to depart
 Fanon on Turtle Island IOI

from analysis and theorizing to engage with direct experience in standing up to the power
of government authority in order to reflect on the realities of resistance and resurgence"
(Alfred, Wasdse, 66). This is one of the most refreshing aspects of Alfred's approach to
political theorizing-his inclusion of numerous conversations with activists, youth, and
elders.
90. Alfred, Wasdse, 66.
9 1 . Sakej, quoted in Alfred, Wasdse, 68.
92. For instance, Ward Churchill has argued that hegemonic ideology systematically
mystifies the fact that "[i]t is, and always has been, quite possible to accomplish the re­
turn of every square inch of unceded Indian Country in the United States without tossing
a single nonindian homeowner off the land on which they live" (Churchill, Acts ofRebel­
lion: The Ward Churchill Reader (New York: Routledge, [ 1 990) 2003), 288). Granted,
this is based on a proposal for land restoration based on unceded traditional territory that
many Indigenous people (including Alfred) would reject: an "indigenist" (in Churchill's
sense) proposal that Churchill calls the "North American Union of Indigenous Nations."
This would be an area approximately one-third of the continental United States, located
on unceded territory of the Lakota, Pawnee, Arikara, Hidatsa, Mandan, Crow, Shoshone,
Assiniboin, Cheyenne, Arapaho, Kiowa, Comanche, Jicarilla, and Mescalero Apache
nations (lying east of what today is Denver, west of Kansas city, and extending from the
Canadian border in the north to the tip of southern Texas) (Churchill, Act of Rebellion,
290--9 1). The advantages would be "little cost to the United States, and virtually no arbi­
trary dispossession/dislocation of nonindians" since only about 400,000 non-Indigenous
people live in that 1 40,000 square mile area, and Churchill's proposal is that people could
apply for citizenship in a nation of the North American Union of Indigenous Nations.
Multilateral negotiations between Indigenous Nations and the United States could then
proceed to resolve "land claim issues accruing from the fraudulent or coerced treaties of
cession (another 1 5 or 20 percent of the present forty-eight states)" (Churchill, Acts of
Rebellion, 29 1). I n the meantime, Indigenous nations whose territory is not within the
geographical area mentioned could acquire land in that area by "charging off' their tradi­
tional territories for "actual acreage within this locale. The idea is to consolidate a distinct
indigenous territoriality while providing a definable landbase to as many different Indian
nations as possible in the process" (Churchill, Acts ofRebellion, 290).
If this sounds, to settler ears, like an incredible proposition-that the United States
cede fully 1/3 of its arrogated continental territory, consider the following facts. (I) The
quantity of unceded land within the continental United States makes up about 1 /3 of the
overall landmass. (2) 35 percent of that overall landmass is held by the federal govern­
ment in various kinds of trusts status. (3) 1 0-12 percent of that overall landmass is held
in trust by the various forty-eight contiguous state governments. So, ( 4) "You end up with
a 35 [percent] Indian land claim against a 45-47 [percent) governmental holding." (5)
"Never mind the percentage of the land held by major corporations." "Conclusion? It is,
and always has been, quite possible to accomplish the return of every square inch of un­
ceded Indian Country in the United States without tossing a single nonindian homeowner
off the land on which they live" (Churchill, Acts ofRebellion, 288).
93. Ward Churchill, "I am Indigenist," Acts ofRebellion, 268.
94. Churchill, Acts ofRebellion, 268.
95. Alfred, Wasdse, 56.
96. Alfred, Wasdse, 57.
1 02 Anna Carastathis

97. Himani Bannerji, "Geography Lessons: On Being an Insider/Outsider to the Ca­

nadian Nation," Dark Side ofthe Nation: Essays on Multiculturalism, Nationalism and
Gender (Toronto: Canadian Scholars' Press, 2000), 75.
98. I am grateful to Tracey Nicholls for this formulation.
99. Churchill argues this point in his essay "The New Face of Liberation: Indigenous
Rebellion, State Repression, and the Reality of the Fourth World" ( 1 998, reproduced in
Acts ofRebellion). He writes:
You can't end classism in a colonial system, since the colonized by definition
comprise a class lower than that of their colonizers. You can't end racism in a
colonial system because the imposed ' inferiority' of the colonized must inevit­
ably be 'explained' Uustified) by their colonizers through contrived classifica­
tions of racial hierarchy. You can't end sexism in a colonial system, since it
functions-again by definition-on the basis of one party imposing itself upon
the other in the most intimate of dimensions for the purposes of obtaining grati­
fication. . . . it is impossible to end social violence in a colonialist system.
(Churchill, Acts ofRebellion, 266)
At the same time, Churchill's analogical argument misses the interlocking dimensions of
colonialism, patriarchy, and racism, and implicitly constructs the targets of colonial op­
pression in a masculine image.
 Chapter 6
Sovereign Violence, Racial Violence

Peter Gratton

"Decolonization is always," Frantz Farron writes in the first sentence of The

Wretched of the Earth, "a violent event." 1 Earlier, in A Dying Colonialism, he
argued that through "national independence," violence provides the "spiritual
and material conditions for the reconversion of man" and "produce[s]" an "inner
mutation, the renewal of the social and family structures that impose with the
rigor of a law the emergence of a Nation and the growth of its sovereignty."2 As
a result of the "explosion" that Fanon discusses in the preface to Black Skin,
White Masks, his intimate involvement in the politics of the Algerian Front de
Liberation Nationale (FLN), and his famed (or infamous) encomium to the crea­
tive force of violence in the beginning chapter of The Wretched of the Earth,
Fanon has long been taken to be a prophet of violence, messianically predicting
the inevitable creation of a "new man" who will rise out of the ashes of decolo­
nizing violence; through violence, the last will become first. Fanon' s depictions
of violence in The Wretched of the Earth and his other works are, of course, the
most well-worn passages in his texts. Recent excellent work by Nigel Gibson,
Robert Bernasconi, Lewis Gordon, Tseney Serequeberhan, and others notwith­
standing, it seems that the paint on the portrait of this patron saint of violence
has long dried, with his interlocutors seemingly only touching up, but never able
to alter, the Fanon that has come down to us.
In what follows, I will trace the colonial racism taken on by Fanon' s texts,
tying his work to other accounts by Michel Foucault, Hannah Arendt, and Gior­
gio Agamben on the rise of colonialism. It is in this context that I return to the
question of violence in Fanon' s writings as a means for rethinking the paradoxes
of racism he identifies. 3 As is well known, Fanon 's work is premised on two
claims: ( I ) colonialism is violent as such and any violence on the part of the
colonized is but a form of "counter-violence" within a system of force; (2) co­
lonial violence is not merely to be understood at the level of the political state or
the status of territories, but also at the level of individual psychopathologies.
What has been less discussed in Fanon' s work is his rethinking of sovereignty-

1 03
1 04 Peter Gratton

that is, national sovereignty-that, beyond the Rousseauistic breaking of the

chains that bind one and all, the colonized and settler, in the Manichean socie­
ties of colonialism, thinks a "new humanism" critiquing the natalisms of the
most persistent and pernicious forms of nationalisms. Fanon' s A Dying Colo­
nialism, among all of his texts, makes clear his view of a future nation tied not to
those of a certain birth (the mythical natus of racist nationalisms) but as a plura­
listic society open to the Arab, the black, the Jew, and so on. We may in the end
wonder if Fanon's call for a national sovereignty in the case of Algeria can es­
cape the traps set out by the very word-the natus of nationalism-and its use
and abuse in modernity as a cudgel of racism. Certainly, the future of Algeria
since Fanon' s passing has testified to the tragedy of those that did not heed Fa­
non's call, in the latter sections of The Wretched of the Earth, to refuse this na­
talist heritage. Fanon' s strategic use of the term "nationalism" questions its bio­
logical bases, calling for new communities decentered from racist and
4
nationalist essentialisms that had bifurcated the colonial (and postcolonial)
world. And Fanon' s strategic and careful thinking of counter-violence aimed at
smashing, once and for all, the paramilitary and other "sovereign" forces engen­
dered to protect these pernicious and colonialist nationalisms. As Fanon rea­
lized, modem nationalism works hand-in-glove with the police apparatuses
meant to protect, to conserve and save, the health of the body politic of particu­
lar nations. "The colonial regime owes its legitimacy," he argued, "to force and
at no time does it endeavor to cover up this nature of things."5 This is the slide
between sovereign violence and racial violence marked in the title of this chap­
ter.
The critique of any supposed legitimate violence, which was limited to the
colonials (and thus those of a certain race) and mocked often by Fanon, has al­
ways circled around the question of sovereignty: it is the "infernal circle" of
violence Fanon describes in The Wretched ofthe Earth. Who has the right to use
violence? Who has a monopoly over its use? I want to show the continued relev­
ance of Fanon' s work on the question of race and the colonized, beyond just his
essay "On Violence" in The Wretched of the Earth, for continuing debates over
sovereignty, nationalism, and the link between these two and recent debates
about the bio-political and state racism.
An extraordinary number of philosophers have returned in recent years to
the problem of sovereignty and its link to nationalism and racism, in short what
has been put under the heading of bio-politics. Most prominent of recent work
on this concept has been that of Giorgio Agamben. In what follows, I will lay
out the central theme of Agamben' s difficult project. Agamben ' s work suffers
from grave limitations for thinking the problems of racial sovereignty and colo­
nialism in our day. For me, this means a return to the work of two philosophers
who greatly influenced Agamben, namely Hannah Arendt and Michel Foucault,
before coming back to Fanon. In the end, I will argue that Agamben focuses too
much on what he calls the sovereign exception, with the unanticipated result of
not engaging the way in which sovereignty in the modem age has moved, as
 Sovereign Violence, Racial Violence 1 05

Arendt, Foucault, and Fanon argue, from the palaces and oval offices to the
population at large in fully racialized societies. 6
Sovereignty has traditionally been taken to be the rule of law, what has been
also called the "force of law." In other words, traditional sovereigns not only
decreed the laws, but also enforced them. In the American constitution, these
two functions were divided in what is called the "separation of powers": Con­
gress sets the law, a power previously left up to the monarch, while the president
is supposed to enforce the law; he or she is the force or enforcement behind the
law. Each executive in Western democracies fulfills this function: executing the
law. The question that has remained unanswered-and the so-called War on
Terror has brought this question to the fore in the United States, though the co­
lonized have long known the pertinence of this question-is to what degree the
executive must accede to these very laws as their protector. Can the executive
break the laws in order to protect them? How and when? And who can prevent
it? In states of exception, that is, when states declare a state of emergency, this is
exactly the power that the executive in modem democracies gives him- or her­
self. But given that there is no other part of the government that by definition
can prevent this tum of events, who can stop the executive from breaking the
law in the name of protecting the law? And since the executive is also the one
who can declare when there is a state of emergency, the executive is always free,
that is sovereignly free, when he or she can use all the powers granted under the
state of emergency. But it should be noted that this power is never simply at
what we take to be the center of government (the president or prime minister). If
we focus as political theorists on voting rights, on procedures of governance,
and the type and scope of laws to be put in place in Western democracies, then
we are missing the true import of the shift in "the shape and place"7 of sove­
reignty in modernity. The state of exception has not just been made permanent,
as Agamben, following the work of Walter Benjamin, has argued. It is the very
state, the exceptional state, that is, the colonial race-state. On this Arendt and
Foucault, among others, are clear: the state of exception is colonialism brought
back to the West after its implements had been perfected in the colonies. In this
way, as Fanon argues, colonialist imperialism, the imperium of sovereignty,
does not just "continu[e] uninterrupted" when "discussions focus on improve­
ments, electoral representation, freedom of the press," etc. 8 It also continues
unquestioned when an accounting of the colonialist heritage is left aside.
In addition, if we focus too much on what Agamben calls the "figure" of
sovereignty in Means without End, then we miss what is so worrisome about the
state of emergency. The problem is not the "figure" of sovereignty, but all the
"figures" in the plural of sovereignty in our age, as Fanon knew all too well.
Thus, being a bit schematic here, I want to oppose two recent formulations of
sovereignty in the modem age: one being the "figure" of sovereignty on offer
from Agamben, following the work of the German jurist and philosopher Carl
Schmitt, and the other being the rise of the wider police state that occurred at the
same time as nations overtook the state apparatuses following the French Revo-
1 06 Peter Gratton

lution. As nations, the French, the Germans, the Italians, and much later, the
Serbs, the Arab-Sudanese, Arab-Algerians, and so many others took it as a right
of their nation to found and declare a state for themselves. And in these nation­
states, we have seen a rise of police apparatuses, as Arendt rightly argues in The
Origins of Totalitarianism, meant to save and protect the nation from outside
infiltrators, or from minority populations that are said to threaten a particular
nation' s hold over the state.
Agamben's work argues that politics in the West has always centered
around an implicit sovereign ban, by which he means the exclusion by the sove­
reign of a certain type of life, what he calls bare life, from participation in the
rights of citizenship. 9 Bare life, Agamben argues, is produced in and through the
fundamental act of sovereignty-deciding upon who is and who is not to be
granted status in the state. We can see this in the type of life lived in the refugee
camps of Europe during World War II, in the refugee camps surrounding Sudan
right now, the type of life being lived at Guantanamo Bay, and the very living
that was the target of Fanon's phenomenology of the colonial situation-a life
that is not fully political, a life without the rights to live and have one's words
and deeds matter in a community with others, as Arendt would put it. 1° For
Agamben, the original political distinction is between the life of the citizen and
the bare life that the sovereign creates through its decisions. Agamben is correct
to point to a deeper consideration of the "exception" of sovereignty necessary in
thinking the political, especially as it pertains to those moments "whereby men
could be required to sacrifice life, authorized to shed blood, and kill other hu­
11
man beings" in its name. He is also right, I think, to note that just as sovereign­
ty exists both inside and outside the law-that is, it is granted its status as sove­
reign, as executive, by the law, by the constitution, while also able to act outside
of the law in order to protect these laws-so too, bare life, the bare and frighten­
ing form of existence created by the sovereign, exists both within the law and
outside of it; this is the "living death" status of the racial other discussed at
length by Fanon. 12
The lesson of recent years-Fanon's work is perspicuous in this regard-is
that sovereignty is no longer a monopoly of one figure. After Rousseau, and in
particular after the French Revolution, sovereignty moved out of the palaces to
the nation as a whole, with each person vigilant over the nation's others, those
colonized inside and outside of Europe. The primary example of Foucault and
Arendt is Nazi-era Germany, but every political state, even in the age of so­
called multiculturalism, has nations within it competing for dominance, and
there is competition within each nation to live up to what this supposed nation
means: how to be American, how to be German, how to be French, how to be
properly Sudanese, and so on. Arendt rightly argues in the Origins of Totalita­
rianism that the power of security apparatuses more and more held true sove­
reignty within the nation-states of modernity. She notes that these police appara­
tuses were first practiced with impunity during the era of colonialism, where
local bureaucrats had absolute control over their precincts. What Arendt called
 Sovereign Violence, Racial Violence 1 07

the "bare existence" of the colonized was no longer a "subterranean" concern on

the margins of Empires. As Arendt argues, the sheer masses of the stateless in
Europe gave bureaucrats-especially the police-remarkable power. The state­
less, whose numbers grew exponentially during the inter-war period, provided,
according to Arendt, an explicit repudiation of the ideals of a certain Rousseau­
ism, of a certain belief in the paradoxical rights of man and citizen. 13 The state­
less were human but their human rights mattered little; only the rights of the
citizen were accorded any title to state protection. For Arendt, the intra-war pe­
riod showed the final "conquest of the state by the nation," where members of
nations and not human beings as such were accorded rights. In this way, the
nation had grown in power as the supposedly absolute monarchies waned. 14
What Arendt recognized in Origins is that, despite all the pieties of the
proclamations of the rights of man and various international agreements since,
sovereignty' s "lawless arbitrariness" passed to the gendarmeries and local bu­
reaucrats. 15 Arendt' s claim that the nation had overtaken the state is true enough,
especially in light of her claim (one that became the centerpiece of Foucault's
own genealogies of power in the 1 970s) that such nationalisms are aligned to an
increased vigilance over the safety and security of the living body of the nation.
The consequence of the growth of nationalism to its final sovereignty over the
state is that the police and bureaucrats came to rule by way of a permanent state
of emergency that surveilled the nation in the name of its own "welfare" and
security, especially as the nation was thought of as a common body. It is in the
figures of the local bureaucrats and not some abstracted, central figure where
one could see the connection of life to politics, which is to say that there was a
decentralized power to let live or make die over each individual in each precinct.
Life, then, is no longer just a "conditional gift of the state," as Rousseau put
it in the Social Contract, but also a "gift" that comes from nowhere and no one,
that is, the nameless bureaucrats of modernity. The concept of sovereignty as a
"monopoly" over violence became more elastic during modernity, retaining that
supreme difference between omnipotence and powerlessness in what Arendt
calls the "brutal nude event itself," while moving the sovereign decision beyond
the palaces of the monarch. 16 Whereas sovereigns of the past had cloaked the
effects of their powers-executions, emigrations, and naturalizations-in cere­
monies and emblems of authority, the bureaucrats of modernity secreted these
"arbitrary" decisions (the decision whether and what law to apply and in what
manner, or whether to operate simply outside the law altogether) in procedures
and paperwork. Anyone who has ever been pulled over by the police for speed­
ing knows just how arbitrary one' s treatment can be. And members of particular
races in our society know too well the grave implications of this arbitrariness.
All of which is to say that the police force, as Arendt notes, is "no longer an
instrument to carry out and enforce the law, but had become a ruling authority
17
independent of government ministries." Its "emancipation from the law" com­
plemented exactly that same and deadly emancipation from the law of the refu-
1 08 Peter Gratton

gee, the stateless, and the colonized. This is the fundamental lawlessness of the
state of exception.
Sovereignty thus "haunts," as Foucault notes. 18 Its exceptional power of and
over the political cannot be regulated out of the political, even as it takes on new
forms and new techniques for seizing and seizing up or putting a stop to politics.
Foucault, for his part, describes how the colonial uses of bio-power came to be
used in the Nazi state.

Ultimately, everyone in the Nazi state had the power of life and death over his
or her neighbors, if only because of the practice of informing . . . [M]urderous
and sovereign power are unleashed throughout the entire social body. . . . We
have, then, in Nazi society something that is really quite extraordinary: this is a
society which has generalized the sovereign right to kill. . . . The Nazi state
makes the field of the life it manages, protects, guarantees, and cultivates in bi­
ological terms absolutely coextensive with the sovereign right to kill everyone,
meaning not only other people, but its own people. There was, in Nazism, a
dictatorship that was at once absolute . . . and retransmitted throughout the en­
tire social body by this fantastic extension of the right to kill and of exposure to
death. 19

Sovereignty would be that exceptional power-that mad power that denotes

the mad of society, that perverted power that denotes the pervert, that colonizing
power that denotes the colonized, and so on-that would be the name of the
exceptional "sovereign power" that is "unleashed through the entire social
body": a racial sovereignty that can make live and make die. 20 Under bio­
politics, Foucault argues, "regulatory mechanisms must . . . establish an equili­
brium, maintain an average, establish a sort of homeostasis, and compensate for
variations within the general population and its aleatory field. In a word, security
mechanisms have to be installed around the random element inherent in a popu­
lation of living beings so as to optimize a state of life."21 Foucault argues that
bio-power does not operate at the level of the individual, though like discipline,
it is organized around a statistical average, a "norm" that is both regulative and
regulating. It is at this point that racism is "inscribed" into the "mechanisms of
the state . . . . [T]he modem state can scarcely function without becoming in­
volved in racism at some point."22

What in fact is racism? It is primarily a way of introducing a break into the do­
main of life that is under power's control : the break between what must live
and what must die. The appearance within the biological continuum of the hu­
man race of races, the distinction between races, the hierarchy of races, the fact
that certain races are described as good and that others, in contrast, are de­
scribed as inferior: all this is a way of fragmenting the field of the biological
that power controls. It is a way of separating out the groups that exist within a
population. It is, in short, a way of establishing a biological-type caesura within
a population that appears to be a biological domain. This will allow power to
 Sovereign V iolence, Racial Violence 1 09

treat that population as a mixture of races . . . to treat the species, to subdivide

the species it controls, into the subspecies known. 23

This is exactly the Manicheanism described by Fanon. The bio-politicized

"bare life" examined by Arendt, Foucault, and Agamben are but other names for
the bare existence of the racialized other. The "state of exception" that is so pre­
valent in the recent literature was and is the permanent apparatus of colonialism,
internal and external to Western states. 24 Another way of stating the problem is
thus: if we must focus our attention in thinking the political on the figures of
sovereignty in our age, we must also deal politically, philosophically, and phe­
nomenologically with the traumas of racism and its political effect, colonialism.
We must also not just declare an abstracted bio-power, as in Agamben, that dis­
tinguishes the life of the citizen, denoted by the Greek bias, as opposed to bare
life, zoe. Rather, with Fanon, we must see how bias and zoe have not been so
abstract in the modem period. With Fanon, let us call the distinction what it has
been in modernity: in Martinique, the black and white; in Algeria, settler and
native; in the Global South more generally, the colonizer and the colonized. Fa­
non writes: "[ s]ometimes this Manicheanism [of the colonial compartmentaliza­
tion] reaches its logical conclusion and dehumanizes the colonized subject. In
plain talk, he is reduced to the state of an animal. And consequently, when the
colonist speaks of the colonized he uses zoological terms . . . . [T]he colonist
refers constantly to the bestiary."25
Recall that Fanon, beginning in Black Skin, White Masks, had argued that
colonization annihilated the sense of the colonized self, sealing the colonized in
a "crushing objecthood."26 Such a human being, Fanon argued, is not fully alive,
since the imaginary of the colonized is overtaken by the myth of whiteness. For
the white subject, Fanon claimed, the colonized other is everything other to the
white self, that which is objectified in the formation of mental and physical co­
lonialism. For the colonized, on the other hand, the white other serves to define
everything that is desirable; whiteness overtakes the imaginary of the black in
Martinique, for example, causing a schizophrenia whereby the black wears a
white mask while facing the racist epidermalization of his being in the eyes of
the white colonials. Fanon's description of the colonized black' s attempt to
speak Parisian French-while finding even more ridicule from the French for
doing so-in Black Skin, White Masks is an example of this. Against this back­
ground, Fanon called for a "new humanism," in which, via a psychoanalysis of
whites and blacks, the black recognizes that he or she "is not, [a]nymore than the
white man," and to recognize "the open door of every consciousness."27
When he wrote The Wretched of the Earth in 196 1 , Fanon expanded upon
his cursory comments in Black Skin, White Masks, arguing that certain segments
of colonial society, in crushing poverty and desolation, had no choice but violent
revolt. Fanon rethinks his previous work on what, following Julia Kristeva, we
2
could call the "intimate revolt" of each colonial subject. 8 The affectivity and the
effectiveness of Fanon's text derives from his ability to infuse his own narrative
1 10 Peter Gratton

of self-revolt and renewal as a subject in process, highlighting his own move­

ment from colonial subject to a "new man" revolting against the colonial order
that formerly colonized his mind. Fanon calls this revolt a "revolutionary leap"
in consciousness, a new mode of cognition, "an absolute intensity of begin­
ning." 29 It is interesting that the final parts of Black Skin, White Masks and The
Wretched of the Earth are remarkably similar in centering on the individual lev­
el, after a detour in the latter book through macropolitical discussions of the
future of the African state. Fanon writes in The Wretched ofthe Earth,

It is a question of the Third World starting a new history of Man, a history

which will have regard to sometime prodigious theses which Europe has put
forward, but which will also not forget Europe's crimes, of which the most hor­
rible was committed in the heart ofman . .For Europe, for ourselves, and for
. .

humanity, comrades, we must tum over a new leaf, we must work out new con­
cepts, and try to set afoot a new man. 30

But Fanon is also quick to point out that this inner revolt against a certain
mastery of the other, of a certain sovereign racism, cannot be cut off from a gen­
eral critique and transformation of society: neither one without the other. "Total
liberation is that which concerns all sectors of the personality . . . . Independence
[of the state] is not a word that can be used as an exorcism, but is an indispensa­
ble condition for the existence of men and women who are truly liberated, in
other words, who are truly masters of all the material conditions which make
1
possible the radical transformation of society."3 It is from this vantage point
that Fanon's work is relevant to recent work on sovereignty and its link to natio­
nalism and race, since it takes us to the ever-unstable, yet paradoxically also
absolute, compartmentalized boundaries between the colonizer, the settler, and
the colonized. My argument is two-fold: ( 1) Fanon's counter-violence contests
this particular historical instantiation of the bios-zoe distinction; (2) his work on
counter-violence contests the type of living in this unstable and paradoxical ra­
cialized boundary area while bringing to the fore the ridiculous calls for passivi­
ty and pacificism on the part of the colonized as zoe, as "zoological," the bare
life that is meant to remain passively part of the background of nature, as Fanon
remarks on the plight of the person of color under colonialism. 32 This dehumani­
zation is itself violent-the result of sovereign violence-as Fanon never tires of
arguing. And in tum, the movement of zoe to take up its place as something oth­
er than "bare existence" or "bare life" can be nothing other than violent, since it
calls into question the very Manicheanism-backed up by force via all the fig­
ures of sovereignty in modernity: the colonial officer on the street comer, the
psychiatrist in the institutions of the colonial capital, and indeed, in each of the
selves of the colonized and colonizer. Calls for pacifism on the part of the living
being as zoe, as colonized, are, Fanon would claim, redundant: the passivity and
pacificism is that which makes this life bare per se, a life in which one is "more
dead than alive."33 That is, calls for pacifism on the part of the colonized are but
 Sovereign Violence, Racial Violence 111

another way to leave unquestioned the sovereign, the colonial, the racial mono­
poly over violence, and thus also leave unquestioned the decisive cut within the
political between the settler and the native, between the white and the person of
color, in what Fanon himself calls the "exceptional" spaces of the "colonial situ­
ation."34
Nevertheless, by calling into question this very distinction, marked in the
recent literature as between bios and zoe, the colonized is the political agent par
excellence: "the colonized, underdeveloped man," Fanon writes, "is today a po­
35
litical creature in the most global sense of the term." Thus, from what Fanon
calls the "zone of non-being" in Black Skin, White Masks, that "extraordinarily
sterile and arid region" of an "utterly naked declivity," an "authentic upheaval
can be bom."36 And this birth is inherently violent, occurring with the dissolu­
tion of colonized person's inferiority complex at the same time as it dissolves
the political state of exception in the name of the exceptional singularity of each
being, not the false individualism of the superfluous whose being is given to him
or her by the settler's gaze, whose violence is "rippling under the skin" in the
37
"atmosphere of violence" of the colonial structure. It is now that we can tum to
those most famous passages of The Wretched of the Earth: "The colonized man
liberates himself in and through violence. This praxis enlightens the militant
because it shows him the means and the end."3 8 And,

The violence of the colonized . . . unifies the people. By its very structure colo­
nialism is separatist and regionalist. . . . Violence in its practice is totalizing and
national [and eliminates colonial compartmentalization]. At the individual lev­
el, violence is a cleansing [desintoxique] force. It rids the colonized of their in­
feriority complex, of their passive and despairing attitude. It emboldens them
. . . Violence hoists the people up to the level of the leader. 39

In the name of national sovereignty, Fanon marks a certain Rousseauism by re­

marking that the people, as liberated, will not accept a new master, a new sove­
40
reign or living god, that is, the old sovereignty of the monarchical period. No
doubt, this looks to many as a naive hope on the part of Fanon, and this also
would seem to repeat the problem Arendt and Foucault identify in all "national"
liberation struggles: the eventual rise of police apparatuses meant to protect this
new national sovereignty. Have we not seen in Algeria, but also in the twenty­
year civil war in Sudan and elsewhere, the repetition of the French Terror in the
name of this national sovereignty? Was Fanon naive not to see that there is no
rounding off the cycle of violence? This is a common refrain given the plight of
the neocolonialist dictatorships in the former colonies.
I won't linger too long over all the cautions Fanon provides, all the provisos
he makes in denoting the problems of violence beyond national liberation. But
this must not lead us to a political quietism. As Lewis Gordon puts it, "As long
as the justice of the status quo is presumed, any response that portends real
41
change will take the form of violence." This is not to say that we must institute
1 12 Peter Gratton

new forms of sovereigntism that recolonize our political spaces in terms of an

inverted racialism, as Fanon argues in the The Wretched of the Earth, thinking
through the case of a young Arab-Algerian who had killed a settler child. Not all
violence, Fanon argues, is therapeutic. Not all violence is "counter-violence."
Fanon writes: "Because we want a democratic and renovated Algeria, because
we believe one cannot rise and liberate oneself in one area and sink in another,
we condemn with pain in our hearts, those brothers who have flung themselves
into revolutionary action with almost physiological brutality that centuries of
oppression give rise to and feed."42 It is in the name of this future democracy
that Fanon will call into question such masterful brutality in the same way he
called into question the forms of sovereigntism on display in modernity, that
decision of letting live and making die that occurs in each precinct of our mod­
em nation-states. But we must not necessarily celebrate the rogues of modernity
either, the counter-sovereigns whose violence is a necessary element, in given
contexts, for thinking through new liberatory and revolutionary spaces. Contest­
ing one' s place as zoe is a violent act. Reinstantiating oneself as a bias over a
newly marginalized zoe is equally violating and violent, another "living death"
and continuing colonialism, its continuing trauma. Revolutions often offer a turn
back to the same, as the volere at the word' s root suggests. But with each tum,
with each revolution, there is a chance for a way out of the circling spiral of so­
vereign violence, and violence provides in the here-and-now of a non-utopian
politics this side of heaven the least awful chance for something other than a
return to the same. This is the chance we often need to give to violence-not
sovereign violence, just violence. In the name of the democracy of which Fanon
speaks, we must tum again to his texts, to think another tomorrow beyond sove­
reign violence and mastery, beyond natalisms and pernicious racisms, in order to
think a revolution, a counter-violence and counter-racism, that would turn out
differently.

Notes

1 . Frantz Fanon, The Wretched ofthe Earth (New York: Grove Press, 2004), 1 .
2. Frantz Fanon, A Dying Colonialism (New York: Grove Press, 1 965), 1 79.
3 . What I want to do in what follows is not to explain away the use of violence in his
work. I want to refuse to give in to the impulse to deny the force of Fanon's text on vi­
olence, which itself would be a violent reading of Fanon' s text, though I am aware I must
be just to the notion of violence, but not be violent to the notion of justice, or even just
violent. In fact, it is exactly the line between the criminal violence and legitimate vi­
olence, the violent cut between one "race" and another, that we will be discussing, since
the colonized is always already presumed to be guilty; this is part of the violence and
racism of the colonial system.
4. See Ann Murphy's "Violence and the Denigration of Community: Between Tran­
scendental and Revolutionary Violence," Philosophy Today 47, no. 5 (2003): 1 54-60. As
 Sovereign Violence, Racial Violence 1 13

Murphy rightly argues, part of Fanon' s agenda in The Wretched of the Earth is to chal­
lenge the hyper-individualism of capitalism while also not falling into the essentialisms
of nationalism that Arendt, among others, as we will see below, argues were used to fill
in the communal bonds of modernity left open by this individualism.
5. Fanon, Wretched, 42.
6. Agamben's work is not readily amendable to an easy synopsis, but in summary
we could note that he begins his work in his Homo Sacer project by elucidating a central
form of sovereignty (the sovereign exception read through the work of the Nazi jurist
Carl Schmitt) and later attempting to tease out a decentered, "popular" sovereignty whose
genealogy that can be traced to the early Church fathers. See, in particular, his II regno e
la gloria: per una genealogia teologica dell 'economia e def governo, the second part of
his second volume of the Homo Sacer series (Turin: Edizione Neri Pozza, 2007), 1 3-29. I
would argue, though, that Agamben's work still suffers, despite his recent concentration
on the oikonomia or relation of popular sovereignty, from a level of abstraction in which
one can chastise others, such as Foucault, for looking too closely to political activities
and writings for the essence of the political while coming no further than the eighteenth
century in their own genealogies of power. Indeed, Agamben's work ultimately suffers
from a conception of the political that is nothing but colonialist: all politics is Western
and its essence is only to be found in endless recitations of its archive, while critiquing
others who come too close to documents that actually touch on these colonial activities
(Agamben, JI regno, 1 4-1 6).
7. Jacques Derrida, Paper Machine (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2005),
1 1 9.
8. Fanon, Wretched, 22.
9. Giorgio Agamben, Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life (Stanford, CA:
Stanford University Press, 1 998), 59-62.
I 0. Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism (New York: Schocken Books,
[ 1 95 1 ] 1 998), 257.
1 1 . Carl Schmitt, The Concept of the Political (Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 1 995).
1 2. Agamben, Homo Sacer, 1 5-20; Frantz Fanon, Black Skin, White Masks (New
York: Grove Press, 1 967), 1 99.
1 3 . Arendt, Origins a/Totalitarianism, 267.
14. Arendt notes that "consciousness of nationalism" is a relatively recent phenome­
non. The state's function used to be to protect "all inhabitants in its territory no matter
what their nationality . . . . [T]he people's rising national consciousness interfered with
these functions" (Arendt, Origins of Totalitarianism, 230). Only "nationals" after the
French Revolution were to be recognized as citizens, and nationalism would eventually
become the glue that would hold together the nation-state even with the rise of capitalism
and its accompanying individualism. "The only remaining bond between the citizens of a
nation-state without a monarch to symbolize their essential community, seemed to be a
national, that is, common origin" (Arendt, Origins of Totalitarianism, 230). The upshot
of national sovereignty is a placement of the means of violence in a permanent apparatus
of police, military, and bureaucracies meant to protect the nation from those contaminat­
ing its purity, that is, meant to protect the safety, security, and "welfare of the nation."
This is what she would call the full-on racism after the "race-thinking" of earlier eras.
1 5. Arendt, Origins of Totalitarianism, 275.
1 6. Arendt, Origins a/Totalitarianism, 254.
1 14 Peter Gratton

1 7. Arendt, Origins ofTotalitarianism, 287.

1 8. Michel Foucault, Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings,
1 9 72-1 977 (New York: Pantheon Books, 1 980), 1 87.
1 9. Michel Foucault, "Society Must Be Defended": Lectures at the College de
France, 1 9 75- 1 9 76 (New York: Picador, 2004), 260.
20. Foucault, Society Defended, 259.
2 1 . Foucault, Society Defended, 246.
22. Foucault, Society Defended, 254.
23. Foucault, Society Defended, 255.
24. It is a lacuna of the work of Arendt, Foucault, and Agamben, however com­
mendable, that it turns to the problems of colonialism-that state of exception par excel­
lence-{)nly as a means for investigating what Arendt and Foucault in Origins of Totali­
tarianism and "Society Must Be Defended, " respectively, call the "boomerang effect" of
colonialism. The problem of colonialism is its Manichean power structure as such, its
sovereigntism as such, not simply its space in recent work as the place from which bio­
power would be re-imported to the United States and Europe.
25. Fanon, Wretched, 8.
26. Fanon, Black Skin, 8.
27. Fanon, Black Skin, 232.
28. Julia Kristeva, Intimate Revolt: The Powers and Limits of Psychoanalysis (New
York: Columbia University Press, 2003), 4-6.
29. Fanon, Wretched, 1 38.
30. Fanon, Wretched, 3 1 5- 1 6, my emphasis.
3 1 . Fanon, Wretched, 3 1 0.
32. Fanon, Black Skin, 1 49.
33. Fanon, Wretched, 14.
34. Fanon, Wretched, 34. For a typical critique of Fanon's view of violence as a cre­
ative force in light of the movements of Martin Luther King, Jr., and Gandhi, see Messay
Kebede, "The Rehabilitation of Violence and the Violence of Rehabilitation: Fanon and
Colonialism," Journal of Black Studies 3 1 , no. 5 (May 2001 ): 539--62. Kebede argues
that beyond self-defense, Fanon's counter-violence is illegitimate. True enough. But so­
vereign violence is also self-legitimating and thus also illegitimate. This is exactly the
spiral of violence that Fanon investigates in The Wretched ofthe Earth.
35. Fanon, Wretched, 40.
36. Fanon, Black Skin, 4-7.
37. Fanon, Wretched, 3 1 .
38. Fanon, Wretched, 45.
39. Fanon, Wretched, 5 1 .
40. Fanon, Wretched, 52.
4 1 . Lewis R. Gordon, Fanon and the Crisis of European Man (New York: Rout­
ledge, 1 995), 1 77.
42. Fanon, Dying Colonialism, 7.
 PART IV

FANON ON

RACISM AND SEXUALITY

 Chapter 7
Decolonizing Selves :
The Subtler Violences of Colonialism and
Racism in Fanon, Said, and Anzaldua

Mohammad H. Tamdgidi

You are forced to come up against yourself. Here we discover the kernel of that
hatred of self which is characteristic of racial conflicts in segregated societies
. . . . Total liberation is that which concerns all sectors of the personality (250).
-Frantz Fanon, The Wretched ofthe Earth ( 1 966)

Thus it took me about fifty years to become accustomed to, or, more exactly, to
feel less uncomfortable with, "Edward," a foolishly English name yoked forci­
bly to the unmistakably Arabic family name Said (3).
-Edward Said, Out ofPlace ( 1 999)

To take the problem of censorship one step further, there's also internal censor­
ship. I 've internalized my mom's voice, the neoconservative right voice, the
morality voice. I ' m always fighting those voices (260).
-Gloria E. Anzaldua,
quoted in Gloria E. Anzaldua: Jnterviews/Entrevistas (2000)

Sociological Re-Imaginations of Colonization

and Decolonization in Fanon, Said, and Anzaldua

How were Frantz Fanon ( 1 925-1 9 6 1 ), Edward Said ( 1 935-2003), and Gloria
Evangelina Anzaldua ( 1 942-2004) personally troubled by colonial and racial
violence in their respective Martinican/African, Palestinian/Arab, and Chica­
na/Mexican regional historical contexts? And how did such personal experi­
ences motivate and explain-and how were they in turn informed by-their
highly visible public intellectual discourses and actions? In this chapter, I ex­
plore the sociological imaginations of colonial and racial violence in the writ­
ings of these three public intellectuals, seeking to identify the theoretical and
1 17
1 18 Mohammad H. Tamdgidi

broader philosophical implications such a study may have for decolonizing

selves and for advancing human emancipatory discourses and practices.
The sociological imagination, C. Wright Mills wrote, "enables us to grasp
history and biography and the relations between the two within society. That is
its task and its promise." 1 He further added, "No social study that does not come
back to the problems of biography, of history, and of their intersections within a
society has completed its intellectual journey."2 Such an imagination would ena­
ble its holder to explore how one's "personal troubles of the milieu" and broader
"public issues of social structure" interrelate. 3 This involves, in Mills' more spe­
cific formulation, how a person' s "inner life" and "external career" on the micro
level are constituted by the present global and even the broader world-historical
social forces and structures at the macro level. Mills was insistent on the need
for adopting such a framework in every sociological inquiry because he believed
that such an approach was already a "major common denominator of our cultur­
al life and its signal feature": it is not merely one quality of mind among the
contemporary range of cultural sensibilities-it is the quality whose wider and
more adroit use offers the promise that all such sensibilities-and in fact human
reason itself-will come to play a greater role in human affairs. 4
Why was the cultivation and application of the sociological imagination so
important for Mills? What difference does it make, theoretically and/or practi­
cally, to pursue such a line of sociological inquiry? In this study, along with its
primary concern with understanding the sociological imaginations of colonial­
ism and racism in the life and works of Fanon, Said, and Anzaldua, I illustrate
the usefulness of a distinction between Newtonian and quantal sociological im­
aginations5 where the "social" is redefined in terms of relations among subatom­
ic selves rather of presumed atomic individuals. I use the term "Newtonian soci­
ology" to denote that still prevalent perspective in sociology that associates
"society" with an ensemble of interacting "individuals" or groups of "individu­
al" actors. In this view, the "individual," possessing a more or less singular self
or self-structure in everyday life except for rare and extreme clinical situations,
is treated as the basic acting "atom" or unit of the broader society. "Individuals"
in this sociological imagination are the equivalent of "bodies," similar to billiard
balls in the Newtonian vision of the universe, bodies whose motions are predict­
able simply on the basis of knowledge of external forces exerted on them. The
Newtonian laws, however, do not take into account the possibility that the pre­
sumed bodies may be self-moving, self-motivating, and self-determining, a re­
sult perhaps of the diversity of forces arising from within the bodies-or that
they may themselves be subjected to inner fragmentation and contradictory inner
forces each of which may also tend to move the body as a whole in one or
another direction.
The "quanta!" vision of matter that emerged later in science confirmed this
other, micro, view of the same universe Newton was trying to capture in his pre­
cisely deterministic macro laws of motion. In the sub-atomic, quanta! world,
things are not as certain as one may suppose. Many strange particles roam
around, being not even "visible" to the most precise scientific instruments; but
 Decolonizing Selves 1 19

their positions and presence are theoretically presumed, and without them there
could really be no tangible body or matter. In the quanta! vision, society is that
of interacting intra-, inter-, and extrapersonal (in relation to nature and the built
environment) selves rather of presumed singular individuals. The study of Fa­
non, Said, and Anzaldua in this chapter illustrates well the complexity of a quan­
ta! vision of their lives where one is confronted not with one Fanon, one Said, or
one Anzaldua, but many selves and voices in them that considerably complicate
their decolonization efforts.
Of particular interest in this study is also to explore how the three public in­
tellectuals' differing discourses on and political attitudes toward colonialism and
racism across their respective regional historical contexts shaped and can be
explained by their particular biographies and the subtler, more intimate and per­
sonal, ways they were troubled by colonial and racial violence in their own
lives. Fanon's views on violence have often been de(con)textualized and thereby
misrepresented in terms of his more explicit advocacy of revolutionary physical
violence in reaction to global racism and colonialism, particularly in the Alge­
rian and African contexts. Said-more ambivalent on the use of physical vi­
olence in the context of the Palestinian nationalist struggles amid the
Arab/Israeli conflict-seems to have been inspired in part by a more intimate
(not cruder and caricatured) and contextualized reading of Fanon's discourse on
revolutionary violence while waging an intellectual struggle against the underly­
ing ideological, especially orientalist, structures of knowledge fueling the
West's colonial and racial violence.
In contrast to both, Anzaldua advocates a different, spiritually activist strat­
egy in the struggle against colonialism and racism centered on the thesis of the
simultaneity of self and global transformations, especially targeting, at the emo­
tional and subconscious level, the dualistic inner structures of knowing, feeling,
and sensing that perpetuate the interpersonal and societal conditions of colonial
and racial oppression and violence. Questions may be raised as to whether An­
zaldua unintentionally rationalizes political impotence by adopting such an inner
strategy for global transformation, neglecting the need for "outward-directed"
action that is presumably indispensable for socio-political transformation. I will
seek to demonstrate that, for Anzaldua, the dualism such a two-fold strategy
implies is the very target of her theoretical and political practice and struggle, a
dualism that along with others is at the root of what causes oppression and vi­
olence, and has hitherto perpetuated the failures to end them.
It is possible to explore the different modes of articulation of the private­
public discourses among public intellectuals in terms of a consideration of how
they may respond to their "celebrity" status, leading some to prioritize the public
discourse and avoid publicizing the preoccupations and interests of their private
lives, in contrast to those who consciously use their private lives as a vehicle for
advancing their public agenda-the latter including cases where the self itself
1 20 Mohammad H. Tamdgidi

becomes marketable as an object for public consumption. The distinction may

also be further complicated in consideration of historical context of the political
culture in which the intellectual has matured. Fanon writes at a time when the
personal was not or was only beginning to be regarded as political, not to men­
tion his untimely early death, leading him not to engage with and leave behind a
major autobiography. Anzaldua writes in the context of a feminist movement
where the personal is consciously regarded as being political, leading her to in­
tentionally choose autobiographical reflection as an important vehicle for social
transformation. And Said finds himself uncomfortably somewhere in between;
autobiography, implicitly and at times explicitly, informs his writings from ex­
ile, but it often serves to illustrate and engage with the public discourse-rather
than itself being regarded as a liberatory practice, as is the case for Anzaldua­
even when he rediscovers the value of autobiographical writing following his
fatal diagnosis of leukemia.
To be sure, the reactions the three intellectuals garnered and continue to re­
ceive have also much to do with the conceptual frameworks used and political
cultures amid which their audiences are themselves embedded. Strong reactions
to Anzaldua's thesis of the simultaneity of self and social transformations, for
instance, may also be regarded as a product of the gendered socio-cultural loca­
tion and continually displaced observation posts of those among her diverse au­
dience. The patterns of how public intellectuals are received, in other words, are
only partly to do with their own private and/or public discourses and actions,
and may have also to do with the observant positioning of us as their audiences,
including the readers of these lines. Transitions from Newtonian to quanta! soci­
ologies, to be introduced later on, and adoption of reflexively relativist outlooks
may also prove fruitful in this area, for they can help to constantly remind us
that the extent of appreciation of the subtleties of colonial and racial violence in
Fanon, Said, and Anzaldua will have also much to do with the extent to which
we as their audiences and readers have experienced, and have become aware of,
the same in our own private and public affairs.
Were the motivations for differences, if warranted, among Fanon, Said, and
Anzaldua in reaction to colonial and racial violence rooted primarily in the re­
gional-historical contexts of their struggles as reflected in their intellectual and
wider public political discourses, or did they arise more (or also) from the more
intimately personal ways each was troubled by and experienced racial and co­
lonial oppression? Are the differences reflective of irreconcilable conceptions of
and attitudes toward colonial and racial oppression, or are they complementary
within a common emancipatory proj ect? And how can we explore these issues
amid a "quanta!" and "uncertain" (rather than Newtonian, predictable, and pre­
judged) conceptual environment that keeps us, as readers, constantly on guard as
being always reflexively implicated in how we come to know, evaluate, and
react to the comparative study at hand?
 Decolonizing Selves 121

The Theory of Violence,

Traveling from Fanon to Said

Edward Said, i n his "Travelling Theory Reconsidered," presents alongside a

reading of Fanon' s The Wretched of the Earth-and of Lukacs, Hegel, and
Adorno, among others-a critique of the "caricatural reduction[ist]" readings of
Fanon, and a useful interpretation of Fanon's arguments regarding violence in
the anticolonial struggle.
Contrasting Fanon's rendering of the dialectic between the colonizers and
the colonized with, on the one hand, that in Lukacs' History and Class Con­
sciousness between the subject and object (as manifested in the relation of the
bourgeoisie and the proletariat in terms of class consciousness), and, on the oth­
er hand, that in Hegel's Phenomenology ofMind between master and slave, Said
points to an important insight in Fanon's thought. Lukacs' and Hegel's theories
of the oppositional dialectic, grounded in a European context, do not travel via
Fanon's mind unchanged, but are significantly transformed and reinterpreted in
the context of the anticolonial struggle. For Fanon, the dialectic of the colonist
and the colonized does not have the same attribute of reciprocity that the sub­
ject-object dialectic of class consciousness of the bourgeoisie and the proletariat,
or that between master and slave, have in the European context. According to
Fanon, in Said's reading, the colonist does not need the affirmation of the colo­
nized for its existence in the colonial context. Here, it is rather based on the pos­
sibility of absolute annihilation of the colonized, of their absolute objectification
and dehumanization, of waging an absolute violence against them: "[h]ere [in
the colonial relationship between races] the master differs basically from the
master described by Hegel. For Hegel there is reciprocity; here the master
laughs at the consciousness of the slave. What he wants from the slave is not
recognition but work."6
Renate Zahar, in her Frantz Fanon: Colonialism and A lienation, had
previously drawn attention to the same discussion of Hegel by Fanon in The
Wretched of the Earth. Zahar and Said, however, seem to have read and
appreciated Fanon differently on this matter. Zahar was cognizant of the extent
to which Fanon drew a sharp contrast between the master-slave (or "noble­
bondsman") dialectic in the European and the colonial contexts; however, in
contrast to Said's agreement with Fanon's observation, Zahar seemed to
question whether the distinction Fanon drew in fact held true to the extent Fanon
envisaged. She had read the difference between Fanon and Hegel mainly in
terms of how in Fanon's view the black slave remains fixated on the white
master, hence preventing the radical transformation of the objective conditions
for oppression. However, Zahar finds that the same pattern may be observed in
Europe: "[t]he question is whether the same does not likewise apply to European
1 22 Mohammad H. Tamdgidi

conditions and whether Hegel's dialectical tum is not only an idealistic one.
Neither did the bourgeoisie in its struggle for emancipation succeed in freeing
itself entirely from feudal structures . . . nor did the proletariat succeed in its
emancipation as the working class." 7 Zahar did not seem to appreciate, in other
words, as Said does in reading Fanon, that the very reciprocity of the master­
slave dialectic is what Fanon regards as being dispensable in the colonial
question, and not its presumably differing nature or extent. 8
According to Said's interpretation of Fanon, it is the sheer crudity of the
oppositional dialectic in the colonial context that renders colonial domination so
brutal and violent, calling in tum for a resistance equally bent on using physical
violence as an absolute survival strategy in self-defense, to prevent total annihi­
lation and dehumanization by the colonist. "No one needs to be reminded that
Fanon's recommended antidote for the cruelties of colonialism is violence,"
Said writes. 9 However, he immediately qualifies this assertion by asking, "does
Fanon, like Lukacs, suggest that the subject-object dialectic can be consum­
mated, transcended, synthesized, and that violence in and of itself is that fulfill­
ment, the dialectical tension resolved by violent upheaval into peace and harmo­
ny?" 1 0 Said's response to the question is clearly negative, and he is keenly aware
of Fanon's consideration that resorting to such absolute violence, as well as the
"national independence" it is supposed to give birth to, while necessary, will by
no means be sufficient for total liberation: "[y]et both expulsion and indepen­
dence belong essentially to the unforgiving dialectic of colonialism, enfolded
within its unpromising script. Thereafter Fanon is at pains to show that the
tensions between colonizer and colonized will not end, since in effect the new
nation will produce a new set of policemen, bureaucrats, merchants to replace
the departed Europeans." l l
Said then continues to note how a careful reading of The Wretched of the
Earth reveals that for Fanon, neither violence, nor nationalism and its con­
sciousness, are sufficient (nor have they, Said adds, historically proven to be)
emancipatory goals. The essential point of The Wretched of the Earth, rather, is
to note how anticolonial struggle must necessarily take up a broader, and more
radical, global human emancipatory dimension in order to succeed. "[I]f natio­
nalism ' is not enriched and deepened by a very rapid transformation into a con­
sciousness of social and political needs, in other words, humanism, it leads up a
2
blind alley, "' Said quotes Fanon as saying. 1
While Said sheds important light on the necessity and the limits of revolu­
tionary physical violence in the anticolonial struggle as envisaged by Fanon, to
his reading of Fanon one can add additional considerations in order to highlight
the historically contingent nature of Fanon's discourse on violence, and the
much subtler dimensions of Fanon's arguments regarding violence in the antico­
lonial struggle.
First, it is important to consider the historically contingent and transient na­
ture of the crude dialectics of colonial opposition Fanon and Said point to in
contrast to the class dialectics of bourgeoisie-proletariat and/or master-slave as
found in the European context. Fanon was writing at a time when anticolonial
 Decolonizing Selves 1 23

wars were predominantly waged against a cruder form of colonialism where the
brute force of colonial domination invited an equally brutal form of anticolonial
struggle. While he was anticipating that the subtler forms of colonialist rule
might emerge in the aftermath of nationalist revolution with the deepening of
capitalist penetration of the Third World, Fanon's prognosis and prescription
reflected the necessities of such forms of struggle as those arising from the earli­
er and cruder forms of colonial domination. But Fanon is not oblivious to the
subtler-and in fact much more effective-forms class and colonial rule may
take in the postrevolutionary period. To detach Fanon's argument for a cruder
form of revolutionary violence pertaining to a particular stage of colonial domi­
nation, and to advocate that for all anticolonial struggles-including those in the
present period when the neocolonial modes of domination are mediated through
the machinery of a capitalist enterprise firmly established in the former colo­
nies-would be an exercise in ahistorical analysis.
Fanon is himself highly aware of both the subtler and cruder forms of do­
mination when he contrasts the conditions in capitalist and colonized countries.
In The Wretched of the Earth, for instance, he makes a distinction between the
subtler forms of class domination in the capitalist societies-where seemingly
invisible lay or clerical educational systems, "moral reflexes handed down from
father to son, the exemplary honesty of workers who are given a medal after
fifty years of good and loyal service," and a multitude of other subtly affective
and behavioral structures help perpetuate the status quo-and the racialized
forms of class rule in the colonies accompanied by brutal, open, direct, and
crude violence. 13 However, the above contrast, and especially the dualistic (or in
Fanon' s often repeated word "Manichean") nature of the antagonism between
the rulers and the ruled in the colonial situation, should be regarded as historical­
ly contingent and transient. In a neocolonized global context when, as antic­
ipated by Fanon himself, the boundaries of the colonizer and the colonized have
become increasingly blurred, the Manichean practice of violence on both sides
would no longer be as effective or practical:

The people who at the beginning of the struggle had adopted the primitive Ma­
nichaeism of the settler-Blacks and Whites, Arabs and Christians-realise as
they go along that it sometimes happens that you get Blacks who are whiter
than Whites and that the fact of having a national flag and the hope of an in­
dependent nation does not always tempt certain strata of the population to give
up their interests and privileges . . . . This discovery is unpleasant, bitter and
sickening: and yet everything seemed to be so simple before: the bad people
were on one side, and the good on the other. The clear, unreal, idyllic light of
the beginning is followed by a semi-darkness that bewilders the senses. 14

This brings up the second reason for significant misunderstandings sur­

rounding Fanon' s argument regarding physical violence in The Wretched of the
1 24 Mohammad H. Tamdgidi

Earth. It has to do with inadequate considerations given to the method of Fa­

non's presentation in the work. The misunderstandings are not dissimilar to the
problems posed when reading Marx's Capital, or even his and Engels' The
Communist Manifesto, given the methods employed therein. In Capital, Marx
begins with an inductive analysis of the commodity form to arrive at his labor
theory of value, and then proceeds in the rest of his work to deduce his theory of
capitalist accumulation. His subsequent method of proceeding from the abstract
to the concrete where, at each step, he adds a new element to the unity of diverse
aspects of his subject matter has led those unfamiliar with his method to take
what he has articulated at a given step in his concretion process as a final state­
ment of his theoretical conception of capital as a whole.
Fanon' s method of presentation in The Wretched of the Earth has a similar
quality to that found in Marx' s Capital, of a careful, step-by-step, progression of
the narrative parallel to the development of the consciousness of those he seeks
to enrage, inflame, invite, motivate, educate, and guide in the course of the anti­
colonial struggle. The Wretched of the Earth is also, in effect, a manifesto of the
damned of the earth in contrast (and perhaps-given the differing revolutionary
potentials attributed to the peasantry, the non-European world, and to masses
versus intellectuals-arguably a challenge) to Marx's Manifesto of the proletar­
ian communist revolution. However, the point here is to note their similar modes
of presentation of the material. To take Fanon' s pronouncements early on in The
Wretched of the Earth regarding the necessity of waging revolutionary physical
violence in reaction to the colonial violence as his last word would be the equiv­
alent of taking Marx' s attribution of a positive historical role to the bourgeoisie
in an earlier section of the Manifesto as a declaration of his total view of what
capitalism is and/or what communism is supposed to accomplish. In both cases,
as in the context of Marx' s method in Capital, one should maintain a keen
awareness of the methodology employed in the presentation of the work.
Here we should also remember that Fanon was writing The Wretched ofthe
Earth during the last months of his life, consumed with a desire and commit­
ment to leave behind a work that can shed light not only on the complexities of
anticolonial struggle at his then-present historical time, but also provide guide­
lines for the later phases of it. Those who contrast Fanon' s first chapter with the
later ones, may find contradictions and inconsistencies in his arguments. How­
ever, in this particular case, the apparent contradictions arising in Fanon' s
thought seem t o be a result not o f inconsistencies i n h i s thought, but o f a careful
and methodical application of a style of writing which aims to take his sympa­
thetic readers from the cruder and "primitive," "Manichean," stages of struggle
in the most immediate present, to the increasingly subtler and more challenging
tasks facing the movement in regard to the post-revolutionary phases of the
struggle. That Fanon ends The Wretched of the Earth with case studies of the
much subtler psychopathological issues afflicting those involved in the struggle,
and ultimately with a call to his comrades to open the horizons of their strug­
gle-beyond the confines of their narrow historical or regional challenges in
favor of appreciating the world-historical nature of the task at hand for global
 Decolonizing Selves 1 25

human emancipation-illustrates the complexity, and in my reading quite pre­

meditated and intentional, method of presentation of the material in The
Wretched of the Earth. One may find fault with Fanon's method of presentation
therein, but it would be unfair not to acknowledge it and not to take it into con­
sideration in assessing the substantive merits of his argument as a whole.
Those who take Fanon's words in the first chapter of The Wretched of the
Earth and transpose them as a universal statement on his part in regard to the
nature of colonial and anticolonial violence run the serious risk not only of mi­
sinterpreting but especially misapplying Fanon's thought under changed histori­
cal times. Fanon's discourse on violence in the later chapters of the book is
highly critical of the limits of revolutionary physical violence as an ultimate
solution to the colonial question. Fanon takes pains to explain how the so-called
criminality of the Algerian is a result of historical and social conditions resulting
from colonial rule. He sheds detailed light, especially in the chapter on "Coloni­
al War and Mental Disorders," on the lasting harms done to the human psyche
by violent conditions of combat on both sides of the opposition-regardless of
how "collectively cathartic" violence may prove to be in the initial phases of the
struggle in expelling the colonizers from the colonies. Here he illustrates how
colonial violence is perpetrated in the inner landscapes of the tortured and the
torturer alike. The Manichean dualism of the colonist and the colonized, as
noted in the beginning of The Wretched of the Earth, has now given way to an
awareness of the immense subtleties of the struggle at hand where one's body is
home to both oppressor and oppressed selves 15--examples, by the way, that are
taken from the midst of the very Manichean historical context with which he
began his work. The journey of the chapters in the book, in other words, has not
been merely one in historical time or stages of struggle, but, logically, in a con­
ceptual spacetime of the here-and-now. 1 6 The outer, socio-political and the in­
ner, psychological dimensions of the anticolonial struggle are subtly intertwined
and for this reason he proposes that the psychological front need not and should
not be postponed, but to be also taken as a point of departure:

The important theoretical problem is that it is necessary at all times and in all
places to make explicit, to demystify, and to harry the insult to mankind that
exists in oneself. There must be no waiting until the nation has produced new
men; there must be no waiting until men are imperceptibly transformed by re­
volutionary processes in perpetual renewal. It is quite true that these two
processes are essential, but consciousness must be helped. 17

The historically contingent and the methodological aspects of Fanon's dis­

course on the necessity of revolutionary physical violence in the anticolonial
struggle, therefore, both need to be taken into consideration when evaluating his
diagnoses and prognoses as well as prescriptions for the illnesses of colonialism
and racism. For Fanon, the crude and sharply dualistic, "Manichean," conditions
1 26 Mohammad H. Tamdgidi

of anticolonial struggle are historically specific, "objective" points of departure

he finds himself and his comrades inevitably facing. The revengeful nature of
the defensive violence of the anticolonial movement; the "criminal" nature of
elements attracted to it in diverse rural, urban, and marginal ("lumpen") sectors
of a society already afflicted with the structural violence of equally crude co­
lonial rule; and the immediate "collectively cathartic" function the revolutionary
violence is supposed to serve in mobilizing and transforming the masses, are all
seen by Fanon not as ends in themselves, but as aspects of what appears to be a
historically imposed struggle that in later stages increasingly proves to be much
subtler and more complex than originally considered.
One may argue that, in fact, the reason why Said finds himself attracted to
Fanon' s thought is because of the complexity he finds in the latter' s acknowl­
edgment of both the cruder and the subtler forms of violence perpetrated by co­
lonialism and racism. But here we should note an important distinction between
the two. Said, coming later, and in a different regional historical context where
the cruder form of U.S.-backed Israeli colonial violence in Palestine has uncha­
racteristically and seemingly asynchronously survived into a neocolonial global
era, provides Said with the hindsight of seeing both the contributions and the
historically contingent nature of Fanon's thought at the same time. Said, weary
not only of the destructive nature of the Israeli policies toward Palestinians in
occupying their lands and in denying their right to self-determination and viable
statehood, is also witness to the bankruptcy and failures of the "national elite"
and the "political leadership" prophetically warned against by Fanon in The
Wretched. What for Fanon, due to his untimely death, was considered more or
less a theoretical possibility in the postrevolutionary period is for Said an actual
fact, but strangely juxtaposed at the same time onto an enduring Manichean duel
in the Israeli-Palestinian struggle amid a global context long overrun elsewhere,
more or less, by the much subtler and organic logic of capitalist neocolonial
oppression.
The violences of colonialism and racism, Said also finds, are much deeper
and subtler than the crude force of physical violence. He does acknowledge the
physical dimension of the struggle at hand when he throws a symbolic stone
against the Israeli colonial rule when visiting his homeland, but devotes much
more of his life ' s work targeting the subtler structures of orientalist ideology
fueling the West's and Israel's colonialist and racist adventures.

The Difference Anzaldua Makes

What distinguishes the works of Gloria E. Anzaldua, the Chicana lesbian femi­
nist and cultural theorist, from both Fanon and Said may also be attributable to
the regional historical context amid which she developed her conceptual archi­
tecture. Fanon was facing a global struggle against colonialism and racism
where the cruder, "Manichean," form of colonialism was predominant. Said
 Decolonizing Selves 1 27

wrote in a unique historical-regional context where the cruder colonialism of

U.S.-backed Israeli occupations in Palestine are asynchronously juxtaposed with
an already emergent, on a global scale, reality of neocolonialism. In contrast,
Anzaldua, living in the United States, confronted and problematized the much
subtler forms of oppression at the heart of an already accomplished and estab­
lished neocolonial matrix.
For Anzaldua, an awareness of the cruder physical colonial borderlands
must give way to the complexities of much subtler "geography of selves" 1 8 bear­
ing class, racial, gender, sexual, and psychic "borderlands" of dualistic thinking,
feeling, and sensing that help perpetuate global colonial and racial oppression
from within. Anzaldua, in other words, takes what Fanon begins The Wretched
of the Earth with in terms of a Manichean duel of the colonist and colonized
worlds and problematizes it as having become internalized at the heart of the
neocolonial and racist structures of oppression. In many ways, for her, it is such
inner Manichean dualisms that lead to the realities of overt violence and war in
the first place. The outer dualisms that explode into cruder physical violence in
particular spaces and times, in other words, are only volcanic eruptions of
world-historically enduring dualistic structures fragmenting the inner realities,
the geographies of selves, of humankind.
This, for Anzaldua, necessitates a different conception of the architecture of
self and social oppression that in turn calls for a different strategy based on the
simultaneity of self and broader social liberation. In other words, what for Fa­
non, given his method of presentation in The Wretched of the Earth, seemingly
becomes separated historically and/or logically as stages of revolution whereby
the Manichean dualism of the colonist and the colonized are dealt with first in
their cruder forms, so as to provide conditions for cultural and psychological
healings later, are transformed in Anzaldua into an alternative mode of trans­
formative practice whereby the order is not simply reversed, but turned into a
liberatory practice of simultaneity in self- and global transformations. Fanon at
times, in Black Skin, White Masks, for instance, gives credence to such practices
of simultaneity of self and social change, when, for instance, he writes: "[ w]hat
emerges then is the need for combined action on the individual and on the
group. As a psychoanalyst, I should help my patient to become conscious of his
unconscious and abandon his attempts at a hallucinatory whitening, but also to
act in the direction of a change in the social structure." 1 9
But note two points here. First, note the outward bend of work on the indi­
vidual and group in contrast to self-work on the part of the individual (or the
group, one may add). It is one thing to work on another individual, as in a psy­
choanalyst-patient relation, and another to work on oneself; for Anzaldua, the
reflexivity of the transformative act is crucial. Second, it is important to note
that Fanon ' s conception in the specific passage above is still dualistic, in the
sense that he does not see the processes of self-knowing and self-transforming
1 28 Mohammad H. Tamdgidi

themselves as processes of social structural understanding and transformation

(and vice versa). This is a crucial distinction between Fanon and Anzaldua,
since for her the process of self-change is, at its own level and in its own magni­
tude, a process of social transformation. Anzaldua's diagnosis and transforma­
tive agenda are based on a different conception of colonial practice, one which
differs from Fanon's favored "sociogenic" or "sociodiagnostic" method where
psychological maladies are deemed to be logical effects of a dualistically con­
ceived society standing apart from the self and shaping it.
In other passages of Black Skin, White Masks Fanon gives the impression of
such dualistic thinking, separating the individual from the society, as if one
stands apart from the other. When critiquing the Adlerian line of argument
regarding the Antillean "psychological" attributes, for instance, Fanon observes:
"[n]ow that we have marked out the Adlerian line of orientation of the Antillean,
our task is to look for its source."2° Fanon continues by noting that,

Here the difficulties begin. In effect, Adler has created a psychology of the in­
dividual. We have just seen that the feeling of inferiority is an Antillean charac­
teristic. It is not just this or that Antillean who embodies the neurotic formation,
but all Antilleans. Antillean society is a neurotic society, a society of "compari­
son." Hence we are driven from the individual back to the social structure. If
there is a taint, it lies not in the "soul" of the individual but rather in that of the
environment. 2 1

The taint is in environment, but not in the soul, in the A but not in the B of
the dialectic, in the whole but not in the part. This is formal logic at work, and
different from a dialectical logic where A and B can be conceived in terms of
the dialectics of both difference and identity, at the same time. In other passages,
however, Fanon himself rejects such crude dualisms of the self and the world: "I
feel in myself a soul as immense as the world, truly a soul as deep as the deepest
of rivers, my chest has the power to expand without limit."22 The latter is much
more akin to Anzaldua' s formulation, "I change myself, I change the world,"23
where the soul and the world are regarded as being twin-born in terms of the
dialectics of part and whole. This, I argue, is what gives distinctiveness to
Anzaldua's transformative strategy based on the simultaneity of self and social
transformations--<:onveying a quanta!, rather than a Newtonian, notion of
society in terms of interactions of sub-atomic selves rather than of presumed
atomic individuals, a notion where predictable hegemonies of the whole over the
part, of the macro over the micro, of the world over the self, break down­
where the explosive powers of minute quanta! self-interactions and realizations
can prove to be world-transformative.
In Anzaldua, colonialism is regarded as simultaneously a social and psycho­
logical process that invites, in tum, the simultaneity of self and social liberatory
strategy. Here are her words:

Right. It's a new colonization of people's psyches, minds, and emotions rather
than a takeover of their homes or their lands like in colonialism. 24
 Decolonizing Selves 1 29

I think you're right. La gente de Tejas, rural, agricultural people, have kept that
link with the land, with a particular place, more so than urban people. Part of it
is due to internal colonialism or neocolonialism, a psychological type of being
taken over. Beginning in the sixteenth century, colonialism was material, it ap­
propriated bodies, lands, resources, religion . . . . Everything was taken over.
Psychologically, that kind of colonization is still going on.25

The struggle is inner: Chicano, indio, American Indian, mojado, mexicano,

immigrant Latino, Anglo in power, working class Anglo, Black, Asian--{)ur
psyches resemble the bordertowns and are populated by the same people. The
struggle has always been inner, and is played out in the outer terrains. Aware­
ness of our situation must come before inner changes, which in turn come be­
fore changes in society. Nothing happens in the "real" world unless it first hap­
pens in the images in our heads.26

My "awakened dreams" are about shifts. Thought shifts, reality shifts, gender
shifts: one person metamorphoses into another in a world where people fly
through the air, heal from mortal wounds. I am playing with my Self, I am
playing with the world's soul, I am the dialogue between my Self and el espiri­
tu del mundo. I change myself, I change the world.27

While, as a Western-educated psychiatrist, Fanon borrows an important

conceptual arsenal for his antiracist and anticolonial praxis from Freud' s
thought-his awareness o f the limits o f the latter i n a Third World context not­
withstanding-Anzaldua is quite flexible in using the spiritual legacy of her
Mexican and Indian ancestors in devising her psychosociological awareness and
liberatory strategy. She is also highly aware of the significance of the subcons­
cious mind in perpetuating the dualistic structures of thinking, feeling, and sens­
ing that in tum make possible the perpetration of colonial and racial oppressions.
She taps into the vast reservoir of spiritual symbols and imageries inherited from
her ancestors to invent new ways and means of infusing emotional catharsis and
transformation in the subconscious at both personal and collective levels, inner
transformations that are simultaneously steps in global transformation.
This may point to an important distinction between Anzaldua on the one
hand, and Fanon and Said, on the other. The latter two, and despite Fanon' s call
for inventing new concepts for human liberation beyond those advanced by Eu­
rope, still legitimate themselves within the frameworks of a secularist, Westem­
informed paradigm. With Anzaldua, it is different. Here, a reconsideration of
Said's purpose in Orienta/ism becomes necessary.
Said's stone thrown at the heart of orientalism reveals much about the sub­
tleties of a looking glass-self logic that has fueled and perpetuated the West's
colonialist and racist aggressions across the world and centuries. 28 To facilitate
such aggressions and to be able to mobilize its own resources for the colonial
quest, the West has fashioned an image of the East, and of the Arab and Islam in
1 30 Mohammad H. Tamdgidi

the particular regional historical context more directly relevant to Said, that
gives legitimacy to its own assumed superiority and civilizing mission across
"others"' lands. For this reason, in Orienta/ism, Said does not find it necessary
to delve into what the "real East" is like, or what the "true Islam" or "Middle
East" or "Arab world" may be, because his purpose is to expose the closed nar­
cissism29 and the self-perpetuating logic of the Western attitude toward the East,
the Middle East, and Islam. The project of exposing these rather much subtler
forms of intellectual and cultural violence that in effect make possible and legi­
timate the perpetration of the cruder forms of colonialist and racist aggression by
the West across the globe seems to be for Said a much more urgent and funda­
mental task to fulfill than becoming personally involved in military campaigns
against the Israeli occupation of Palestine.
However, we need to distinguish between Said's literary and political rheto­
ric and the substantive point he makes in Orienta/ism in regard to the East-West
difference and orientalism. 30 His work is a critique of a particular, that is, orien­
talist, way of seeing, reading, imagining, and subsequently ruling the non­
European, the non-Western, world exacerbated by the political and conjunctural
realities of the post-World War II and especially post-Cold War period. He is
not, in substance, dismissing the East-West cultural difference itself. Said's own
argument needs to be historically contextualized, in other words, to reveal the
severity of his critique of orientalism. His is, at heart, a critique of a particular
way of gazing and imagining the East-West difference, not the denial of the pos­
sibility or reality of a difference itself. His Orienta/ism is not a statement on
what the East of Islam is, but an effort in exposing the imaginary nature of the
orientalist vision of the East, the Arab, and Islam: "[y]et Orienta/ism has in fact
been read and written about in the Arab world as a systematic defense of Islam
and the Arabs, even though I say explicitly in the book that I have no interest in,
much less, capacity for, showing what the true Orient and Islam really are."31
But then he immediately follows this statement in which he confesses to a lack
of interest and capacity for showing the true Orient and Islam with the state­
ment: "[a]ctually I go a great deal further when, very early in the book, I say that
words such as ' Orient' and 'Occident' correspond to no stable reality that exists
as a natural fact. Moreover, all such geographical designations are an odd
combination of the empirical and imaginative."32
These rhetorical claims and counter-claims somewhat obstruct Said's main
purpose in Orienta/ism of primarily critiquing an idea which "derive[s] to a
great extent from the impulse not simply to describe, but also to dominate."33
But in the process of such rhetoric, space is opened not only for an inconsistency
in his argument but also for a misreading of his intentions. 34
Said himself warned his readers, in the concluding chapter of his Represen­
tations of the Intellectual, not to turn creeds and intellectuals into "Gods that
Always Fail." "I am against conversion to and belief in a political god of any
sort," Said continues, "I consider both as unfitting behavior for the intellec­
tual."35 It would be fitting therefore not to turn Said (and Fanon and Anzaldua
for that matter), into gods, for, if not their words, our misreading of their rhetor-
 Decolonizing Selves 131

ic, may lead us to impute certain meanings and intentions to their texts that were
not intended. At other times, however, we must always take into consideration
that Said's and Fanon's own biographies and perspectives-their secularism and
Western upbringing and education, for instance-may have played an important
role in their dismissal of certain aspects of non-Western culture which they may
have considered, for political reasons, unacceptable or indefensible. Those who
insist on historicizing the discourses of public intellectuals such as Said, Fanon,
and Anzaldua, cannot make an exception to historicizing their biographies and
the historical context shaping (and perhaps limiting) their world-views.
Another important difference between Anzaldua on the one hand, and Fa­
non and Said, on the other, in regard to the struggle against colonial and racial
oppression can indeed be found in their differing attitudes toward indigenous
culture and spirituality.
It is true that in many ways, Fanon, Said, and Anzaldua all find agreement
in their questioning of institutionalized religion as often serving colonialist in­
terests as accomplices in oppression. In The Wretched of the Earth, for instance,
Fanon particularly mocks the "tum the other cheek" policy of the church when
arguing for the need to confront the violence of colonialists with the equal force
of anticolonial violence, 36 and Anzaldua is adamant on the oppressive role
played by the Catholic Church: "[r]eligion eliminates all kinds of growth, devel­
opment, and change, and that's why I think any kind of formalized religion is
really bad."37 As a secularist, Said would have likely not quarreled with Fanon
and Anzaldua in regard to the oppressive role played by institutionalized reli­
gion in history.
However, contrary to the ultimately modernist Fanon (who equally regards
with contempt and criticism the mythologies and superstitions inherited from
precolonial society and calls for their abandonment in the revolutionary and
postrevolutionary struggles against colonial racism) and the ultimately modern­
ist Said (whose critique of orientalism subtextually avoids a similar effort to
critically embrace what may be of value in indigenous Islamic or Arab cul­
ture3 8), Anzaldua is flexibly open to the positive role spirituality and traditional
cultural symbols and practices can play in personal and social transformation. In
her interviews, she reiterates the role played by spirituality in her own personal
life and struggles:

But the main spiritual experience has been a very strong sense of a particular
presence. One of the reasons I don't get lonely is because I don't feel I ' m
alone. How can you b e lonely when there's this thing with you? This awareness
was the strength of my rebellion and my ability to cut away from my culture,
from the dominant society. I had a very strong rhythm, a sense of who I was,
and I could turn this presence into a way of shielding myself, a weapon. I didn't
have the money, privilege, body, or knowledge to fight oppression, but I had
this presence, this spirit, this soul. And that was the only way for me to fight-
1 32 Mohammad H. Tamdgidi

through ritual, meditation, affirmation, and strengthening myself. Spirituality is

oppressed people's only weapon and means of protection. Changes in society
only come after that. You know what I mean? If you don't have the spiritual,
whatever changes you make go against you. 39

It is true that for Fanon, speaking particularly of the African context,

"chiefs, caids and witch-doctors" represent the interests of the feudal society in
rural areas that need to be eradicated in the revolutionary struggle against colo­
nialism.40 However, he does not seem to allow space for a positive and useful
role for elements of local culture and traditional spiritual folklore in the antico­
lonial and antiracial struggle-at least not as clearly, explicitly, and self­
consciously as Anzaldua does. 41 At times, he mocks traditional spirituality to
make way for the kind of revolutionary struggle that should really matter:

During the struggle for freedom, a marked alienation from these practices is
observed. The native's back is to the wall, the knife is at his throat (or, more
precisely, the electrodes at his genitals): he will have no more call for his fan­
cies. After centuries of unreality, after having wallowed in the most outlandish
phantoms, at long last the native, gun in hand, stands face to face with the only
forces which contend for his life-the forces of colonialism. And the youth of a
colonised country, growing up in an atmosphere of shot and fire, may well
make a mock of, and does not hesitate to pour scorn upon the zombies of his
ancestors, the horses with two heads, the dead who rise again, and the djinns
who rush into your body while you yawn. The native discovers reality and
transforms it into the pattern of his customs, into the practice of violence and
into his plan for freedom.42

As much as the secularist Said may agree with Fanon's Marx-inspired view
of religion as the opiate of the masses on political grounds, one should not ig­
nore the powerful critique of orientalism, as an ideological strategy serving co­
lonialism, as advanced in Said's work. The broad strokes in caricaturizations of
the East and "traditional" culture can serve a similar purpose in divesting local
cultures from their symbolic means of knowing the self and the world that may
play important (even psychologically cathartic) roles in the anticolonial and anti­
racist struggle. Anzaldua's approach, in contrast, is an open one, where she criti­
cally borrows and transforms the spiritual artifacts and symbols of her indigen­
ous culture as a strategy in favor of self and global transformation.43
As another illustration of the above, where Fanon finds tribalism a liability
in the anticolonial struggle, Anzaldua borrows and invents the concept "New
Tribalism"-imbued with a sense of global solidarity while preserving ethnic
identity and diversity:

We looked for something beyond just nationalism while continuing to connect

to our roots. If we don't find the roots we need we invent them, which is fine
because culture is invented anyway. We have returned to the tribe, but our na­
tionalism is one with a twist. It's no longer the old kind of ''I ' m separated from
this other group because I ' m a Chicana so I therefore don't have anything to do
 Decolonizing Selves 133

with blacks or with Asians or whatever." It's saying, "Yes I belong. I come
from this particular tribe, but I'm open to interacting with these other people." I
call this New Tribalism. It's a kind of mestizaje that allows for connecting with
other ethnic groups and interacting with other cultures and ideas.44

Anzaldua' s notion o f New Tribalism aims t o get across the notion that we
do not need to homogenize humanity in order to save it. This means having re­
spect for cultural difference, cultivating an ability to travel across diversities,
maintaining respect and appreciation for one 's own traditions and at the same
time cultivating awareness, appreciation, and respect for the values and cultures
of the "other." This seems to be at the very heart of what it would take to move
beyond colonial and racialized structures of discourse and social organization:

As I came into feminism and began reading-when I became a lesbian, when I

had a little more time to grow-I realized it wasn't enough to fight, to struggle
for one's nationality; one also had to struggle for one's gender, for one's sexual
preference, for one's class and for those of all people. These issues weren't ad­
dressed in any of the nationalist movements because they struggled for ethnic
survival and, because the male leaders felt threatened by these challenges
women presented, they ignored them.

I read an article by a white guy hostile to my writing and Borderlands in par­

ticular who wrote that I was romanticizing and idealizing the pre-Hispanic cul­
tures. He called this the "New Tribalism." He may have been the first person to
coin the phrase. My tribe has always been the Chicano Nation, but for me, un­
like the majority of Mexican Americans, the indigenous lineage is a major part
of being Chicana. Nationalism was a good thing to seek in the '60s, but in the
'70s it was problematic and in the '80s and '90s it doesn't work. I had to, for
myself, figure out some other term that would describe a more porous na­
tionalism, opened up to other categories of identity.

Existing language is based on the old concepts; we need a language to speak

about the new situations, the new realities. There's no such thing as pure cate­
gories anymore. My concepts of nos/Otras and the New Tribalism are about
disrupting categories. Categories contain, imprison, limit, and keep us from
growing. We have to disrupt those categories and invent new ones. 45

At the end of The Wretched ofthe Earth, Fanon persuasively calls for crea­
tivity and inventiveness, of not blindly following and imitating the ready-made
Western models of development. He writes, "[b]ut if we want humanity to ad­
vance a step further, if we want to bring it up to a different level than that which
Europe has shown it, then we must invent and we must make discoveries. . . .
For Europe, for ourselves and for humanity, comrades, we must tum over a new
leaf, we must work out new concepts, and try to set afoot a new man."46 How
faithful Anzaldua seems to be to this important call and invitation by Fanon, and
1 34 Mohammad H. Tamdgidi

how strange it may be to consider, even if we are wrong in our judgment, the
possibility that at the very same time Fanon was calling for new models of de­
velopment and revolution beyond those borrowed from Europe, his vision car­
ried orientalist elements that broadly eschewed cultural traditions of the very
peasants whose cause he so deeply championed in his short life. Even stranger
would be to note how at the very same time "Said" calls for the dismantling of
the orientalist ideology fueling colonialism and racism, his "Edward" adopts a
contemptuous and belittling attitude toward Eastern culture (see endnote 3 8).
Conversely, how Fanonian Anzaldua is in her inventive anticolonial and an­
tiracism struggles here, and how Saidian it is to resist caricatured and orientalist
images of the East and traditional culture as found in Western dominant and
opposition ideologies, and to be willing to absorb and reinvent one' s indigenous
symbolic heritage in the context of new global social realities.

Violence in the Geographies of Multiple Selves

in Fanon, Said, and Anzaldua

Strangely, w e encounter in the above a Fanon that invites u s t o move beyond

Western models of thinking and acting and to seek creative and radically new
ways of liberating ourselves, and another Fanon that is bound by the Western,
secular, and "scientific" and psychoanalytic, models borrowed from the West.
We similarly encounter a self in Said that radically shatters and critiques orien­
talism, and another self that mocks aspects of traditional Middle Eastern culture.
It seems that both imperial and colonized selves voice themselves, at times un­
consciously, in the geographies of selves of these public intellectuals, at the very
same time and in the same passages they devote to exposing imperialism and
racism.
Even more paradoxical is that all the three intellectuals are vividly aware in
their writings of the multiple natures of their selves and more or less explicate
them in the texture of their writings dealing with public issues and personal
troubles. If they themselves realize how divided they are, what leads us to read
them as if there is one Fanon, one Said, and one Anzaldua speaking in their re­
spective writings?
The divide-and-rule strategies of colonialism and racism, the cruder vi­
olences of colonialism and racism, cannot work without a simultaneous
processing of the subtler violences of social and psychological structures per­
meating divided and alienated geographies of selves. A careful reading of The
Wretched of the Earth reveals that for Fanon the immediate need to counter co­
lonial violence with revolutionary violence serves a broader understanding that
physical violence, even if psychologically cathartic, in and of itself is not the
ultimate solution and, sociogenically, the social structural roots and psychologi­
cal manifestations of the "Manichean" dualism of colonial and revolutionary
anticolonial violence will need to be eventually tackled as a necessary compo-
 Decolonizing Selves 135

nent o f the broader human emancipatory project.

Fanon in fact argues in The Wretched of the Earth that the "brutal manife­
stations" of occupation may well disappear as a matter of colonial policy, in
favor of subtler forms of colonial oppression and violence. He writes, for in­
stance, " [h]istoric examples can be quoted to help the people to see that the
masquerade of giving concessions, and even the mere acceptance of the prin­
ciple of concessions at any price, have been bartered by not a few countries for a
47
servitude that is less blatant but much more complete." While Fanon's resigna­
tion from his psychiatric post and active participation in the Algerian revolution
may best be understood in the context of the evolution of his thought in favor of
the sociogenic tracing of the roots of psychological maladies to socio-political,
economic, and cultural structures of colonial rule, on the one hand, and the ur­
gent need to participate in an objectively imposed violent struggle in self­
defense against colonists, on the other hand, it would be wrong to dismiss his
skepticism that the pursuit of such social activism and revolutionary physical
violence would automatically lead to "total liberation." Despite his revolutionary
social activism, Fanon still maintained a parallel emphasis on the needs for psy­
chological awareness and activism.
Reading Fanon's overt arguments in The Wretched of the Earth for the ne­
cessity of revolutionary violence, therefore, should not distract us from appre­
ciating the minute attention he devotes to the subtleties of the colonial and racial
struggle at hand, for such a misreading would be tantamount to not noticing the
trees for the forest. To see the significance such subtleties of racial oppression
and struggle against it have for Fanon, one needs only to tum to his earlier work
Black Skin, White Masks.
It is difficult for one to read this earlier text and not wonder if Fanon is ac­
tually unmasking himself or, rather, removing his own multiple white masks, as
he delves into and analyses the psyches of his Antillean fellows. "This book is a
clinical study," Fanon writes early on; "Those who recognize themselves in it, I
48
think, will have made a step forward." And he ends, "by way of conclusion,"
with an explicitly self-reflective account of how he should disalienate himself
and those like him. "The situation that I have examined, it is clear by now, is not
a classic one. Scientific objectivity was barred to me, for the alienated, the neu­
rotic, was my brother, my sister, my father."49 Finally, "[i]t is through the effort
to recapture the self and to scrutinize the self, it is through the lasting tensions of
their freedom that men will be able to create the ideal conditions of existence for
a human world . . . . My final prayer: 0 my body, make of me always a man who
questions !" 50 It would be difficult to regard a treatise Fanon intended as an effort
in the "disalienation of the black man" as one from which Fanon himself was
exempted. Given the scholarly and academic traditions of the time, and the inti­
mately personal nature of the issues explored in Black Skin, White Masks, would
it be far-fetched to consider that Fanon was as much psychoanalyzing himself as
1 36 Mohammad H. Tamdgidi

he was analyzing the psyches of"my brother, my sister, my father"?

If violence is broadly defined in terms of what violates human dignity-i.e.,
the human rights to self-determination and creativity-acts of violence aimed at
the physical destruction of bodies may be regarded as constituting only the more
readily visible, overt, and extreme forms of violence. In contrast, the imposition
of societal policies and structures that engender economic, cultural, and political
dependency and oppression as obstacles to human self-determination and crea­
tivity, on the one hand, and the behavioral attitudes that perpetuate such struc­
tural practices and in turn cause personal physical, intellectual, and emotional
injuries in violation of one's right to personal self-determination and creativity,
on the other hand, constitute progressively subtler dimensions of violence.
Fanon' s Black Skin, White Masks, is epigraphed with the Cesairean thought
that "I am talking of millions of men who have been skillfully injected with fear,
51
inferiority complexes, trepidation, servility, despair, abasement." Absent from
the list are any references to the sheer destruction caused by physical violence;
prominent are examples of its subtler, emotional, forms. It is the surfacing,
bringing to conscious awareness the forms of such subtler violences, in other
words, that constitutes the real purpose of Fanon in writing the book. Here, for
instance, is the way Fanon notes how the feelings of inferiority are subtly inter­
nalized via language: "[i]n the Antilles Negro who comes within this study we
find a quest for subtleties, for refinements of language-so many further means
of proving himself that he has measured up to the culture." 52 Nor does the sub­
tlety of the "smile of the black man," to which Fanon's attention is continually
drawn throughout the book escape his attention. 53 Citing how the image of the
smile appears "on every advertisement, on every screen, on every food-product
label," Fanon quotes the anthropologist Geoffrey Gorer in noting that '"the
whites demand that the blacks be always smiling, attentive, and friendly in all
their relationships with them. "'54 "There are ups and downs, all told by a laugh­
ing, good natured, easy-going Negro, a Negro who serves with a smile."55 The
smiles worn by racists are subtly significant too. Comparatively, in regard to the
experiences of the Jewish children just encountering the face of racism, Fanon
writes: "however it comes about, some day they must learn the truth: sometimes
from the smiles of those around them, sometimes from rumor or insult. The later
the discovery, the more violent the shock." 56 I have yet to see a public photo of
Fanon wearing a smile.
In Black Skin, White Masks Fanon speaks of how "[i]n any group of young
men in the Antilles, the one who expresses himself well, who has mastered the
language, is inordinately feared."57 "I am not at all exaggerating:" he adds else­
where, "A white man addressing a Negro behaves exactly like an adult with a
child and starts smirking, whispering, patronizing, cozening. It is not one white
man I have watched, but hundreds."58 It is as if Fanon speaks of the causes of his
own anger: "[t]o speak pidgin to a Negro makes him angry, because he himself
is a pidgin-nigger-talker. But, I will be told, there is no wish, no intention to
anger him. I grant this; but it is just this absence of wish, this lack of interest,
this indifference, this automatic manner of classifying him, imprisoning him,
 Decolonizing Selves 1 37

primitivizing him, decivilizing him, that makes him angry." 59

There is "nothing more exasperating than to be asked," Fanon writes:
"[h]ow long have you been in France? You speak French so well." 60 "To speak a
language is to take on a world, a culture" he adds. "The Antilles Negro who
wants to be white will be the whiter as he gains greater mastery of the cultural
tool that language is . . . . The fact that I had been able to investigate so interest­
ing a problem through the white man's language gave me honorary citizenship,"
Fanon sarcastically remarks. 6 1
Fanon' s exploration of love in a racialized context in Black Skin, White
Masks is equally revealing about what may have confronted him personally as
well. He is angry, using the mulatta Mayotte Capecia as an ideal-type, that the
black woman feels so racially inferior that she abhors falling in love with a black
man, aspiring to wed a white man instead-even though she recognizes that the
white man considers it a natural right of his to sleep with as many women as he
pleases. But when a black man-encountering such an attitude on the part of the
black woman, it may be implied-falls in love with a white woman, it is pre­
sumed to be not due to his own credit for engaging in such a relationship, but
because some romance must have been at work on her part: " [s]ince he is the
master and more simply the male, the white man can allow himself the luxury of
sleeping with many women. This is true in every country and especially in the
colonies. But when a white woman accepts a black man there is automatically a
romantic aspect. It is a giving, not a seizing." 62
For Capecia, according to Fanon, discovering a white lineage in her grand­
mother (rather than a black male ancestor) is a source of racial pride. A white
woman marrying a black man is perceived as marrying "down" whereas a black
woman marrying a white man is perceived as marrying "up." Social pressures
encourage marrying "up," whereas marrying "down" must be a choice, even
against social pressures. A white woman "decides" to marry a black man, whe­
reas the same black man "succeeds" in marrying the white woman.
The complexity of the challenge facing the black man or woman, according
to Fanon, is not that of facing an oppressive other, but one that has become in­
ternalized in the very inner geography of selves in his or her being: "one can
observe in the young Antillean the formation and crystallization of an attitude
and a way of thinking and seeing that are essentially white."63 "White civiliza­
tion and European culture," Fanon writes, "have forced an existential deviation
on the Negro . . . what is often called the black soul is a white man's artifact."64
After all, this thesis is at the heart of the message of his book, as illustrated by
its title Black Skin, White Masks. The oppressive relation is no longer across
white and black bodies. It is internalized between black and white souls, among
black and white selves, between black skin and white masks. This experiencing
of the multiplicity of selves in conflict with one another is also diagnosed psy­
choanalytically in terms of the neurosis of the individual: "[t]he neurotic
138 Mohammad H . Tamdgidi

structure of an individual is simply the elaboration, the formation, the eruption

within the ego, of conflictual clusters arising in part out of the environment and
in part out of the purely personal way in which that individual reacts to these
influences. " 65
"Hence a Negro is forever in combat with his own image." 66 Countering
Mannoni, Fanon insists that the "arrival of the white man in Madagascar shat­
tered not only its horizons but its psychological mechanisms." 67 But the shatter­
ing takes place, for Fanon, even in the simplest of everyday confrontations, say,
in a train station, as illustrated by the incident of the child noticing Fanon:

"Look, a Negro!" It was an external stimulus that flicked over me as I passed

by. I made a tight smile.

"Look, a Negro!" It was true. It amused me. . . .

In the train I was given not one but two, three places. I had already stopped be­
ing amused. It was not that I was finding febrile coordinates in the world. I ex­
isted triply: I occupied space. . . . I was responsible at the same time for my
body, for my race, for my ancestors. 68

Fanon does not abandon his sensitivity to the subtler violences of colonial­
ism and racism when he moves on to write The Wretched ofthe Earth years lat­
er, when on his deathbed. Despite the now broader scope of his investigation of
the violences of colonialism and racism, moving from personal troubles to pub­
lic issues, he still ends his treatise with case studies of the multiple selfhoods
afflicting his tortured and torturing subjects. 69 He comes to insist on seeing the
war as a "total war"-encompassing not only physical and social, but also psy­
chological fronts, involving a diversity of violences, and necessitating a diversi­
ty of liberatory strategies. 70
The consideration of the diversity of the overt and the subtler forms of vi­
olence, therefore, is crucial here, for, in many ways, the more overt forms of
violence may not be explainable, let alone erasable, without serious considera­
tions given to the continued perpetuation of its subtler societal and in­
ter/intrapersonal forms. Karl von Clausewitz may have been correct in pro­
claiming that "war is nothing more than the continuation of politics by other
means"; but politics may as well be regarded as a continuation of economic and
cultural conditions that are, together with the political ones, embodied in the
concrete, intellectual, emotional, and physical behaviors of a multiplicity of
selves constituting specific human actors in everyday/night life.
Said's Out ofPlace: A Memoir (I 999) may also be read as another confron­
tation on the part of its author with orientalism, but now turned inwards. It is one
thing to see how Said exposes orientalism as an ideological fountainhead of co­
lonialism and racism worldwide, and it is another to see how he painfully untan­
gles the fabrics of oriental ism shaping intricate aspects of his own inner life and
biography. Shocking in his narrative is the extent to which Said exposes the
 Decolonizing Selves 1 39

orientalist design of his very name. "Edward" for Said represents a colonial self
and identity imposed on his life, continually in confrontation with an Arab
"Said" that seemingly has "no place" in his genealogy and regional history:

True my mother told me that I had been named Edward after the Prince of
Wales, who cut so fine a figure in 1 935, the year of my birth, and Said was the
name of various uncles and cousins. But the rationale of my name broke down
both when I discovered no grandparents called Said and when I tried to connect
my fancy English name with its Arabic partner. For years, and depending on
the exact circumstances, I would rush past "Edward" and emphasize "Said"; at
other times I would do the reverse, or connect these two to each other so quick­
ly that neither would be clear. The one thing I could not tolerate, but very often
would have to endure, was the disbelieving, and hence undermining, reaction:
Edward? Said?7 1

I t i s quite instructive t o see how Said's "other self' gradually gains strength
to assert itself in confrontation with his imposed colonial and upper class selves.
Several particular episodes seem most illustrative, and subtly revealing of the
extent to which Said felt personally violated and injured. In one event, during
his graduation ceremony at Mount Hermon, he notices his father, having come
all the way from Cairo, carrying a gift in his hands, which he presumes to be one
intended for him:

At this point my father gave me his fruit punch cup to hold and in his characte­
ristically impetuous and untidy way started to tear at the wrapping paper to re­
veal an immense embossed silver plate, the kind that he and my mother must
have commissioned from a Cairo bazaar silversmith. In his best presentational
style he handed it rather pompously to the overjoyed Rubendall. "My wife and
I wanted to give you this in grateful gratitude for what you've done for Ed­
ward." Pause. "In grateful gratitude."72

Said then notes how this very same Rubendall and his colleagues had previ­
ously considered him unfit for the position of either class valedictorian or saluta­
torian, despite his having achieved all the credentials to deserve it (including
having received admissions to both Harvard and Princeton around that time).
Even Fisher, the student who had been selected instead, had expressed surprise
73
at Said ' s having been excluded. Said writes,

Mount Hermon School was primarily white: there were a handful of black stu­
dents, mostly gifted athletes and one rather brilliant musician and intellect,
Randy Peyton, but the faculty was entirely white (or white-masked, as in Alex­
ander's case). Until the Fisher-graduation episode I felt myself to be colorless,
but that forced me to see myself as marginal, non-American, alienated, marked,
just when the politics of the Arab world began to play a greater and greater role
in American life. I sat through the tedious graduation ceremonies in my cap and
1 40 Mohammad H. Tamdgidi

gown with an indifference that bordered on hostility: this was their event, not
mine, even though I was unexpectedly given a biology prize for, I firmly be­
lieve, consolation.74

Another episode relates to Said's involvement--or, rather, noninvolve­

ment-in his father's business. He cites with contempt how his father expected
him to spend long days at his business, simply to be there doing nothing, and yet
required him to stand in line to receive a monthly salary which then had to be
returned to his father later when at home:

SSCo [elder Said's lucrative Standard Stationery Company] was never mine.
He paid me what was then a considerable monthly salary of two hundred Egyp­
tian pounds during that year and insisted that on the last day of each month I
should stand in line with the other employees, sign the book (for tax purposes I
was called "Edward Wadie"), and get my salary in cash. Invariably when I
came home he would very courteously ask me for the money back, saying that
it was a matter of "cash flow," and that I could have whatever money I needed.
"Just ask," he said. And of course I dutifully did, ever in bondage to him. 75

Said also recalls how when young he used to accompany his father to work
in one or another of his chauffeur-driven American cars. Early in the ride, his
father displayed a "domestic mood" and even a smile, but gradually changed in
manner until completely transformed into his businessman self by the time they
arrived at the store: "[b]y the time we reached . . . [it], he was closed to me
completely, and would not answer my questions or acknowledge my presence:
he was transformed into the formidable boss of his business, a figure I came to
dislike and fear because he seemed like a larger and more impersonal version of
the man who supervised my life." 76
Said recalls how when disciplined by his teachers in colonial schools in
Egypt, his parents whom he dearly loved and (in case of his father) also feared,
automatically sided with his teachers and blamed him for not being well­
mannered and obedient. Throughout his memoir, Said continually confronts a
self in him that was treated as being disabled, ashamed of his body, fearful, ti­
mid, infirm and sinful, and having a self displaying a lack of concentration and
77
self-confidence. These were results of an upbringing under a loving but strict
parental discipline that sought to impose a "Victorian design" on Said as the
oldest and the only male child of the family. 78 The father, a self-made, well-to­
do, in Said's term "comprador," Arab businessman proud of identification with
the Western (and especially American) ways, was a mediating force for the
transmission of an imposed colonial identity on Said. Much of his early educa­
tion in British colonial schools was also conducive of a mode of disciplining-at
times physically punishing, violent, and sadistic 79-that experientially intro­
duced the nature of colonial and racial oppression to the unsuspecting young
Said:

Who was this ugly brute to beat me so humiliatingly? And why did I allow my-
 Decolonizing Selves 141

self to be so powerless, so "weak" . . . I knew neither his first name nor any­
thing else about him except that he embodied my first public experience of an
impersonal "discipline." When the incident was brought to my parents' notice
by one of the teachers, my father said to me, "You see, you see how naughty
you're becoming. When will you learn?" and there was not in their tone the
slightest objection to the indecency of the punishment. . . . So I became delin­
quent, the "Edward" of punishable offenses, laziness, littering, who was regu­
larly expected to be caught in some specific unlicensed act and punished by be­
ing given detentions or, as I grew older, a violent slap by a teacher. GPS gave
me my first experience of an organized system set up as a colonial business by
the British. The atmosphere was one of unquestioning assent framed with hate­
ful servility by teachers and students alike. The school was not interesting as a
place of learning but it gave me my first extended contact with colonial authori­
ty in the sheer Englishness of its teachers and many of its students. 80

I n contrast, Anzaldua' s experience of colonial and racial oppression is very

much tied to her experience as a mestiza woman. "For women," she writes, "the
conquest has always been about what happens to their children and about what
happens to their bodies because the first thing the conquistadores did was rape
the Indian women and create the mestizo race." 8 1 The historical identity of dual­
ism, and the lifelong project Anzaldua set herself in overcoming it, is strangely
also expressed in her name:

So that's when I decided that my task was making face, making heart, making
soul, and that it would be a way of connecting. Then my last name, Anzaldua,
is Basque. "An" means "over," or "heaven"; "zal" means "under," or "hell";
and "dua" means "the fusion of the two." So I got my task in this lifetime from
my name. 82

I began to think "Yes, I'm a Chicana but that's not all I am. Yes, I ' m a woman
but that's not all I am. Yes, I ' m a dyke but that doesn't define all of me. Yes, I
come from working class origins, but I'm no longer working class. Yes, I come
from mestizaje, but which parts of that mestizaje get privileged? Only the
Spanish, not the Indian or black." I started to think in terms of mestiza con­
sciousness. What happens to people like me who are in between all of these dif­
ferent categories? What does that do to one's concept of nationalism, of race,
ethnicity, and even gender? I was trying to articulate and create a theory of a
Borderlands existence. 83

For Anzaldua, there will be no end to oppression so long as dualistic think­

ing, feeling, and acting compartmentalize the geography of selves populating
our inner and global landscapes. For her, the Manichean dualisms shaping our
lives, within and without, are the enemy:

The borders and walls that are supposed to keep the undesirable ideas out are
1 42 Mohammad H. Tamdgidi

entrenched habits and patterns of behavior; these habits and patterns are the
enemy within. Rigidity means death. Only by remaining flexible is she able to
stretch the psyche horizontally and vertically. La mestiza constantly has to shift
out of habitual formations; from convergent thinking, analytical reasoning that
tends to use rationality to move toward a single goal (a Western mode), to di­
vergent thinking, characterized by movements away from set patterns and goals
and toward a more whole perspective, one that includes rather than excludes. 84

The work of mestiza consciousness is to break down the subject-object duality

that keeps her a prisoner and to show in the flesh and through the images in her
work how duality is transcended. The answer to the problem between the white
race and the colored, between males and females, lies in healing the split that
originates in the very foundation of our lives, our culture, our languages, our
thoughts. A massive uprooting of dualistic thinking in the individual and col­
lective consciousness is the beginning of a long struggle, but one that could, in
our best hopes, bring us to the end of rape, of violence, of war. 85

Battles of Algiers

Fanon' s major contributions to the study of racism and colonialism and the fight
against them have been those of identification of and struggles against the sub­
tler, especially inter/intrapersonal psychological, forms of violence-Said's and
Anzaldua's work further furnishing deeper and subtler insights into the subject.
Based on their own autobiographical and reflective writings, I argued above
that what especially reinforced the highly visible and committed public dis­
courses and struggles of these three public intellectuals was their sensitivity to
deeply troubling and much subtler personal experiences of racism and colonial­
ism each had endured in their lives. This sensitivity involved becoming aware of
and experiencing an alienated/ing multiply-selved landscape within that accom­
modated both victimhood and perpetration of racial and colonial identities and
practices in oneself Paradoxically, what made them such visible public intellec­
tuals of protest may have been their sensitivity and openness to questioning their
most private and personal social realities within.
It is one thing to witness and be a victim of racial prejudice and colonial
oppression in and by others, and another to realize that one and one' s loved ones
have been turned into perpetrators of, or accomplices in, the same, at times
against oneself. I think it is this much more subtly violent and painful experience
that sheds light on the explosive nature of these intellectuals' public commit­
ments to human emancipation from racial and colonial oppression. The study
8
again points to what I have proposed 6 as a need to move beyond Newtonian and
toward quanta! sociological imaginations whereby the atomic individual units of
sociological analysis and practice are problematized and transcended in favor of
recognizing the strange, subatomic and quanta!, realities of personal and broader
social lives in terms of relationalities of intra/inter/extrapersonal selfhoods.
Such a re-imagined sociological imagination resting on decolonized, non-
 Decolonizing Selves 143

dualistic philosophical foundations may more effectively accommodate the subt­

ler realization that one may be at the same time not only an oppressor and an
oppressed vis-a-vis others, but also an oppressor of oneself-an awakening that
is indispensable for pursuing what Fanon called the "total liberation" of humani­
ty. This brings us back to not only the theoretical but also the practical signific­
ance of cultivating our sociological imaginations of racism and colonialism. For
it is our ever keener abilities to notice and act upon the subtler forms of colonial­
ism and racism in our everyday lives, here and now, within and interpersonal,
that may help foresee and perhaps prevent the need for confronting and engag­
ing with the cruder and dualistic, what Fanon termed "Manichean,'' modes of
violent struggles against injustice and oppression.
A question one may find intriguing in light of the foregoing study is to ask
whether social class is a better predictor of ambivalence towards structures of
7
domination than race or gender. 8 Exploring closely the private lives and
reflections of the three public intellectuals, one may wonder how one can easily
attribute one or another of the three factors to each of these intellectuals
individually. Said was highly aware of the extent to which the internalized
selves of his mother, father, uncle, and teachers shaped his biographical
trajectory; Fanon's writings and reflections are highly populated with
multiplicities of class, racial, and gendered voices of those he encountered in his
short life; and Anzaldua is clearly cognizant of how her mom' s voice,
neoconservative thoughts, and morality populate her inner world, against which
she had to constantly wage battles.
Within a quanta! sociological framework where human agencies are
associated not with presumed atomic "individuals" but sub-atomic selves, class,
race, or gender attributes influencing the behaviors of public intellectuals would
need to be studied in the context of the realities of their multiple selfhoods.
Here, multiple class or racial (or gender) tendencies may be observed to be
populating each "individual" and thereby their behavior may be considered not
as a unitary but as an ensemble of diverse self-agencies that may often co-exist
and engage in conflict with one another. Here, then, the question of predictibility
may best give way to that of ambivalence as being central to the practice of
research, transitioning from considerations for the predictability of ambivalence
to a research interest in the ambivalence and uncertainty of predictability,
treating life-courses as open-ended challenges in creative identity making, rather
than ones bound by social grounding. What appears as "predictable" would then
be interpreted as the realization of one among many trajectories that could have
alternatively happened in the intellectual's life-course. This turning the question
around upon itself may perhaps be another illustration of the difference it makes
to include ourselves in our study, and to reflexively become our own audiences
within.
Fanon may have found it inescapable to be drawn into the battle of Algiers.
1 44 Mohammad H. Tamdgidi

But the ultimate and still enduring battles Fanon, Said, and Anzaldua fought,
and those confronting us today, take place, reflexively, in the tortured geogra­
phies of our racialized and colonized everyday, intra-, inter-, and extrapersonal
selves-where all it takes for one to heal is to reach out to touch an "other," to
overcome the alienating dualism blocking an adequate understanding of our
selves that just happen to reside across multiple bodies. "Why not the quite sim­
ple attempt to touch the other, to feel the other, to explain the other to myself?" 88
I think such subtler "battles of Algiers," still being waged everyday/every­
night within us all, more powerfully capture the heart of Fanon' s idea of total
liberation.

Notes

I thank Lewis R. Gordon and Marnia Lazreg for their kind encouragements and very
thoughtful feedbacks on an earlier version of this chapter. I also appreciate the helpful
comments kindly offered by the editors of this collection, Elizabeth A. Hoppe and Tracey
Nicholls. Any shortcomings are mine, of course.

1 . C. Wright Mills, The Sociological Imagination (New York: Oxford University

Press, [ 1 959] 2000), 6.
2. Mills, Sociological Imagination, 6.
3 . Mills, Sociological Imagination, 8.
4. Mills, Sociological Imagination, 1 4- 1 5 ; italics in the original.
5. For further explication and illustrations of the distinction between Newtonian and
quanta! sociological imaginations, see my writings: "Freire Meets Gurdjieff and Rumi:
Toward the Pedagogy of the Oppressed and Oppressive Selves, Discourse ofSociological
Practice 6, no. 2 (2004): 1 65-85; "Rethinking Sociology: Self, Knowledge, Practice, and
Dialectics in Transitions to Quantum Social Science," Discourse ofSociological Practice
6, no. 1 (2004): 6 1 -8 1 ; "Abu Ghraib as a Microcosm: The Strange Face of Empire as a
Lived Prison," Sociological Spectrum 27, no. 1 (2007): 29-55; '"I Change Myself, I
Change the World' : Anzaldua's Sociological Imagination in Borderlands/La Frontera:
The New Mestiza,"' Humanity & Society 32, no. 4 (2008): 3 1 1-35; "Public Sociology and
the Sociological I magination: Revisiting Burawoy's Sociology Types," Humanity & So­
ciety 32, no. 2 (2008): 1 3 1-43; and "Rethinking Diversity Amid Pedagogical Flexibility:
Fostering the Scholarships of Learning and Teaching of the Sociological Imagination,"
Making Connections: Self-Study & Social Change (New York: Peter Lang Publishing
Group, forthcoming).
6. Frantz Fanon, quoted in Edward W. Said, "Traveling Theory Reconsidered," Re­
thinking Fanon: The Continuing Dialogue (Amherst, NY: Humanity Books, 1 999), 2 1 0.
7. Renate Zahar, Frantz Fanon: Colonialism and Alienation, Concerning Frantz
Fanon 's Political Theory (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1 974), 17.
8. For a discussion of the extent to which Zahar's Marxist perspective may have
influenced her reading of Fanon and the distinction he drew between European class
struggles and those waged in the colonial situation see Fontenot's reading of her and
Gendzier's works. For a similar, earlier critical note on the need to read Zahar in the
context of the Marxist debates at the time, see Malak Zaalouk, "Review of Frantz Fanon:
 Decolonizing Selves 1 45

Colonialism and Alienation," Canadian Journal ofAfrican Studies 9, no. 2 ( 1 975): 364-
66.
9. Said, "Traveling," 209.
1 0 . Said, "Traveling," 209.
1 1 . Said, "Traveling," 2 1 1-12.
1 2. Said, "Traveling," 2 1 2-13.
1 3 . Frantz Fanon, The Wretched ofthe Earth: A Negro Psychoanalyst 's Study ofthe
Problems of Racism and Colonialism in the World Today (New York: Grove Press,
1 966), 3 1 .
14. Fanon, Wretched, 1 1 5 .
1 5 . cf. Mohammad H. Tamdgidi, "Freire Meets Gurdjieff and Rumi," 1 65-85.
1 6. We should remember, though, that logical proximity and succession do not nec­
essarily imply logical identity and simultaneity of the opposites at hand, and the latter
may still be conceived dualistically, in terms of two separate conceptual categories that
dialectically interact with one another. To say that social and psychological factors inte­
ract with and influence one another is one thing, and to regard them as twin-born and
simultaneous in action, is another. This is a crucial point to note, as we shall see later,
when it comes to considering the significant distinction between Fanonian and Anzalduan
conceptualizations of the self- and broader social transformation projects they give birth
to.
1 7. Fanon, Wretched, 246.
1 8. Gloria E. Anzaldua and AnaLouise Keating, eds., This Bridge We Call Home:
Radical Visions for Transformation (New York: Routledge, 2002), 265.
1 9. Frantz Fanon, Black Skin, White Masks (New York: Grove Press, 1 967), 1 00.
20. Fanon, Black Skin, 2 1 3 .
2 1 . Fanon, Black Skin, 2 1 3 .
22. Fanon, Black Skin, 1 40.
23. Gloria E. Anzaldua, Borderlands/la Frontera: The New Mestiza ( San Francisco:
Aunt Lute Books, 1 987), 7 1 .
24. AnaLouise Keating, ed., Gloria E. Anzaldua: Jnterviews/entrevistas (New York:
Routledge, 2000), 2 1 6.
25. Keating, Gloria, 1 84.
26. Anzaldua, Borderlands, 87.
27. Anzaldua, Borderlands, 7 1 .
28. Mohammad H . Tamdgidi, "Orientalist and Liberating Discourses o f East-West
Difference: Revisiting Edward Said and the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam," Discourse of
Sociological Practice 7, nos. 1-2 (2005): 1 87-201 .
29. For a discussion of Derrida's distinction between closed and open narcissism,
see Tamdgidi, "Abu Ghraib as a Microcosm."
30. Tamdgidi, "Orientalist and Liberating Discourses."
3 1 . Edward W. Said, Orienta/ism (New York: Vintage Books, 1 979), 33 1 .
32. Said, Orienta/ism, 3 3 1 .
3 3 . Said, Orienta/ism, 33 1 .
34. cf. Aijaz Ahmad, "Orienta/ism and After," Colonial Discourse and Post-Colo­
nial Theory: A Reader (New York: Columbia University Press, 1 994), 1 62-7 1 .
35. Edward W . Said, Representations ofthe Intellectual (New York: Vintage Books,
1 994), 1 09.
1 46 Mohammad H. Tamdgidi

36. Fanon, Wretched, 53.

37. Anzaldua and Keating, This Bridge, 95, 8-9.
38. Read for instance what Said, an accomplished pianist and admirer of Western
opera and classical music, has to say about his experience attending a concert of Om
Kulthum, the beloved singer of Egypt, the Arab world, and the Middle East (including
many in Iran) in his autobiography Out of Place: A Memoir (New York: Vintage Books,
1 999):
a concert by the singer Om Kulthum that did not begin until nine-thirty and
ended well past midnight, with no breaks at all in a style of singing that I found
horrendously monotonous in its interminable unison melancholy and desperate
mournfulness, like the unending moans and wailing of someone enduring and
extremely long bout of colic. Not only did I comprehend nothing of what she
sang but I could not discern any shape or form in her outpourings, which with a
large orchestra playing along with her in jangling monophony I thought was
both painful and boring. (Said, Out ofPlace, 99)
For a differing opinion on the social significance of Om Kulthum's music and art see
Virginia Danielson, "The Voice of Egypt ": Umm Kulthum, Arabic Song, and Egyptian
Society in the Twentieth Century (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002).
39. Keating, Gloria, 98.
40. Fanon, Black Skin, 98.
4 1 . For a similar critique of Fanon, in defense of Negritude and African Religions in
Africana thought, see Paget Henry's essay "Fanon, African and Afro-Caribbean
Philosophy" in Fanon: A Critical Reader (Oxford: Blackwell, 1 999), 220-43; and his
chapter "The African Philosophical Heritage" in Caliban 's Reason: Introducing Afro­
Caribbean Philosophy (New York: Routledge, 2000), 2 1 -46.
42. Fanon, Black Skin, 46.
43. In personal conversations, Lewis R. Gordon has pointed out that while this
author's observation about Anzaldua's contribution is on target,
there is an empirical sociological reality to deal with today: The rise in
spirituality is also accompanied, globally, by a conservative, pro-capitalist turn
in even subaltern communities. The empirical evidence suggests that however
much spirituality works for Anzaldua, for most it supports a sense of power that
focuses so much on the self that institutional forces of domination and
oppression do not only continue, but also flourish. Perhaps her argument is
suffering from the kinds of problems as the overemphasis on aesthetics: they
push the purpose of the activity out of its context. (personal communication,
December 5, 2007)
Agreeing with Gordon on the first point, I think this trend makes learning from
Anzaldua's life and works in a comparative framework even more important and urgent.
As to the second point regarding the relation of aesthetics and social context, I tend to
read an intimate link between Anzaldua's emphasis on aesthetics and her social
transformative praxis, inspired by her thesis of the simultaneity of self- and global
transformations, central to which is a vision of human agency as a creative act; the
question raised by Gordon is important and worth further exploration.
44. Anzaldua and Keating, This Bridge, 1 85 .
4 5 . Anzaldua and Keating, This Bridge, 2 1 4-1 5.
46. Fanon, Wretched, 255.
47. Fanon, Wretched, 1 1 3.
48. Fanon, Black Skin, 1 4.
 Decolonizing Selves 1 47

49. Fanon, Black Skin, 225.

50. Fanon, Black Skin, 23 1 .
5 1 . Fanon, Black Skin, 9.
52. Fanon, Black Skin, 3 8-39.
53. Fanon, Black Skin, 49, 72, 1 50, 200.
54. Fanon, Black Skin, 50.
5 5 . Fanon, Black Skin, 72.
56. Fanon, Black Skin, 1 50.
57. Fanon, Black Skin, 2 1 .
58. Fanon, Black Skin, 3 1 .
59. Fanon, Black Skin, 32.
60. Fanon, Black Skin, 35.
6 1 . Fanon, Black Skin, 38.
62. Fanon, Black Skin, 46.
63. Fanon, Black Skin, 1 48.
64. Fanon, Black Skin, 1 6.
65. Fanon, Black Skin, 8 1 .
66. Fanon, Black Skin, 1 94.
67. Fanon, Black Skin, 97.
68. Fanon, Black Skin, 1 1 1-12.
69. Fanon, Wretched, 203-5 1 .
70. Fanon, Wretched, 204.
7 1 . Said, Out ofPlace, 3-4.
72. Said, Out ofPlace, 249.
73. Said, Out ofPlace, 247.
74. Said, Out ofPlace, 248.
75. Said, Out ofPlace, 288-89.
76. Said, Out ofPlace, 23.
77. Said, Out ofPlace, 52, 63, 66, 3, 87, 1 72, 46.
78. Said, Out ofPlace, 79.
79. Said, Out ofPlace, 83.
80. Said, Out ofPlace, 42.
8 1 . Keating, Gloria, 1 8 1 .
82. Keating, Gloria, 37.
83. Keating, Gloria, 2 1 5 .
84. Anzaldua, Borderlands,79.
85. Anzaldua, Borderlands, 80.
86. See footnote 5 .
8 7 . I appreciate Marnia Lazreg fo r bringing this important question to m y attention
when reading an earlier version of this chapter.
88. Fanon, Black Skin, 23 1 .
 Chapter 8
Fanon and the Impossibilities of Love
in the Colonial Order

Sokthan Yeng

Psychoanalytic Interpretations

Frantz Fanon believed that "only a psychoanalytic interpretation of the black

problem can lay bare the anomalies of affect that are responsible for the struc­
ture of the complex." 1 He turns to this particular discipline because the black
problem, as he sees it, connects to main themes in psychoanalysis. Questions
such as-how does one' s identity develop? how does one learn to love others
and oneself?-apply to both psychoanalysis and Fanon' s investigation of how
blackness is made into a problem within Western societies. Psychoanalysis is
instrumental in understanding how those who are non-white struggle to find
their identities and self-love in a society where whiteness is the most prized cha­
racteristic and the ultimate goal. Because black men and women are placed in
this particular situation and environment, they suffer from a variety of neuroses.
I will focus on two particular psychopathologies: obsessive neurosis and sibling
rivalry. The first disorder2 is flagged by Fanon as a helpful way to understand
3
how blacks have become alienated in white culture. I explore the second psy­
chopathology because it could explain the tension between non-white men and
women in the colonial order, which is central to Black Skin, White Masks.
To unpack these issues, I will first begin by addressing Freud' s idea of the
obsessive neurosis. 4 I want to show how Freud diagnoses the obsessive neurosis,
what he believes causes this pathological condition, and how these issues can be
resolved. Next, I will elucidate why Fanon believes that his case studies fall into
this category. I will show how Fanon interprets the problems of those discussed
in Black Skin, White Masks along the lines of those suffering from obsessive
neurosis. Last but not least, I endeavor to show how the underlying goal for the
psychoanalyst and philosopher-embodied by Fanon-is to find a path for the
black man and black woman that creates positive subjecthood, self-love, and the
ability to love others. This stands in contrast to a postcolonial order that leads
non-whites to love another' s whiteness rather than the person. Fanon' s sketch of
those who love whiteness also indicates that they see other non-whites more as
1 49
1 50 Sokthan Yeng

threats to the attainment of whiteness than possible lovers. 5 Because many criti­
cal readings of Black Skin, White Masks focus on Fanon' s portrayal of non­
white women, I choose to explore how Fanon's portraits of both men and wom­
en of color can be seen through the lens of sibling rivalry. I argue that the ten­
sion between men and women of color can be likened to the relationship be­
tween siblings who are fighting for the love and acceptance from the one who
has the desired and needed resources. In the case of classic sibling rivalries, sibl­
ings desire the love of the mother and all that comes with it. I want to show that
Fanon' s depictions of men and women of color follow a similar paradigm, if the
colonizer works as a substitute for the mother.
To draw out the similarities and differences between these two psychoana­
lytic readings, I will first begin by explaining the condition of obsessive neurosis
more fully. Freud distinguishes obsessive neurosis from other versions of neuro­
sis according to the level of self-awareness. He states: "[i]n one of those affec­
tions, obsessional neurosis; it [the neurosis] dominates the clinical picture and
the patient' s life as well, and it hardly allows anything else to appear alongside
of it. But in most other cases and forms of neurosis it remains completely un­
conscious, without on that account producing any less important effects." 6 While
neuroses of all sorts can cause a great deal of suffering in a person' s life, the
obsessive neurosis seems to fixate on the problem. In most cases of neurosis, the
neurotic does not know what produces the pain or anxiety but the obsessive neu­
rosis does have an idea of what the cause is. But knowing what creates these
feelings does not seem to solve the problem or help the person resolve the is­
sues. Though the anxiety is not relegated to the realm of the unconscious but
operates on a conscious level, the problem is no less severe. This particular type
of neurosis completely occupies the life and mind of those suffering from it.
They are obsessed with this problem that creates pain and suffering in their
lives; hence, the name.
In the cases that Fanon studies in Black Skin, White Masks, he seems to be
arguing for exactly this kind of scenario. He describes non-whites as being ob­
sessed with whiteness. The desire to be white wholly consumes them. Fanon
seems to propose that it is clear to specific figures such as Mayotte Capecia and
Jean Veneuse (figures I will later discuss in more depth) and more generally to
non-whites living in white culture that the primary goal is that of whiteness. This
may take the form of trying to control one ' s speech so as to pronounce "R's" in
an acceptable fashion, taking on particular professions, or marrying someone
who is white. 7 As obsessive neuroses, these acts bring them closer to being
white and that is the main reason that they are carried out. Fanon lifts, for exam­
ple, texts from Capecia's memoirs to show that marrying a white man had noth­
ing to do with her actual love for him. What she loved was the idea of being a
little bit whiter than she was before she married him. When contemplating why
she loved him, she fixated on certain qualities: his blue eyes, his blond hair, and
his white skin. It was not him that she loved but rather his whiteness that might
eventually rub off on her. 8
 Fanon and the Impossibilities of Love in the Colonial Order 151

Fanon uses autobiographical writings of others to elucidate why women and

men of color are frustrated in their attempt to achieve love. His uneven treatment
of these texts have led feminists, such as Diana Fuss, to ascribe some character
flaws to Fanon himself-namely, that he is a misogynist. Lewis Gordon, on the
other hand, believes Fanon's asymmetrical readings of women and men of color
reflect their different proximity to self-worth in the postcolonial world order
rather than a manifestation of misogynist tendencies. Gordon states:

a male of color is manly the extent to which he is useful, but with an economy
that renders him little more, but often less, useful than the female inhabitants to
a colonizing force that infantilizes and exploits them both, such gender ques­
tioning is incessant. It has been the case everywhere where there is racism. In
the end, then, Fanon was not a misogynist . . . but instead was a man who hated
the role laid out for him as a black male. If the black male was not a man, and
he was a black male, then he, too, was not a man. He desperately wanted to be
a man . . . . Capecia desperately wanted to be something more than a woman.
She wanted to be white. She already knew that she was a woman, but as a
woman of color, she was locked on a scale of desire that sought, above all,
something she lacked. She did not only desire whiteness, but she desired to be
desired, and since she considered whiteness to be most desirable, that is what
she most desired. 9

Gordon suggests Fanon understood that men of color needed, first and foremost,
to reclaim their manhood in order to have value in such a society. Women of
color did not have the same obstacles. Mayotte Capecia 1 0 sought to attain white­
ness because her status as a woman was already secured.
Even if one does not go so far as to claim that Fanon' s work reveals an un­
derlying misogynist attitude, I will argue that it speaks to how colonialism
created feelings of j ealousy in black men towards black women. Not only were
they more highly regarded in white society but they also had a more direct path
to the white man ' s approval. If a woman of color married a white man, she
would be able to attain some sense of worth that only a white man could give
her. In the thinly-veiled autobiography of Rene Maran, we see that the principal
character, Jean Veneuse, is not satisfied by the desire of a French woman to
marry him. He requires that her brother also shows his endorsement of their rela­
tionship and, ultimately, of him. 1 1 Because colonialism invests white men with
the power for determining who is valuable and invaluable, both men and women
of color look to him for a sense of self-worth. This reinforces the infantilization
of colonized people.
The effect of colonialism on intra-racial relationships is dramatic . Not only
are black men and women infantilized but colonialism establishes the idea that
only white love leads to self-worth. I argue, therefore, that the colonial sexual
economy renders the relationship between men and women of color similar to
that of siblings. Men and women of color do not see each other as the most de­
sirable partners because white bodies occupy that space. They instead see each
1 52 Sokthan Yeng

other as rivals in the attempt to gain the attention and recognition of white
men-those who can bolster one's self-esteem. Since women of color are per­
ceived as having an easier time achieving these goals, it is not surprising that
men of color may resent their position of privilege. Although framing the rela­
tionship between men and women of color within the realm of sibling rivalry is
far from ideal, I believe that it can help us to understand the tensions between
black men and women and the position from which Fanon writes about the state
of the colonized.

Black Women, White Men,

and the Rejection of Black Men

In Mayotte Capecia's autobiography, Je suis Martiniquaise, Fanon gives us a

sketch of why a woman of color desires to marry a white man. Although there is
disagreement over the significance of why Fanon chose this manuscript as the
backdrop for his reading and diagnosis of black women, Capecia's story leaves
little room for equivocation about her sentiments. 1 2 Her obj ective is to become
as white as possible or to be in the closest proximity to whiteness. Thus, a white
man becomes the ideal partner. He has the ability to bring her the closest to res­
pectability. While she knows that he cannot fully give her respectability, she
also knows that anyone else will drive her even further from it.
Fanon remarks that he is perturbed by Capecia' s writings. Especially when
she states, "I should have liked to be married, but to a white man. But a woman
of color is never altogether respectable in a white man's eyes. Even when he
loves her. I knew that." 1 3 There is recognition from the Martinican woman that
respectability in a world dominated by whites means becoming white. Though
she is not accepted by the larger population as white, she will be made more
white and more respectable if she can marry a white man. These feelings, how­
ever, are not localized in her. Fanon relays an encounter with a woman of color
that reinforces this point. She professes that everyone has the potential to be
white and for that reason she would not marry a Negro for anything in the
world.14 In short, if the goal is to be in sync with a white world, one needs to not
only try to be as white as possible but also transform the world one lives so that
it is as white as possible. In order to accomplish this task, Capecia needed to not
only embrace white men but also reject black men.
The mission for women of color in such a society is simple. They must do
their best to become part of the white world and avoid slipping back into the
black world. Gordon suggests that "There are two principles that emerge in an
antiblack society. They are to 'be white ! ' and 'avoid blackness ! "' 1 5 Women
from the French Antilles believed that they were invested with a particular pur­
pose; they could make that part the world more white by seeking to find white
partners and deny all others. And even if the white husband leaves, which was
 Fanon and the Impossibilities of Love in the Colonial Order 1 53

the case with Capecia, she will have accomplished something. Gordon remarks
that she will have managed to have the remnants of a little bit of whiteness in
her life. 16
Although the neurotics may be fixated on certain ideas or goals, they may
be less aware of the feelings of guilt or uneasiness linked to their obsession. The
symptoms arising from obsessive neurosis may not be as apparent as the cause
of the pathology. Freud explains that "Even in obsessional neurosis there are
types of patients who are not aware of their sense of guilt, or who only feel it as
a tormenting uneasiness, a kind of anxiety, if they are prevented from carrying
out certain actions." 17 While someone may have a certain sense of guilt or unea­
siness, that person may not necessarily connect it to the cause. Instead, these
unpleasant experiences may be associated with something that lies outside the
obsession.
Mayotte Capecia's obsession with whiteness, for example, expresses itself
through her desire to be the best and high-priced laundress. She also wants to
feel like she belongs, which means entering certain neighborhoods, homes, and
dinner parties. Capecia believed that until she was able to fulfill these acts and
dreams of hers, the feeling of torment would not stop. But, of course, her arrival
at a dinner party in Didier did not ease her anxieties or her torment. It only
caused her to feel more inadequate and uneasy. She described how " [the white]
women kept watching [her] with a condescension that [she] found unbearable." 18
Her sense of guilt, too, seems to just miss the mark. Capecia, like many oth­
er women of color in the Antilles, felt a great duty to whiten the race. 19 She at­
taches guilt to not being able to fully carry out this task. Although she did marry
a Frenchman and even had a child with him, she did not remain married to him.
She could not find a way to keep her white husband and must fight, in his words,
20
"to be worthy of [their son] ." Without the Frenchman by her side, there is no
guarantee that she is worthy of the little bit of whiteness that he has left with her.
She associates her feelings of guilt with the possibility that she does not deserve
a white child. It is not explicitly associated with being black or wanting to be­
come white.
Of course, there is more at stake here than just the color of her skin. A
Freudian reading of Capecia and other neurotics traces guilt and anxiety back to
the super-ego or the "conscience" that dictates what is morally and culturally
acceptable.21 Fanon recognizes that Capecia and other non-whites, both male
and female, become neurotic because black skin is associated with moral and
cultural inferiority. Every time they fall short of whiteness, they feel a sense of
guilt. And because they are not white, they are always doomed to failure. They
seem stuck in a cycle of inferiority and unhappiness. The more they believe that
whiteness is associated with esteem and virtue, the more they come to regard
blackness and themselves as lowly, unimportant, and unworthy.
Freud believed that "a person becomes neurotic because he cannot tolerate
the amount of frustration which society imposes on him in the service of its cul­
tural ideals."22 In this case, Capecia could not deal with the seemingly opposi-
1 54 Sokthan Yeng

tional nature of whiteness and blackness. Being black in a white world was un­
acceptable. It represented all things undesirable. The conflict between the reality
of her skin color and the ideals of society were too much for her to bear. Fanon
points out that she tried to resolve the cultural polarity by making others more
like herself-for instance, by emptying an inkwell over a white boy's head-but
realized that this was futile. The only choice left was to bleach herself.23 She
would try to make herself as white as possible but she could never meet the
standards of white society. Unable to attain whiteness, she would be in a con­
stant state of frustration.
However, Fanon makes it clear that this condition of suffering and diffi­
dence is not inherent to blacks. Only after colonialism do these pathologies be­
come more frequent in Antillean culture. In other words, it is the influence of the
shifting cultural super-ego that has caused non-whites to become neurotic. Freud
notes that the development of the individual and the development of the culture
are always interlocked.24 It is difficult for Capecia, or anyone, to separate herself
from the cultural super-ego. Her ideas about what is acceptable and what is not
are necessarily going to mimic what society and culture believe are good and
bad. But her desire to be accepted also shows that Fanon is correct. Only when
blacks are thrust into a world where whites are privileged do they develop a
sense of inferiority. Before colonialism, the Antillean culture would not have
had such a preference for whiteness. This is not to say that there were no neurot­
ics before the arrival of Europeans. But it does greatly lessen the likelihood that
there is such an obsession with whiteness. The cases of obsession revolving
around the desire to be white dramatically decrease, if they arise at all.
Yet, the symptoms of this particular type of obsessive neurosis do not only
manifest in relationships between blacks and whites. Relationships between
blacks and among non-whites suffer as well. Freud believes that "[t]he neurotic
creates substitutive satisfactions for himself in his symptoms, and these either
cause him suffering in themselves or become sources of suffering for him by
raising difficulties in his relations with his environment and the society he be­
longs to."25 Because it is impossible to become white-which is what someone
like Capecia desires-neurotics try to find ways to be part of the white world
without actually being fully accepted into it. 26 As Fanon points out, the obses­
sion with whiteness and the desire to find a partner who was lighter than the
next caused conflict among non-whites who lived in the community whether it
was in the Antilles or in France. The search for lighter-skinned partners created
hostility and resentment between men and women of color. Fanon gives exam­
ple after example of how those who have light skin hold themselves above those
who have darker skin. This creates an atmosphere where those with darker com­
plexions are not only rejected by colonial whites but also by those within their
own community. 27 Racism against blacks and the idea that blackness was unde­
sirable became even more entrenched in everyday interactions.
In such an environment, people of color were engaged in a battle not just for
respect but also for the survival of the self. Freud commented that "[n]eurosis
 Fanon and the Impossibilities of Love in the Colonial Order 1 55

was regarded as the outcome of a struggle between the interest of self­

preservation and the demands of the libido, a struggle in which the ego had been
victorious but at the price of severe sufferings and renunciations."28 In Freud's
account of neurosis, it seems that everyone regardless of skin color finds them­
selves caught in a conflict between the preservation of the self and the desire to
unite with the community. This desire for union usually shows itself through the
drive of single individuals to join with others to form a family. 29 Each individual
must contend with the opposing instincts of maintaining or even fortifying their
sense of self and uniting with others around them. The complex dynamics that
arise in a colonized land lead men and women of color into a more complicated
conflict. Not only is it more difficult to reach union with and feel like one be­
longs within the community, Fanon suggests that is a greater struggle for people
of color to have a sense of self-let alone strive for self-preservation.

Black Men, White Women,

and the Rejection of Black Women

We have seen now why women of color would not only prefer to be married to
white men but refuse to marry black men. In this next section, I will explore
what drives men of color to not only seek approval from the white world but
also be disdainful about relationships with women of color. Fanon shows that
black men desire to marry white women for the same reason as black women
desire to have white husbands-they believe that validation comes from receiv­
ing white love. On the one hand, it is not so simple as to say that black men de­
sire white wives and, therefore, do not wish to marry black women. On the other
hand, it would be equally unfair to say that black men do not want to marry
black women because black women see them as less worthy husbands than
white men. Because both black men and women believe that the white body is
the most desirable, they act to replicate this norm. It is not only the woman of
color who prefers a white partner. Men of color also resist being in a relation­
ship with black women because of feelings of emasculation. A white woman, to
the contrary, has the ability to replace some of the masculinity they feel they
have lost in the midst of colonialism.
Gordon explains that black men are not seen as men. Because white men
define masculinity, black males are excluded from the category of men. 30 It is
for that reason that Gordon believes asymmetry exists in Fanon's treatment of
black men and black women. While each is considered black, black men have a
greater struggle in trying to re-establish their masculinity. Black men try to se­
cure their manhood through white love and black women try to place themselves
on a higher rung on the ladder of worth through white love. In other words, the
immediate task for black women is to be seen as more white. For black men,
they desperately seek recognition as men.
156 Sokthan Yeng

These sentiments are reflected in Fanon's own work. He writes, "The per­
1
son I love will strengthen me by endorsing my manhood."3 Similar to the wom­
an of color, the man of color looks to white love to legitimize his status as a
man. Fanon continues, "By loving me she proves that I am worthy of white love.
I am loved like a white man."32 Because a white woman has the possibility to
take a white man as her lover but instead chooses to love a black man, this al­
lows the black man to see himself as almost at the same level as a white man.
And since, it is the white man who is fully man, being loved like a white man
also allows for the reclaiming of masculinity.
The woman of color, in contrast, can provoke emotions from the other end
of the spectrum. While the black man has hopes of feeling valorized when he is
in a relationship with a white woman, a relationship with a black woman often
leaves him feeling like less of a man. In the wake of colonialism, the masculinity
of black men has constantly been called into question. Because colonialism dis­
rupts the traditional order of a nation, men of color struggle to define self-worth
as commensurate to usefulness. This is particularly difficult because Western
imperialism has rendered men of color as just a little more useful than women of
color and, often times, less. Although the Martinican culture is matrilineal, the
new order, however, is male-centered. 33 This means that men of color who are
not the center of the household, living under the traditional system, are not sus­
pect. But with the imposition of Westem standards, they are perceived as less
manly. Since the norms have now been changed, the relationship between men
and women of color has also undergone a transformation.
I suggest that this helps to explain why black men desire relationships with
white women more than with black women. When they enter into a relationship
with a black woman, they are reminded that their value is perhaps little more or
little less than that of their black female partner. 34 Rene Maran, through the
voice of his main character Jean Veneuse, relays these sentiments in the doubts
of a black man who finally accepts that a white woman could love him. He
writes:

The majority of them, including those of lighter skin who often go to the ex­
treme of denying both their countries and their mothers, tend to marry in Eu­
rope not so much out of love as for the satisfaction of being the master of the
European woman; and a certain tang of proud revenge enters into this.

And so I wonder whether in my case there is any difference from theirs; wheth­
er, by marrying you, who are a European, I may not appear to be making a
show of contempt for the women of my own race and, above all, to be drawn
on by desire for that white flesh that has been forbidden to us Negroes as long
as white men have ruled the world, so that without my knowledge I am at­
tempting to revenge myself on a European woman for everything that her an­
cestors have inflicted on mine throughout the centuries. 35
 Fanon and the Impossibilities of Love in the Colonial Order 1 57

Although the focus is on how the relationship between the man of color and the
white woman is partially motivated by revenge and anger, Veneuse's character
is clear about how these emotions also exist in relation to women of color. In
trying to cast off his impotence and in order to retaliate against his mother, Ve­
neuse marries a European woman. His relationship with a white woman incorpo­
rates not only an air of conquest of the white woman and the European order but
also the denial of the matrilineal order that made the man of color feel power­
less, worthless, and less than a man.
What we see is that the desire to be white, to have a little bit of whiteness,
and to be recognized in the white world manifests in both black men and wom­
en. And it is this idea that love and validation can only be found by securing a
white lover that contributes to the negation of the notion that honor and respect
can be found in a relationship between blacks. Although it is not widely ac­
cepted that blacks and whites should marry, it is a standard position to believe
that whites are the most valuable partners. It is, therefore, understandable that
blacks might want to marry whites, even if whites do not approve of it. If black
men and women buy into this system, it would seem, then, that the normal bo­
dies/objects of desire are white bodies and not black ones. This connection be­
tween light-skin and life success continues. While expectant white parents are
express great interest in the baby's sex, bell hooks (a decolonization theorist
whose name is spelled using all lowercase letters as a deliberate act of resistance
to power) notes that black parents are more interested in the lightness of the ba­
by's skin. She explains that black parents believe a lighter-skinned child will
have a greater chance of success and be more greatly valued. 36

Sibling Rivalry

Thus far, I have used Fanon's case studies to try to show how a mode of relation
between whites and blacks has created a discourse about how blacks depend
upon whites to give them value. The colonized are likened to infants who need
steering from the more advanced Europeans. In order to justify colonialism, Eu­
ropeans developed and inculcated the notion that theirs represented the zenith of
culture. If non-whites ever had any hopes of improvement, they would have to
do their best to integrate into European culture. Fanon suggests that the struggle
for the little bit of whiteness that was available to colonized men and women
came via the form of interracial marriage. He concludes, however, that the de­
sire for approval in the white world may produce marriages but that does not
necessarily translate into a love relationship. If it is love, it is only a perverse
and imperfect form that hinders the possibility of loving the other person, be­
cause of the emphasis on loving the person's whiteness. 37 This description cer­
tainly fits Fanon's portrait of Capecia and Jean Veneuse, who is recognized as
functioning as a stand-in for Rene Maran and Fanon himself. Being thrust into
1 58 Sokthan Yeng

the European world order, Fanon demonstrates how men and women of color,
alike, attempt to mimic love relationships that they have learned to accept as
meaningful. To find worthy love, people of color must seek out a partner who is
white. He displays how relationships between whites and people of color are
doomed to failure if they are anchored in the love of whiteness and not in the
love for each other.
I suggest that the conflation of love and love of whiteness not only leads to
the inevitable failure of interracial relationships but also operates to make love
between men and women of color more difficult. It is in keeping with the logic
of the colonial economy of love that men and women of color show disdain for
each other because the colonial structure establishes that whites are and should
be the most desired partners. They are not identified and do not identify each
other as suitable partners, since true love-white love-cannot be given by
them. I believe that the colonial order, which reduces men and women of color
to infants seeking the approval of whites, can produce a scenario where people
of color see each other more as brother and sister than possible partners in love.
It is normal that they do not desire each other as lovers but, rather, desire white
lovers, if men and women of color follow the standards set by whites.
Fanon illustrates this point by citing passages from the novel/autobiography
of Rene Maran.

In fact you are like us-you are "us." Your thoughts are ours. You behave as
we behave, as we would behave. You think of yourself-others think of you­
as a Negro? Utterly mistaken! You merely look like one. As for everything
else, you think as a European. And so it is natural that you love as a European.
Since European men love only European women, you can hardly marry anyone
but a woman of the country where you have always lived, a woman of our good
old France, your real and only country. 38

Although Jean Veneuse, has doubts about the propriety of his relationship with a
French woman, his would-be brother-in-law steps in to reassure him that his
desires are normal and right. Veneuse has adapted to white standards to the best
of his abilities. Despite his inability to change his appearance, he thinks and
comports himself like a European. And thinking as a European, he must realize
that the only suitable woman for him would be a French woman. Desiring a
French woman reinforces the idea that he understands what is befitting of a Eu­
ropean man.
Since both men and women of color seek acknowledgment and self-worth,
it would seem to follow that there would be some jealousy if one group believes
that the other has greater access or is more successful in obtaining recognition
from white authorities. However, Joan Riviere notes that "[o ]ne of the most im­
portant varieties of envy in human life, and one we are usually very little aware
of, is the envy we all unconsciously feel to some extent of members of the oppo­
site sex." 39 Feelings of j ealousy and envy are not always problematic or patho-
 Fanon and the Impossibilities of Love in the Colonial Order 159

logical. Riviere believes that these emotions occur quite frequently, even i f they
do not receive the attention they deserve. She explains, "It is only when people
have despaired, at any rate relatively speaking, and abandoned hope of getting
satisfaction or security from the functions and opportunities specifically belong­
ing to their own sex, that they develop an intense and bitter envy of the other."40
While these hostilities are often applied to girls/women and their envy of the
potency of boys/men in life and society,41 I think that the situation of colonized
people could create a situation where boys/men come to envy girls/women be­
cause of their perceived privilege in life and society. Because black females
have a greater access to employment-albeit as servants in white households,
they are seen as having more economic power than black males. 42
Theories about sibling rivalry often explain that children fear that another
child will curb the amount of attention, love, and resources that they would oth­
erwise receive from the parental figure. I believe the theory of sibling rivalry
could shed some light on the tensions between men and women of color, if we
understand that white males can function as the mother figure because they con­
trol the distribution of resources. Sibling rivalry centers on the mother because
she is the one who holds and doles out the resources-namely breast milk-that
the child desires. Freud explains that sibling rivalry begins when a child believes
that "the mother could not or would not give the child any more milk because
she needed the nourishment for the new arrival."43 Because the mother's milk is
understood to be crucial to the survival of a child and in limited quantity, the
child is angered at the thought that there is another who would snatch away his
chances of sustenance. 44 We see that the mother is important because she is in­
timately connected to the means of the child's survival.
In the case of colonialism, I suggest that the white man can stand in for the
mother. Because he holds the key to validation in the white world, he is the one
who has access to the resources that men and women of color desire-white
approval. Capecia longed to be the wife of French man because it meant that she
would be recognized as gaining the attention of a white man. Veneuse would not
marry his French fiancee unless her brother gave them his approval. Fanon proc­
laims that "Jean Veneuse needs authorization. It is essential that some white
man say to him, ' Take my sister. "'45 In both cases, the white man represents the
one who can give the love and approval necessary for life to go on. This is as
much the case with a black man as it is with a black woman. Maran portrays
Veneuse as a man who believes it impossible to exist without love46 but it is not
necessarily the love of the white woman he seeks. He will only receive her love
if it is reinforced and affirmed by her brother, a white male. So although it is not
the mother's milk, the recognition of worthiness by the white man is similar in
status. It is what makes life livable for colonized people.
1 60 Sokthan Yeng

The Possibility of Love

The logic behind Fanon 's work, as explained by Gordon, may then not equate to
misogyny as many feminists have charged. However, it does give hints to some
existing tension between men and women of color. If Gordon is correct in laying
out Fanon's motives, it seems that there may be some jealousy toward women of
color on the part of men of color. The sexual economy based on whiteness helps
to establish sibling rivalry between black men and women. Since validating love
can only be given by whites, relationships between blacks seem to fall short of
that goal. I argued that relationships between men and women of color could
resemble that of brothers and sisters in the struggle to gain recognition from
white males. Because it has been engrained in black men and women that only
white love has any real value, they are also conditioned into thinking of each
other less in terms of love relationships. They are more like siblings trying to
edge out the other in terms of white affection. Because they are more highly
regarded than their male counterparts, women of color can be targets of resent­
ment.47 If Fanon recognizes that women of color are in a more privileged posi­
tion than men of color, it may not be surprising that he calls attention to it or that
his writings manifest some negative feelings because of the disparate situation
of black men in relation to black women.
Although men and women of color must fight to belong even to the human
community, Fanon states that "the black is not a man. There is a zone of nonbe­
ing."48 Because humanity seems to be a realm only for whites, blacks have no
place in it. And if Western philosophy posits that only humans can have a sense
of self, then people of color also do not have a sense of self. For Fanon, the
sense of not being human and not having a sense of self are connected. The
struggle for people of color is directly related to their ability to find an identity
that places them in the human category. Men and women of color must break
from the idea that only whites can be considered fully human. A barrier to a
deconstruction of this particular idea of humanity is precisely the desire to marry
or unite sexually with someone who has light skin.
The problem, as Fanon sees it, is that the struggle for identity and self­
preservation are rooted in the devaluation of blackness. Furthermore, this strug­
gle for non-whites has real and practical applications. Fanon notes that many
women from Martinique openly acknowledge that they want to whiten the
lands. 49 In other words, they want to get rid of blackness. If they achieve this
aim, there will be no more blacks. Blacks and non-whites will not have a place
in humanity. Blackness will be bred out of humanity. In this hostile atmosphere,
it is easy to see why non-whites struggle with the notion of self-preservation and
ultimately, their own self-identity. The push for self-preservation is weakened
through the notions that they should not be preserved and that they could only
achieve humanity and a sense of self through whiteness. There is a paradox.
Blacks and non-whites can only gain a sense of self and identity by destroying
 Fanon and the Impossibilities of Love in the Colonial Order 161

themselves. Only with the complete absorption o f blackness into whiteness can
they have an identity that is worthy of self-preservation.

Notes

1 . Frantz Fanon, Black Skin, White Masks (New York: Grove Press, 1 967), I 0.
2. It is important to also mention that neurosis is not exclusive to blacks or non­
whites living in European culture. Fanon notes that European families will also turn out
about 30 percent of the neurotics living in Western society (Fanon, Black Skin, 48).
3. Fanon, Black Skin, 60.
4. I begin with Freud not only because he is thought to be the father of psychoanaly­
sis but also because Fanon often makes use of Freud's theories.
5. Along with his extended case study of Mayotte Capecia, Fanon describes the case
of a mulatto woman named Nini who cannot believe the gall of a Negro who asked her to
marry him (Fanon, Black Skin, 55).
6. Sigmund Freud, Civilization and Its Discontents (New York: W. W. Norton &
Co., [ 1 930] 1 989), 98.
7. Fanon, Black Skin, 2 1 .
8. Fanon, Black Skin, 69-70.
9. Lewis R. Gordon, "Through the Zone of Nonbeing: A Reading of Black Skin,
White Masks in Celebration of Fanon's Eightieth Birthday," The C.L.R. James Journal
I I , no. I (Summer 2005): 7.
1 0. She serves as one of the principal case studies for Fanon's analysis of women of
color.
I I . Fanon, Black Skin, 69.
12. Diana Fuss believes that Fanon elides the fact that many colonized women were
taken to be property of the European man. Omitting that discourse leads Fuss to the cha­
racterization that women of color willingly submitted to the needs of their masters and
Fanon does not recognize that many women of color were forced into being sexual ob­
jects for white men (Fuss "Interior Colonies: Frantz Fanon and the Politics of Identifica­
tion," Diacritics 24, nos.2-3 (Summer-Fall I 994), 3 I ). Lewis Gordon, on the other hand,
argues that the use of Capecia's autobiography reflects not so much what Fanon thought
was a worthy text to describe the life of black women but what the French thought was a
valuable and credible tale of women of color and their admiration of the white race (Gor­
don, "Zone of Nonbeing," 9).
1 3 . Fanon, Black Skin, 42.
14. Fanon, Black Skin, 48.
1 5 . Gordon, "Zone of Nonbeing," I I .
1 6. Gordon, "Zone of Nonbeing," 1 3 .
I 7 . Freud, Civilization, 99.
I 8. Fanon, Black Skin, 43.
1 9. Fanon, Black Skin, 47.
20. Fanon, Black Skin, 52.
2 1 . Freud, Civilization, 99.
22. Freud, Civilization, 39.
23. Fanon, Black Skin, 45.
24. Freud, Civilization, 1 07.
1 62 Sokthan Yeng

25. Freud, Civilization, 64.

26. Although Fanon cites Capecia as believing that "it is understood that one is
white above a certain financial level" (Fanon, Black Skin, 43), this does not appear to be
the case. Despite the fact that she is married to a wealthy Frenchman and that she surely
makes a comfortable living through her business as a laundress, she still feels out of place
among whites. The example of Michael Jackson also challenges this sentiment. All the
riches and wealth that he accumulated could not make him white. Even if he was at a
time more accepted by white culture, he could not be made white by his economic situa­
tion. He, instead, turned to literally bleaching his skin to become white. The irony is that
this tactic to make himself whiter did not give him greater access to the white communi­
ty; it only made him a target of ridicule.
27. Even within Fanon's family, prejudices about the supremacy of lighter skin ex­
isted. His maternal grandparents disapproved of their daughter marrying a man of darker
color. See "Remembering Fanon," Race and History: A Community of Volunteers Com­
mitted to Social Development, www.raceandhistory.com/Historians/frantz_fanon.htm.
28. Freud, Civilization, 76.
29. Freud, Civilization, 8 1 .
30. Gordon, "Zone of Nonbeing," 7.
3 I . In Gordon' s translation of this passage, he uses the word virility rather than
manhood. I use the translation of Charles Lam Markmann because it reinforces more
explicitly the desire to recoup manliness (Fanon, Black Skin, 41 ).
32. Fanon, Black Skin, 63.
33. Gordon, "Zone of Nonbeing," 7.
34. bell hooks argues that the impact of colonialism in love relationships continues
to be detrimental and not only for blacks. She believes that love relationships are often
marred by colonial power dynamics. Because black men feel powerless in the world, they
tend to try to claim power by dominating their female partners. Black women are also
complicit. When they are in a relationship with a man who is open to a negotiation of
desires, the woman comes to doubt either her desirability or his manliness. This has the
same unfortunate consequence as Fanon keenly pointed out-love is perverted (bell
hooks, Outlaw Culture: Resisting Representations (New York: Routledge, 1 994), 1 09-
1 3).
35. This quote is taken from Fanon's Black Skin, White Masks, 70. See also Rene
Maran, Un homme pareil aux autres (Paris: Editions Arc-en-Ciel, 1 947).
36. hooks, Outlaw Culture, 1 74.
37. Fanon, Black Skin, 42.
38. Fanon, Black Skin, 68.
39. Joan Riviere, "Hate, Greed and Aggression" in Love, Hate and Reparation (New
York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1 964), 30.
40. Riviere, "Hate, Greed and Aggression," 32-3 3 .
4 1 . Riviere makes this claim in relation t o both physical and intellectual powers at­
tributed to men and seen as lacking in women (Riviere, "Hate, Greed and Aggression,"
3 1 ).
42. Contextualizing the dynamic between men and women of color, bell hooks ex­
plains how the domination of black women and children by black men is tied to the histo­
ry of white domination of black people in America (hooks, Outlaw Culture, 1 85).
43. Sigmund Freud, New Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis (New York: W.
W. Norton & Co., [ 1 933] 1 965), 204.
 Fanon and the Impossibilities of Love in the Colonial Order 1 63

44. Frances Tustin, Autism and Childhood Psychosis (London: Hogarth, 1 972), 1 77-
78.
45. Fanon, Black Skin, 68.
46. Fanon, Black Skin, 67.
47. The situation is exacerbated by the fact that the white man is continuing to give
her the abilities to be more successful than the man of color. Not only is she recognized
as part of the human order but she has a greater opportunity to earn a living than the man
of color. In other words, she also has more economic resources available to her in the
white world than the man of color.
48. Fanon, Black Skin, 8.
49. It should also be noted that there are resistances to this desire to whiten the
lands. Black pride and "black power" movements such as noirisme!Negritude and pan­
Africanism have developed in the Caribbean, including Martinique.
 PART Y

BEYOND

COLONIZATION
 Chapter 9
Hegel, Fanon, and the Problem of Negativity
in the Postcolonial

Ferit Giiven

Toward the end of his essay "The Negro and Recognition" in Black Skin, White
Masks, 1 Farron takes up the question of "the negro" in terms of Hegel 's concep­
tion of self-consciousness in the Phenomenology of Spirit. For Farron, Hegel's
master-slave dialectic does not seem to work in the context of the relationship
between the white master and black slave, mainly because of the lack of conflict
and struggle. The general thrust of Fanon's 1 952 essay questions the universal
structures under which Adlerian psychology seem to operate. Indeed throughout
Black Skin, White Masks, Fanon emphasizes the particularity of the colonial
structure, undermining the universalistic assumptions of psychology and psy­
chiatry, and I would argue philosophy itself. The relationship between the self
and the other is not an abstract universal structure, but has particular configura­
tion in the colonial context. In the second part of his essay "The Negro and Rec­
ognition," entitled "The Negro and Hegel," Fanon turns to Hegel and argues that
the absolute reciprocity assumed under the Hegelian master-slave dialectic is not
fulfilled in a particular colonial structure, because specifically "the French Ne­
gro" did not win his freedom through struggle, did not fight for it, and that im­
plies a particular existential structure. This general appeal to the necessity of
struggle seems to configure Fanon's later insistence that violence is necessary
for decolonization. However, there is a significant difference in Fanon's seem­
ing appeal to struggle in Black Skin, White Masks and his later conception of
violence in The Wretched of the Earth. I will argue in this chapter that Fanon's
later formulation of violence has an explicit dimension of resistance to Hegel
unlike his earlier insistence of a necessary opposition in the sense of Hegelian
dialectic.
In Black Skin, White Masks, the implication of Fanon's thesis seems to be
that the Hegelian master-slave dialectic would have been a framework from
which the colonial structure could have been understood if a conflict or struggle
could have been inserted into the relationship. According to this implication,
Hegelian dialectic would have been the proper framework to understand the
colonial structure, as well as how one could move from the colonial structure to

1 67
1 68 Ferit Gtiven

a truly postcolonial state. However, even though such an interpretation might be

viable in the context of this chapter, it is neither an accurate understanding of
Fanon's conception of struggle, which he later transforms into the question of
violence, nor does it do justice to Fanon's implicit conceptual criticism of He­
gel's dialectic.
In order to understand the scope and radicality of Fanon' s critique of He­
gel's dialectic, it is necessary to articulate the problem that Hegelian dialectic
poses for postcolonial thinking. In order to do that, I will tum to a discussion of
Hegel's conception of subjectivity. 2
Hegel seems to offer a promising alternative to the traditional atomistic sub­
ject constituting itself in terms of excluding and dominating its other(s). For
Hegel subjectivity is not the constitution of a static unity relating to its outside,
but the dialectical movement of self-relating negativity. In other words, for He­
gel, the constitution of the subject does not take place in terms of the exclusion
and oppression of, but in terms of a dialectical relationship, to its other. Slavoj
Zifok emphasizes the significance of the distinction between the two different
models of subjectivity. In Contingency, Hegemony and Solidarity, Z ifok raises
the question whether "the ' subject' is simply the result of the process of subjec­
tivization, of interpellation, of performatively assuming some ' fixed subject­
position,' or does the Lacanian notion of the 'barred subject' (and the German
Idealist notion of the subject as self-relating negativity) also pose an alternative
to traditional identitarian-substantialist metaphysics?"3 Unlike the first model,
which is primarily a Cartesian one, and presupposes the presence of a subject
prior to its interaction with the other, the second model that Zifok describes,
which is mainly Hegelian, seems to provide a more effective perspective
through which one can understand the relationship between the colonizer and
the colonized. Hegel's philosophy seems to provide a better model for the co­
lonial relationship by shifting the locus of subjectivity from the individual with­
in the community to the shape of movement of the universal in its unity. Conse­
quently, there is neither a human subject, nor a subject-like society that would
provide the unity that is necessary to solve the problem of political community.
The unity of the political community is to be found in the shape of the move­
ment of the universal, that is, in the dialectic.
Therefore, Hegel seems to offer a promising alternative for rethinking the
question of the subject in a postcolonial context. In the Phenomenology ofSpirit,
Hegel defines the subject as a simple negativity. 4 The specific power of the He­
gelian subject is precisely that it can incorporate, lend a voice to, and accommo­
date its other, not in terms of a static confrontation, but as a dialectical move­
ment that becomes the other, goes through negativity and comes back to itself
and thereby constitutes the very subjectivity of the subject. This model of sub­
jectivity initially appears to be useful in rethinking the relation between the
Western master and the colonized slave not as a fixed structure, but as mutual
recognition and interdependent constitution.
However, this appearance is misleading. In fact, the Hegelian model of the
subject is precisely the source of problems in thinking the relation between self
 Hegel, Fanon, and the Problem of Negativity in the Postcolonial 1 69

and other in general, and between the colonizer and the colonized in particular.
Not only does Hegel attribute the possibility of this dialectical movement to a
particular kind of subject (European), but also his model of subjectivity itself
reduces difference to opposition, and thereby obviates (in advance) the possibili­
ty of rethinking a difference between the colonizer and the colonized.
In what follows I will try to justify this observation through a discussion of
Hegel's understanding of race as articulated in the third section of the Enzyk­
lopadie der philosophischen Wissenschaften im Grundrisse.5 I will argue that
Hegel's understanding of race in the context of the natural soul allows one to
draw inferences concerning his general conception of subj ectivity. The nature of
dialectic as discussed in the Encyclopaedia reflects the general difficulties of
Hegel's notion of subjectivity and consequently its problematic utilization in the
context of the postcolonial subject. One can object to my claim that Hegel's
understanding of race reflects general difficulties in his philosophy by insisting
that Hegel's belief in the superiority of the European subject can be regarded as
merely a historical prejudice. One may argue, as Hegelians often do, that He­
gel ' s specific beliefs concerning the European subject do not diminish the value
of his model of subjectivity, which in fact requires the sublation of these beliefs.
I am mindful of this possible defense of Hegelian philosophy. However, I con­
tend that Hegel ' s dialectical method does not allow for a simple differentiation
between various stages of thinking. Thus, one should not take for granted that
Hegel's general philosophical method can be distinguished from its articulation
in specific contexts. Such a separation does not do justice to Hegel's insight that
philosophical reflection cannot be understood independently of its process of
production. Hence, the discussion of the natural soul is not simply a stage that
Hegel leaves behind when he moves to more general concerns of the spirit. The
natural soul is spirit in that it is a moment within the dialectical movement of
spirit.
Hegel's discussion of race appears in sections 3 93 and 3 94 of the Encyclo­
paedia of the Philosophical Sciences. The first two sections of the Encyclopae­
dia are the Philosophy of Nature and The Science of Logic. The third section,
The Philosophy of Spirit, is divided into three sections: subjective spirit, objec­
tive spirit, and absolute spirit. Subjective spirit is further divided into Anthro­
pology, Phenomenology, and Psychology. Anthropology has three stages: the
natural soul, the feeling soul, and the actual soul. The discussion of race occurs
within the context of the natural soul. From these divisions one gets the impres­
sion that the question of race is treated and concluded, and when Hegel gets to
the discussion of spirit, he left the domain of race behind. I believe that this is a
very problematic and in fact a "non-Hegelian" way of reading Hegel's text. The
natural soul is not different, and separated from the spirit, but it is a moment of
the same dialectical movement. There are three dimensions that define Hegel's
discussion in these sections: 1 ) geography, and the impact of the physical envi­
ronment and climate on the human soul, 2) religious differences, and 3) national
differences.
1 70 Ferit Giiven

Through concentrating on these differences, I will try to demonstrate that

rather than providing an alternative model for postcolonial subjectivity, Hegel's
notion of the subject grounds the colonial model itself.
Hegel starts his discussion of race in terms of the question of variety. As he
makes explicit later in the text, his discussion is profoundly influenced by Jo­
hann Friedrich Blumenbach's work On the Natural Variety of Mankind. The
question of difference is framed in terms of geographical location: "[a]ccording
to the concrete differences of the terrestrial globe, the general planetary life of
the nature-governed spirit specializes itself and breaks up into several nature­
governed spirits which, on the whole, give expression to the nature of the geo­
graphical continents and constitute the diversities of race."6 The question of
race, therefore, is one of diversity, and the domain within which these differenc­
es are to be explained is geography. Yet the question of diversity has a very spe­
cific meaning. For example, the question as to whether all races come from the
same pair is not a significant question because it is purely historical. This ques­
tion is concerned with justifying the superiority of one race over another if sev­
eral races were to descend from several couples. However, Hegel claims that the
human is in itself (an sich) rational, and this provides the possibility for the
equality of rights for all human beings. Yet this does not mean that human races
are equal. There is a philosophical rather than historical way of justifying the
superiority of one race over others.
Racial differences are connected with the geographical differences, but they
are not to be considered accidental or coincidental; rather they are necessary
(notwendig) and essential differences. As Hegel puts it, racial differences are
"the essential ones, the differences of the universal spirit in nature as determined
by the concept."7 Hence, the differences of races are "essential" moments in the
dialectical movement of spirit and not simply differences that can be cast aside
as accidents of nature. It is true that these differences are within the natural soul
(natiirliche Seele) and not the spirit, yet spirit is nothing but a movement, one of
whose stages is the natural soul. Therefore, race is not a category that is left be­
hind once one moves to subjective spirit, but race is a constituent of spirit by
being a moment in its formation. How exactly do the differences of race relate to
geographical differences? And what is the significance of this discussion for
Hegel's understanding of subjectivity?
Geographically, the earth is divided into the old and the new. Yet this divi­
sion is not significant for Hegel because it depends on the knowledge of conti­
nents in world history. What concerns him here instead is the determinateness,
which constitutes the distinctive character of the continents. Hegel claims that
the old world is separated into three continents that are not separated, but con­
nected to each other by the Mediterranean, namely, Africa, Asia, and Europe.

The Old World is distinguished from America by the fact that it is sundered in­
to specific differences, into three continents, of which one, Africa taken as a
whole, appears as a land of mass belonging to a compact unity, as lofty moun­
tain range shutting off the coast; the second, Asia presents the antithesis of
 Hegel, Fanon, and the Problem of Negativity in the Postcolonial 171

highlands and great valleys irrigated b y broad rivers; while the third, Europe,
reveals the unity of the undifferentiated unity of Africa and the unmediated an­
tithesis of Asia, since in it mountain and valley are not juxtaposed as great
halves of the continent as in Asia, but everywhere penetrate each other. 8

Here Hegel does not simply betray his prejudice for European superiority. In
fact it is difficult to assume immediately that Europe is superior. The European
privilege in geography is a privilege that is reflected in the European race and
the European spirit. Geographically, Europe reveals the unity of Asia and Afri­
ca; that is, Europe contains all the possibly positive characteristics of Asia, and
Africa. The European privilege is its capacity to assimilate and incorporate that
which is different from it. Hegel makes this claim in his discussion of the "men­
tal and spiritual characteristics" of the races. The European is one of two sides
of the Caucasian race, the other being the Western Asiatic. Similar to Europe as
a continent, Europeans "have for their principle and character the concrete uni­
versal, self-determining thought."9 This manifests itself in the Christian God
"who contains difference within himself' as opposed to the sublimity and ab­
10
stract universality of the God of the other Caucasian race: Mohammedans.
What is most problematic about Hegel's discussion is neither the fact that he
relegates all other races to an inferior status, nor his quite racist remarks about
other races, nor even a disturbing conflation of racial, religious, spiritual, and
physical characteristics, but rather the specific status he attributes to Europeans.

The European spirit opposes the world to itself, makes it free of it, but in tum
annuls this opposition, takes its Other, the manifold, back to itself, into its uni­
tary nature. In Europe, therefore, there prevails this infinite thirst for know­
ledge, which is alien to other races. The European is interested in the world, he
wants to know it, to make this Other confronting him his own, to bring to view
the genus, law, universal, thought, the inner rationality, in the particular forms
of the world. 1 1

This attitude i s not simply theoretical, but also practical. Hegel claims "as in the
theoretical, so too in the practical sphere, the European mind strives to make
manifest the unity between itself and the outer world. It subdues the outer world
with an energy which has ensured for it the mastery of the world." 12 Hence the
superiority of Europe is not so much an unchanging assumption on Hegel's part.
A European may be mistaken in his or her beliefs, just as Hegel may be mista­
ken in his patent racism and Eurocentricism. Yet the significant and hence most
insidious characteristic of Europe is the ability to recognize and overcome these
mistakes. Hegel's beliefs on race, therefore, already include its own defense.
One can oppose these beliefs and try to correct them, but one has to do this from
an already European perspective. In other words, the critique of Europe is al­
ready an European activity. Unlike other races, for example, the Arabs who
"still everywhere exhibit the same characteristics as related to them in the re­
motest times," Europe is capable of change and diversity. 13 This is a natural yet
essential difference between Europeans and Arabs. "The unchangeableness of
1 72 Ferit Giiven

climate, of the whole character of the country in which a nation has its perma­
nent abode, contributes to the unchangeableness of the national character." 14
This unchangeableness does not apply to European nations, which not only
change, but also have a variety that is not found in other races. As Hegel puts it:
"but now as regards the specific difference of the various national minds, in the
African race this is insignificant in the highest degree; even in the Asiatic proper
it is much less apparent than in Europeans, in whom spirit first emerges from its
abstract universality to display the wealth of its particular forms." 15 Hegel con­
tinues by discussing several European nations, including Italians, Spaniards,
French, and finally Germans, in terms of spiritual characteristics. Evidently as
Hegel himself admits "[the Germans] usually think of themselves last, either
from modesty or because one saves the best till the end." 16 Yet the fact that the
Germans come last is no accident, but speaks to a spiritual superiority, which is
theoretically justified in terms of the dialectical movement of thinking. In other
words, the superiority of Europe (and finally of the German) is justified on the
basis of the same theoretical principle that justifies dialectical thinking. Europe
is capable of change, unlike the East that remains the same throughout history. 1 7
It may appear to be easy to indict Hegel on the basis of what he says about
the races. It is even easier to point out his prejudices. The difficult task is to see
the implications of his comments on race for his philosophy, specifically for his
conception of dialectic and the subjectivity conceptualized within this dialectic.
The structure that characterizes the European spirit is one that configures He­
gel 's entire philosophy, including his phenomenology and logic. Hence one
must criticize these not in order to dismiss them or do away with Hegel's phi­
losophy in general, but rather to see the potential problems with the best possible
expression of rationality. A dismissal of Hegel's philosophy would be easy if
Hegel's conception of subjectivity were not the culmination, and perhaps the
most penetrating formulation of European philosophy, which also provides the
basis for colonialism and other forms of racism.
The logic of colonial power is grounded in a Hegelian logic concerning the
relationship between the self and the other. Colonial power not only excludes,
and oppresses its other directly, but also defines and creates its other, lending it a
specific voice. Colonial power not only defines the possibilities of existence
within itself, but also delimits the possibilities of opposing, and breaking free
from the colonial system. Even more strongly, the power of the colonial system
today has to be measured by its ability to incorporate its other, precisely and
insidiously situating it in terms of possible opposition to the system. The critique
of the colonial subject that one has to develop through Farron, therefore, does
not attempt to condemn the human subject, but tries to expose the inherent co­
lonial dimensions of philosophical subjectivity.
Intellectually as well as politically the postcolonial subject faces the neces­
sity of deconstructing the Hegelian logic and the burden of undermining his no­
tion of subj ectivity. This is philosophically necessary because of the impossibili­
ty of surviving (both theoretically and politically) within a colonial structure of
oppositionality. It is true that the project of decolonization has been most effec-
 Hegel, Fanon, and the Problem of Negativity in the Postcolonial 1 73

tive when it remains within the colonial logic or when it itself is most "coloni­
al." One can observe this fact in the context of nationalism, as a necessary di­
18
mension of decolonization. However, physical occupation is only one dimen­
sion of colonialism. The colonial model still dominates the relationship between
the West and its other(s), and undermines any alternative ways of understanding
postcolonial as well as metropolitan cultures.
Consequently, Hegel's conception of the subject, far from providing a poss­
ible framework to think a postcolonial notion of subjectivity, is the most sophis­
ticated, most unavoidable, and hence most insidious expression of colonialism,
not so much in what it says, but in what it allows its other to say. The structure
of colonial power is grounded in a Hegelian logic concerning the relationship
between the self and the other. Colonial power not only excludes and directly
oppresses its other (or at least this is not the most insidious dimension of coloni­
al thinking), but also defines its other, lends it a specific voice, creates its other.
It not only defines the possibilities of its existence within a colonial power rela­
tion, but also delimits the possibility of opposing, and breaking free from the
colonial system. Even more strongly, the power of the colonial system today has
to be measured by its ability to incorporate its other, precisely and insidiously
situating it in terms of possible opposition to the system. My critique of the co­
lonial subject, therefore, does not attempt to condemn the human subject, but
tries to expose the inherent colonial dimensions of Hegelian (perhaps the most
refined version of modern European) philosophical subjectivity.
In light of this conceptual problem Hegelian dialectic poses, Fanon inter­
prets the colonial structure in a way which interrupts the dialectic that inevitably
renders the colonized inferior even in and after decolonization. Fanon' s concept
of struggle in Black Skin, White Masks does not resist the Hegelian dialectic, but
rather affirms its operation. However, when Fanon conceptualizes the idea of
violence in The Wretched of the Earth, he is much more conscious of the neces­
sity of interrupting the Hegelian dialectic in the colonial context. Hence Fanon's
notion of violence should not simply be read as a physical violence (which it
surely is), but an attempt to characterize the violence of the dialectic process in
the colonial context. Therefore, to interrupt the violence of colonialism (or ra­
ther neocolonialism) Fanon appeals to the necessity of violence. It would be a
mistake to interpret Fanon as condoning violence in a straightforward way. Fa­
non sees violence as an existential interruption of Hegelian dialectic in the co­
lonial context. In what follows, I will try to demonstrate this point by first re­
turning briefly to Black Skin, White Masks, and then concentrating on The
Wretched of the Earth.
To characterize the conceptual difficulties of Hegelian dialectic for colo­
nialism in the context of his discussion of race is particularly revealing, because
the connection between race and colonialism, while historically documented, is
not conceptually articulated. Fanon's analysis of race in Black Skin, White
Masks is pertinent for this connection because Fanon does not simply concep­
tualize racism in terms of a state of mind, or of an individual emotional hatred,
as it seems to be in the contemporary Western societies. For Fanon, the problem
1 74 Ferit Gilven

of racism is a structural question. Indeed it is one and the same problem as colo­
nialism. Any discussion of racism independent of this colonial context is an ab­
straction and misses the structural aspects of racism, reducing it to an individual
problem of emotions and fears. This mistake motivates Fanon to move from an
individualistic subject-based reading of Hegel to a structural interpretation of the
dialectics of racism that requires the interruption of such dialectical movement.
Hence, in The Wretched of the Earth, Fanon employs the term "violence" not
only to characterize the very real impact of colonialism, but also to imagine the
possibility of interrupting colonialism that continues through dialectical subla­
tions into neocolonialism and postcolonialism.
As Lewis Gordon observes, Fanon's conception of violence has been the
19
"core concern for many commentators." Like Gordon I am not going to reflect
on this scholarship at length, however, there is a good reason why some seventy
pages of Fanon's corpus on violence constitutes such a great concern for scho­
lars. For the left-wing academics it functions at two registers: Fanon provides
the "radical language" that academic discourse lacks and gives the appearance
of radicality to the discourse that reflects on his theory of violence. Since the
colonial structure itself is violent, it is inevitable that decolonization also has to
be violent to a certain degree. On the other hand, there is a complementary reac­
tion to this theory of violence, because academic discourse tends to use this ap­
peal to violence as an unacceptable strategy and consequently a useful foil to
reject Fanon's version of the call for decolonization. Lewis Gordon is correct
when he states that the question concerns whether "the mediation involved in
transition from colonialism to postcolonialism could ever be non-violent."20
Gordon states that his answer (presumably "no") is both famous and infamous.
Rather than assessing whether one should inevitably agree with Fanon, or will­
fully reject him, we need to understand Fanon's conception of violence precisely
in the context of "mediation." Fanon employs the notion of violence in the con­
text of mediation, but not in order to achieve a Hegelian sublation where the
colonizer and the colonized are unified at a higher level of political conscious­
ness. This is perhaps one of the most difficult aspects of Fanon's thinking, be­
cause he senses that a Hegelian sublation is bound to create a neocolonialism,
however violent it may be. Violence in and of itself does not guarantee radical
break with colonial structure at all. This is the reason why Fanon employs a
counter-Hegelian language (not the opposite ! ) in The Wretched ofthe Earth that
he did not in Black Skin, White Masks. In The Wretched of the Earth, he is in­
deed very clear about his resistance to Hegel: "[t]he "native" sector is not com­
plementary to the European sector. The two confront each other, but not in the
service of a higher unity. Governed by a purely Aristotelian logic, they follow
the dictates of mutual exclusion: There is no conciliation possible, one of them
is superfluous."21 While he is invoking Aristotelian logic, he is resisting the He­
gelian one. The colonizer and the colonized do confront each other but not for a
higher unity, because Fanon is aware of the fact that such a unity is always al­
ready circumvented by the language of the colonizer as I tried to make clear in
my discussion of Hegel's conception of race. Hegelian dialectic necessarily pri-
 Hegel, Fanon, and the Problem of Negativity in the Postcolonial 1 75

vileges the same over the other, not because Hegel himself thought this privilege
politically, but rather because Hegelian dialectic is a conceptually colonizing
discourse; it demonstrates the sense in which a certain conception of reason can
be colonizing. Fanon writes: "[ c]hallenging the colonial world is not a rational
confrontation of viewpoints. It is not a discourse on the universal, but the impas­
sioned claim by the colonized that their world is fundamentally different."22 Fa­
non's claim that decolonization is not a rational confrontation does not mean, as
it might have implied in Black Skin, White Masks, that there is need for a violent
struggle for decolonization, a kind of Hegelian "dismemberment" that would
lead to mediation. For Fanon violence and rational confrontation are not neces­
sarily opposed to each other given the Hegelian problematic of a neocolonial
universalistic assimilation. It is possible to be violent and rational at the same
time. What needs to be interrupted, and this is precisely what Fanon implies by
violence, is the movement of Hegelian dialectic, which moves colonialism into
new form(s) of neocolonialism through sublation. Hence, the conceptual inter­
ruption of the Hegelian dialectic is vital for the process of decolonization, which
in Derrida's terms is "interminable."23

Notes

I . Frantz Fanon, Black Skin, White Masks (New York: Grove Press, 1 967), 2 1 0-22.
2. What follows is a discussion of Hegel's conception of subjectivity in the context
of his discussion of race. A modified version of this discussion has been published as
Giiven, "Hegel and the Dialectic of Racism," Proceedings of The Twenty-First World
Congress of Philosophy, Volume 2: Social and Political Philosophy (Istanbul: Philoso­
phy Documentation Center, 2003).
3. Judith Butler, Ernesto Laclau, and Slavoj Z izek, Contingency, Hegemony and So­
lidarity (London: Verso, 2000), 9.
4. G.W.F. Hegel, Phanomenologie des Geistes, Volume 3 Werke in zwanzig Banden
(Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp, 1 986), translated as Phenomenology of Spirit (Oxford: Cla­
rendon Press, 1 977), I 0.
5. G.W.F. Hegel, Enzyklopiidie der philosophischen Wissenschaflen im Grundrisse,
Dritter Tei!, Die Philosophie des Geistes Mit den miindlichen Zusiitzen, Werke 1 0 (Frank­
furt a.M.: Suhrkamp, [ 1 830] 1 970); Hegel 's Philosophy of Mind: Part Three of the En­
cyclopaedia of the Philosophical Sciences, together with the Zusiitze in Boumann's Text
(Oxford: Clarendon Press, [ 1 845] 1 97 1 ).
6. Hegel, Encyclopaedia, 40.
7. Hegel, Encyclopaedia, 46.
8. Hegel, Encyclopaedia, 4 1 .
9. Hegel, Encyclopaedia, 4 1 .
1 0. Hegel, Encyclopaedia, 41-42.
1 1 . Hegel, Encyclopaedia, 45.
12. Hegel, Encyclopaedia, 45.
1 3 . Hegel, Encyclopaedia, 46.
14. Hegel, Encyclopaedia, 46.
1 5. Hegel, Encyclopaedia, 47.
1 76 Ferit Gtiven

16. Hegel, Encyclopaedia, 50.

I 7. Hegel's conviction here speaks to one of the most fundamental characteristics of
Orientalism, namely that Orientals (specifically Arabs) are seen as possessing an un­
changing Platonic essence. See Edward W. Said, Orienta/ism (New York: Vintage
Books, I 979).
1 8. Fanon recognizes the significance of the role of nationalism in the process of de­
colonization when he writes in the opening sentence of The Wretched of the Earth: "Na­
tional Liberation, national reawakening, the restoration of the nation to the people or
Commonwealth, whatever the name used, whatever the latest expression, decolonization
is always a violent event." Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth (New York: Grove
Press, I 963), I .
1 9. Lewis R. Gordon, Fanon and the Crisis of European Man (New York: Rout-
ledge, I 995), 68.
20. Gordon, Fanon and the Crisis, 69.
2 1 . Fanon, Wretched, 4.
22. Fanon, Wretched, 6.
23. Jacques Derrida, "The Crisis in the Teaching of Philosophy," Who 's Afraid of
Philosophy? (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2002), 103.
 Chapter 1 0
Tourism as Racism :
Fanon and the Vestiges of Colonialism

Elizabeth A. Hoppe

While the Wretched ofthe Earth argues for the necessity ofrevolution, Frantz Fa­
non also recognizes its potential downside. The main threat is that the revolution
will not be revolutionary enough, and the end result could very well be a continua­
tion of colonialism, albeit with the formerly colonized people in power. In order to
overcome colonialism, the colonized must go beyond a simple replacement of the
European structure. The new nations need economic structures that aid in creating
countries truly independent ofthe former colonizers. In the 1 960s many thought that
tourism would be one of the ways to help shape the new economies and allow the
people to gain autonomy. 1 However, while the hope was that tourism would stimu­
late economic growth, Fanon was already well aware of its limitations. In this chap­
ter I will develop Fanon's account of the problems associated with tourism that in
tum reveals its racist elements. I will also explore the possibility of redefining tour­
ism in order for it to move beyond its colonial tendencies. One should keep in mind
that because tourism is a complex field, for the purposes ofthis chapter, I will focus
mainly on the type of tourism Fanon critiques: that of the colonial powers visiting
locations that were once colonized.
One question is why many experts thought tourism would be such a positive
element in the development of formerly colonized countries. According to Malcolm
Crick, "tourism was represented as an easy option for development because it relied
largely on natural resources already in place---e.g., sand, sun, friendly people-and
therefore required no vast capital outlays for infrastructure."2 However, as Crick
points out, some of the developing countries embraced tourism without adequately
assessing its feasibility. In addition there was "little planning to integrate tourism
into national development more generally."3 While tourism does not require a strain
on a nation's capital, as Fanon himselfalready recognized in 1 96 1 , the local people
do not benefit from the industry either. This key issue will be discussed more fully
in the following sections.

1 77
178 Elizabeth A. Hoppe

The Colonizer' s Attitude toward the Colonized

During the colonial era, the attitude ofthe colonizer toward the colonized was defi­
nitely not one of equality. Raymond Betts, in Decolonization, claims that "the Eu­
ropeans in the colonial territories remained socially and geographically separated
from the indigenous peoples, and therefore seldom engaged a meeting ofminds."4
We will later see that this point relates to attitudes of the tourist toward the local
person, especially regarding packaged tours. Discussing the years between World
War I and World War II, Betts claims that the administrators and anthropologists
were "concerned with living among but standing apart from the peoples they offi­
cially encountered."5 He then mentions some of the popular terms to describe the
colonized, such as childlike, primitive, superstitious, and irresponsible. Because of
these characterizations, the colonized people were viewed as inferior to the "more
cultured" Europeans. As Betts argues,

even the history itself was European : discoveries and explorations came from
without and with them came the assumption that the "modern" phase of history
was initiated by the Europeans. "Pre-colonial" was a popular adjective for "be­
fore," and it frequently contained the assumption ofthe rudimentary and the primi­
tive. More than one author went so far as to assert that African history began with
the arrival of the Europeans. 6

This commentary on the colonial period helps describe the binary opposition that
existed between colonizer and colonized, an opposition that I will later show con­
tinues to be played out in the tourist industry.
But well before Betts' account was published, Fanon was acutely aware of the
treatment of the colonized people. In his speech "Racism and Culture" Fanon con­
tends that the native culture is not eradicated by colonialism. Rather, "this culture,
once living and open to the future, becomes closed, fixed in the colonial status,
caught in the yoke of oppression."7 In this system, the colonizer sets up institutions
that may at first appear to pay respect to the native tradition, such as employing
local administrators. However, rather than allowing for the development of the na­
tive culture, Fanon claims that the colonizer's behavior "betrays a determination to
objectify, to confine, to imprison, to harden."8 Exoticism is a key to understanding
this problem. As Fanon describes it, "[exoticism] allows no cultural confrontation.
There is on the one hand a culture in which qualities of dynamism, of growth, of
depth can be recognized. As against this, we find characteristics, curiosities, things,
never a structure."9 The notion of the exotic native is one of the ways in which a
people's culture is not taken seriously, and thus it ends up being denigrated rather
than uplifted. Perhaps more importantly, the local people are treated as things rather
than human beings. For example, it is common for tourists traveling to Hawaii to
attend a luau. The "native" Hawaiians provide entertainment for the tourists who
want an authentic experience. The website Adventuremaui.com, states that "the
Wailele Polynesian Luau at the Westin Maui Resort and Spa has been designed to
 Tourism as Racism 1 79

bring traditional and authentic dances, songs[,] and colorful costumes to visitors to
our island. Guests will embark on a vibrant and exciting journey to the Polynesian
Islands where dance was considered not just as a form of entertainment, but as a
means of telling stories." 10 Of course this authentic experience takes place at the
Westin with a "premium" open bar and a family style, four course dinner "just like
II
in the olden days." This contemporary example reveals that the objectification of
12
the exotic native continues to hold sway, even within the fifty United States.

Tourism as Racism

In the Wretched ofthe Earth, Fanon addresses the possible pitfalls that may arise in
the move from colonialism to liberation. In particular he examines the problem of
the national bourgeoisie who do not necessarily understand (or want to understand)
the plight of their people. As Fanon states, "the unpreparedness of the elite, the lack
of practical ties between them and the masses, their apathy, and yes, their cowardice
at the crucial moment in the struggle, are the cause of tragic trials and tribula­
tions. " 13 Not only are the bourgeoisie unprepared to help mobilize the masses, but
also, they are apathetic to the average person's interests because of their focus on
assuming the roles of the former colonists. One may want to ask why they would
associate with the former colonizers more than their own people. While Fanon finds
that this elite class is underdeveloped in part due to its small numbers, perhaps more
importantly, possessing "neither industrialists nor financiers," its "economic clout is
practically zero." 14 Because of this lack, the members ofthe elite class do not have a
clue about the nation's economy since it "has always developed outside their con­
trol." 15 As Fanon contends, "its vocation is not to transform the nation but prosaical­
ly serve as a conveyor belt for capitalism." 16 Thus, Fanon finds that a hedonistic
mentality leads the national bourgeoisie to imitate the West. This group is thereby
unable to associate with the rest ofthe population and cannot assess the issues from
a national perspective.
This scenario paves the way for the problem with tourism. According to Fanon,
"in its decadent aspect the national bourgeoisie gets considerable help from the
Western bourgeoisies who happen to be tourists enamored of exoticism, hunting[,]
and casinos." 17 Even after the revolutionary period in which a nation gains indepen­
dence, the national elite often continue to cater to the wealthy Europeans. Under the
name of tourism "the bourgeoisie establishes holiday resorts and playgrounds for
entertaining the Western bourgeoisie." 18 Tourism in tum does not help the nation's
economy, but rather it becomes part of an economic structure that mostly benefits
the former colonial powers. As Fanon contends, "the national bourgeoisie assumes
the role of manager for the companies of the West and turns its country virtually
19
into a bordello for Europe." Based on Fanon's commentary, one can see the signi­
ficance of tourism insofar as it is a sign that the colonized people have not really
1 80 Elizabeth A. Hoppe

been liberated. 20 As Fanon points out, "we only have to look at what has happened
in Latin America if we want proof of the way the ex-colonized bourgeoisie can be
transformed into 'party' organizer. The casinos in Havana and Mexico City, the
beaches of Rio, Copacabana, and Acapulco, the young Brazilian and Mexican girls,
the thirteen-year-old mestizas, are the scars of the depravation of the national bour­
geoisie."2 1 Fanon's critique of tourism reveals that the local elite are partly to blame
for the exploitation of their own people.
However, he demonstrates that the fault lies with the West as well. In describ­
ing the tourist industry in Latin America, Fanon states, "U.S. businessmen, banking
magnates, and technocrats jet 'down to the tropics,' and for a week to ten days wal­
low in the sweet depravity of their private 'reserves. "'22 It is not difficult to demon­
strate that much of what Fanon says remains true today. One need only view adver­
tisements for Mexico and other Latin American countries where one can live in
luxury for a week. Meanwhile those who provide services for the tourists end up
with little to show for their efforts. An industry in which the low-skill service work
is provided by the local people does not help the nation gain autonomy or economic
independence. 23 Instead it remains dependent on the former colonizers who in tum
profit from the tourist industry through capital that is invested in the hotels, airlines,
etc.
The upshot of this problem is that racism continues to be prevalent long after
the colonial powers have departed. As Fanon states, "Africa is divided into a white
region and a black region. The substitute names of sub-Saharan Africa and North
Africa are unable to mask this latent racism."24 Fanon contends that black Africa is
viewed as savage and uncivilized while on the other side one hears hateful com­
ments about veiled women and polygamy. Perhaps the most important dilemma
behind this racism concerns the future ofAfrica. For Fanon, "the national bourgeoi­
sie of each of these two major regions, who have assimilated to the core the most
despicable aspects of the colonial mentality, take over from the Europeans and lay
the foundation for a racist philosophy that is terribly prejudicial to the future of
Africa. Through its apathy and mimicry it encourages the growth and development
25
ofracism that was typical of the colonial period." In order for Africa to overcome
colonialism, it needs to move beyond the racism that was formed by the European
colonists. However, in maintaining a relationship with the European elite, the na­
tional bourgeoisie end up oppressing their own people. Thus, the underlying coloni­
al and racist attitudes remain very much in place in the decolonized era.
While the above discussion focuses on the attitude of the Westem tourist to­
ward the formerly colonized, one may also want to question the attitude of the for­
merly colonized individual traveling to a former colonizer's homeland. In Black
Skin, White Masks, Fanon indirectly answers this question through his discussion of
the stance of people of color toward whites. For instance, Fanon discusses conversa­
tions with Antillean men who traveled to Paris. According to Fanon, "their main
preoccupation in setting foot in France was to sleep with a white woman."26 In ad­
dressing why this mind-set exists, Fanon claims that "from the moment the black
man accepts the split imposed by the Europeans, there is no longer any respite; and
 Tourism as Racism 181

'from that moment on, isn't it understandable that he will try to elevate himself to
the white man's level? To elevate himself into the range of colors to which he has
attributed a kind ofhierarchy? "'27 When viewing this issue in terms of tourism, we
find that for a formerly colonized tourist visiting a country such as France, the tour­
ist's stance toward the local population is already predetermined by the racist struc­
ture set up by the colonizer's view of the colonized. In other words, the black per­
son needs to make oneself white in order to elevate oneself. According to Fanon,
when many Antilleans return from Europe they are deified. "The black man who has
lived in France for a certain time returns home radically transformed."28 This Anti­
llean attitude reveals the extent to which the power of the white person is accepted
without question. However, Fanon does not accept this attitude, and later I will ex­
amine some of the possible solutions to the dilemma associated with this issue.

Fanon and Contemporary Accounts of Tourism

Although Fanon made prescient claims regarding tourism and racism, one might
want to question the extent to which his thought is relevant today. In a more recent
portrayal of decolonization, Albert Memmi briefly addresses tourism when he
states, "for lack of anything better governments promote folklore, arts and crafts,
and tourism. As for tourism, it is better to be a servant than to go hungry."29 Using
Tunisia as an example, Memmi points out that one third ofits revenue is from tour­
ism, but he then contends that the various governmental endeavors are dead ends.
"For they perpetuate the artificial character of the economy of these nations and
maintain their dependence on the developed world . . . instead of moving toward
relative independence, which demands the courage of breaking with established
structures and moving resolutely toward the future."30 Thus, the formerly colonized
nations are unable to attain true liberation because of the fact that they remain de­
pendent on the former colonizers. One only needs to see how the tourist industry is
set up in order to understand why the newly independent nations remain dependent
on the former colonizers. According to Crick, "the high level of vertical integration
in the tourist industry . . . where foreign airlines own hotel chains and local rental
car firms, and so on, means the economic gains to many developing destination
countries are much reduced."3 1 Because the capital is not reinvested in the local
economy, the citizens do not benefit from the industry. 32
Memmi indirectly agrees with Crick and even further indicates why tourism
tends to support foreign investors rather than the domestic economy. For Memmi,
the primary focus today should be finding ways to end poverty in order to achieve a
better future. He claims that poverty arises out of two factors: a lack of development
and internal corruption. Because corruption neutralizes any attempt at advancement,
it is the reason "why wealth earned within a company is invested abroad, where it
expands foreign financial markets or inflates the housing market in Western capi-
1 82 Elizabeth A. Hoppe

tals."33 In other words, local business people do not want to invest in their own
economies because of the level of corruption that can take place where they live.
This problem applies to the tourist industry insofar as foreigners benefit the most
from tourism. Because it creates a dependent reliance on the West, tourism further
limits the possibility of creating an independent economic structure.
In another recent analysis ofthe industry, Adel Ait-Ghezala contends, "tourism
is simply a very visible manifestation of the flow of colonial power, protecting the
tourists in a cocoon of ignorance based on their orientalist perception of the host
society, and the myth of the equality, sovereignty[,] and independence of the states
that they visit."34 Ait-Ghezala's account is similar to Fanon's insofar as she views
tourism as a continuation of Western power. However, one difference may be that
Fanon does not even find a mythical sense of equality on the part of Westerners
visiting formerly colonized countries. Instead the Westerners continue to objectify
the colonized people. Thus, regarding the myth of equality, one may try to argue
that some progress has been made since Fanon's time. Some tourists may genuinely
believe that their travels to "exotic" lands are a means to discover different cultures
and meet new people. In the above mentioned example of Hawaii, the Westin
Resort wants the tourists to feel that they are part of an authentic experience. But, as
Ait-Ghezala points out, the tourists' sense of equality is illusory. Instead, the depen­
dence of the formerly colonized nation remains in place. Therefore, even ifa tourist
truly acted as ifthe countries one visits are equal and independent, this attitude does
nothing to help the economies of the host countries. 35
Of course some aspects of the tourist industry have changed since The
Wretched ofthe Earth, but they appear to highlight Fanon's critique of tourism ra­
ther than refute it. One example concerns problems that confront the Mexican tour­
ist industry. According to an article in the International Herald Tribune, Mexico is
highly dependent on North America for its success. When the U.S. economy strug­
gles, so too does the tourist industry in Mexico. However, another problem, which
would have been unfamiliar to Fanon, is that Mexico is considered a "mature desti­
nation" meaning that tourists have been travelling there for a long period of time.
"Mexico is a 'mature' destination compared to countries that have improved tourist
services over the past decade, thanks partly to aid and technical assistance from
international organizations such as the IDB [Inter-American Development Bank]."36
The number of visitors to Mexico has declined while other Latin American coun­
tries with new and improved services, such as Costa Rica, Belize, and Honduras,
have all seen increases. While Fanon did not foresee this type of scenario, this issue
creates problems for countries that are forced to compete with each other in order to
win over tourists. This problem further highlights the fact that tourism does not help
a nation become truly independent.
 Tourism as Racism 1 83

Possible Solutions for the Tourist Industry

In order for us to find solutions to the problematic nature oftourism, I find that two
attitudes must change: those of the citizens and those of the tourists. Regarding the
citizens, in The Wretched ofthe Earth Fanon 's goal is to create a national democrat­
ic government for the people. Fanon claims that during the colonial occupation "the
African peoples quickly realized that dignity and sovereignty were exact equiva­
lents. In fact a free people living in dignity is a sovereign people."37 In Fanon's vi­
sion ofthe future, people need to recognize that the government serves them and not
vice versa, and politicians must aid the people's consciousness and awareness. As
he points out, this commitment will not happen overnight, and one ofthe reasons is
that "the demoralization buried deep within the mind by colonization is still very
much alive. " 38 In other words, because inferiority has been internalized, one cannot
simply change the way people view their own society. What is required is an infor­
mation campaign that can reverse the colonized way of thinking. As Fanon states,
"public business must be the business ofthe public."39 While this might sound like a
mere tautology, Fanon envisions all people being involved, not simply those who
work in the capital or belong to labor movements. Ifthe number of people involved
were simply the minority population, then the nation's overall consciousness would
not be elevated. In fact many times the minority, namely the elite, rule the postco­
lonial nations thereby making democratic efforts ideals that are not likely to be put
in place.
While democracy may seem difficult, ifnot impossible, to implement in a for­
merly colonized nation, Fanon's vision of cultural relativity may also provide a so­
lution to the problems associated with tourism from both viewpoints: the tourists
and the local people. In his speech "Racism and Culture" Fanon discusses the
changing attitudes toward the colonized: "from overall negation to singular and spe­
cific recognition."4° Fanon calls into question "the unilaterally decreed normative
value of certain cultures" and the egocentric, sociocentric definitions ofthem.4 1 One
can readily discern that the sociocentric definitions arise from the Western powers'
own distinctions between European and African cultures. Fanon asserts that three
stages are involved in the move toward cultural relativity: there is first affirmed the
existence of human groups having no culture; then of a hierarchy of cultures; and
finally, the concept of cultural relativity."42 But what exactly does Fanon mean by
cultural relativity? Although Fanon does not explicitly define it, he examines the
concept at the end of his speech in which he states that with the end of racism, the
cultures of the colonizer and the colonized are viewed as equally enriching. As Fa­
non argues, "universality resides in this decision to recognize and accept the reci­
procal relativism of different cultures, once the colonial status is irreversibly ex­
cluded."43 In this statement we find both the use of "universality" and "relativism"
at the same time. While cultures contain different traditions, customs, etc., we need
to recognize that no culture is superior to another. Universalism lies in the recogni-
1 84 Elizabeth A. Hoppe

tion of the humanity of both sides (the former colonizer and the formerly colo­
nized). In the stage of cultural relativity, Fanon maintains that one culture would not
be viewed as superior to another. As Fanon states, once we reach cultural relativity,
"the occupant's spasmed and rigid culture, now liberated, opens at last to the culture
of people who have really become brothers. The two cultures can affront each other,
enrich each other."44 If this goal could be achieved, then tourism would be one way
in which two equal cultures could meaningfully interact with each other. Thus it
appears that the only way to change the industry is to elevate the consciousness of
both the local people and the tourists.

Counterarguments

Despite some obvious limitations of the contemporary tourist industry, perhaps one
would want to blame problems with tourism on the industry itself rather than on
colonialism, or even racism for that matter. Take for example Crick's claim that
"the organization of the tourist industry (certainly when one is dealing with pack­
aged tours) generally prevents the normal array of social relationships."45 As an
industry, tourism does not always promote these relationships, especially between
the tourists and the local people. The tour package, after all, prevents the tourist
from confronting "anything alien at all."46 While tourists vary in their dispositions
and goals, the problem is that the industry is set up in such a way that the tourist
does not necessarily interact with the local people in a meaningful way. This point
of view is reminiscent of Fanon's concern that the decolonized countries will be­
come playgrounds for European travelers. Based on the previous discussion regard­
ing the attitude of the colonizer toward the colonized, it appears that modem tour­
ism is another way in which colonial attitudes continue to be played out today. In
the tour package the tourist shelters oneself from the local people and culture. Thus,
I find that the limitations of modem tourism are rooted in colonialism.
Another potential problem is that a solution may not exist. Ifthe modem tourist
industry arose out of colonialism, then one could argue that tourism needs to be
abolished in order to truly overcome the oppression brought about by colonization.
In his account of racism and culture, Fanon describes the stage in which the colo­
nized attempt to return to the past "as the condition and the source of freedom."47
Fanon himselfrecognizes that one cannot simply return to a past that has been over­
ridden by the influence of colonial power. In order to achieve liberation "the inferi­
orized man brings all his resources into play, all his acquisitions, the old and the
new, his own and those of the occupant."48 Thus, one cannot simply eliminate the
influence of the colonizers on the colonized. But, if liberation involves a return to
the past culture, this culture did not include the type of tourism Fanon critiques in
The Wretched ofthe Earth. In other words, if tourism can be viewed as an offshoot
of colonialism, perhaps the only solution is to abolish tourism, at least in the regions
that were once colonized.
 Tourism as Racism 1 85

But another question regarding the past is to what extent we can retrace it. As
Betts points out, in the colonial period the Europeans would take over the good
land, and the native population would be displaced. According to Betts, "colonial
policies given to economic development disrupted the local sense of place and
space. Previously established networks of people, reinforced by long-cherished
concepts of the purpose of land, were distended, made larger in a way unpleasant
and confounding to the indigenous population."49 Because the Europeans reappro­
priated the land and the resources for their own purposes, it would be difficult to
return to the past, especially if over one hundred years have passed, as in the case of
Algeria. In addition to this difficulty, Betts also gives the example ofthe traditional
"chiefs" upon whom the Europeans had relied for indirect rule in order to maintain
order. According to Betts,

much of what was the chiefdom system in Africa was of European formation, a
development of what has been called the "invention of tradition." Not fully under­
standing African leadership designations and equally anxious to provide local au­
thority with significant trappings of office, the Europeans devised the concept of
"chief' . . . In viewing African ways through their own eyes, the Europeans found
what was not there; they "invented" a past. 50

Based on Betts' analysis, we can see how difficult it is to return to a past, especially
one that was invented by the colonizers. The problematic influence of the Euro­
peans is discussed more broadly in Edward Said's Orienta/ism. According to Said,
"what gave the Oriental's world its intelligibility and identity was not the result of
his own efforts but rather the whole complex series ofknowledgeable manipulations
by which the Orient was identified by the West."5 1 Thus, the concept ofthe Orient is
always already a Western conception. In order to overcome the current way of con­
ceptualizing the Orient, and in this case Africa, one would need a new way ofthink­
ing, one that goes beyond the binary opposition set up by the West. To achieve this
end would be difficult, but perhaps recognizing the ways in which Africa is concep­
tualized by the West is a starting point. After all in order to find a solution one
needs to first recognize the causes.
The rise of globalization is another possible stumbling block for creating a new
type of tourism, especially in terms of the assimilation often associated with it
(McDonald's in every country, etc.). In describing globalization, Memmi maintains
that "except for the most isolated desert regions, every culture is subject to such
assault; every culture is dynamic and composite, in constant transformation, espe­
52
cially since the onset of globalization. " Although cultures are in a constant state of
transformation, one question may be whether or not the West acknowledges that its
values are subject to change. Even today we see instances of Western powers consi­
dering their practices as inherently superior and morally justified. For example, in
George H. W. Bush's September 1 990 address to Congress he refers to a new world
order in which the United States would act as a monitor for the rest of the world in
1 86 Elizabeth A. Hoppe

order to preserve peace and harmony among nations. 53

In discussing the possibility of integration for the immigrant, Memmi also ad­
dresses the question of assimilation. As Memmi states, "those in the majority have
the impression of confronting a being with two faces, one familiar, the other un­
known, which it must, for better or worse, confront. To eliminate the sense of fo­
reignness that has slipped into their life, they perceive no other solution than the
radical transformation of the minority population, so that it will ultimately resemble
their own."54 Assimilation has its difficulties though, such as the question ofloyalty
on the part of the immigrants toward their new allegiance. In questioning whether
France could absorb the Muslim immigrant, Memmi claims that "it would require
that France continue to believe in the density, the primacy of its culture and values,
something that has become increasingly doubtful."55 While it was not too difficult to
absorb other European immigrants, the Muslim immigrant created new sets of is­
sues. Memmi gives an example ofltalian and Portuguese immigrants being easy to
assimilate in the sense that they could join a Catholic parish. However, for Memmi,
"Islam is not only a religion, it is a culture and a civilization that encompass the
social and even the political."56 Unlike the past cases of immigration, it appears that
Europe can no longer simply absorb its immigrant populations. Rather than focus on
assimilation, Memmi contends that both sides need to acknowledge their mutual
interdependence. In focusing on the influence of globalization on the individual, in
particular the immigrant, Memmi contends that the individual "has no choice other
than to live out the conflicts that arise from immersion in another culture. Like all
inhabitants of the planet, his personality will be increasingly composite."57
Although Fanon did not live long enough to see the ways in which globalization
has transformed human relationships, one may question whether or not his views on
cultural relativity in "Racism and Culture" can be applied to Memmi's more recent
account of the decolonized. For Farron, both colonizer and colonized would need to
acknowledge their cultural differences in order for both sides to learn from each
other. Thus, Fanon may not be as in favor of humanity's composite nature as Mem­
mi is. However, even if assimilation were a possibility, both Farron and Memmi
understand that the formerly conquered people may very well feel resentment to­
ward the West. This issue may be one of the barriers toward a solution to the prob­
lem of tourism. In Black Skin, White Masks, Farron claims that man is both affirma­
tion and negation. In referring to Friedrich Nietzsche, Farron claims that "there is
always resentment in reaction. "58 However, this statement does not imply that reac­
tion should be avoided. For Fanon, humans need to say no to the indignity and ex­
ploitation of humans. But Fanon also argues that a human being needs to be action­
al: "by maintaining in his circularity the respect ofthe fundamental values that make
the world human, that is the task of the utmost urgency for he who, after careful
reflection, prepares to act."59 In Memmi's account the conquered people feel re­
sentment toward the West insofar as "the third world draws extensively from West­
ern culture. "60 As he states, "there is a sad irony in the fact that, having reconquered
the right to live out its singularity, the third world must borrow so much from oth­
ers. It has always been this way between oppressor and oppressed; the culture ofthe
 Tourism as Racism 1 87

oppressor goes hand in hand with its economic and political power."61 The problem,
as Memmi sees it, is that the conception of a better life is an ideal that conflicts with
the reality of the situation. Because the West is viewed as superior in terms of pow­
er and culture, it is extremely difficult for the formerly colonized people to move
beyond the colonial structure.

Is There Hope for the Future of Tourism?

In the end I ask myself if we can create a form of tourism that would not be racist,
and it is hard to imagine this possibility, especially because tourism often seems to
goes hand in hand with colonial attitudes. So, is there any hope that the industry can
go beyond its colonial underpinnings? In this section I will briefly examine ecotour­
ism in order to address the complicated nature of this issue. There are several com­
peting definitions of it, but generally speaking ecotourism is "purposeful travel to
natural areas to understand the culture and natural history of the environment; tak­
ing care not to alter the integrity of the ecosystem; producing economic opportuni­
ties that make the conservation of natural resources beneficial to local people."62
Using Costa Rica as an example, one finds both positive and negative impacts
of ecotourism on this nation. On the positive side it has helped preserve biodiversity
by creating protected areas that otherwise "may have fallen to the demands of farm­
ing, logging, or mining industries long ago."63 In addition, agricultural research in
Costa Rica focuses on ways to minimize waste, such as in "the production of possi­
ble banana byproducts such as banana paper made from the generally discarded
banana stock."64 However, this new form of tourism has its drawbacks, such as visi­
tor overcapacity and a lack of government oversight.
One particular problem is "greenwashing." According to Deborah McLaren,
"greenwashing not only paints products, services, and destinations as ecofriendly
but often is a screen for corporations that are actually causing great harm to the en­
vironment. "65 Because pro-environmental values are quite popular, many companies
market products as "ecofriendly, earth-saving, and biodegradable" even when they
are not actually better for the environment.66 One solution to this problem is a
stronger certification program, but this idea would only work if the government
follows through on its oversight of certification qualifications. This problem in tum
highlights issues already discussed by both Memmi and Fanon. As long as govern­
ments allow corruption to take place, change will not be forthcoming. D. B. Weaver
points out that, "chronic underfunding, inadequate levels of local expertise, and
corruption (sometimes related to inadequate salaries and/or to the favored cliques of
dictatorial regimes, who might be involved in tourism development), often result in
the haphazard or lax enforcement of environmental laws and regulations."67 In light
of the problems with ecotourism, it is apparent that one of the major obstacles to
overcoming them is the corruption that may occur in an effort to increase profits in
1 88 Elizabeth A. Hoppe

the tourist industry, either locally or abroad.

The above example of ecotourism in Costa Rica does not necessarily imply that
there are no solutions to the problem of tourism as racism. After all, as long as the
government maintains oversight on the industry and keeps the majority ofthe profit
within Costa Rica, it can help overcome difficulties such as overcapacity, green­
washing, and other dilemmas associated with the drive to make profits. Another
possible solution is "sustainable tourism." According to Weaver, "the concept of
sustainable tourism is inextricably linked to the ethic of sustainable development,
which in theory advocates that people strive to meet their present needs without
compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs, presumably
measured against the standard of living currently enjoyed."68 While sustainable
tourism would be a possible solution, one of the difficulties is that we cannot accu­
rately predict what measures will aid future generations. As McLaren claims, "sus­
tainability is a concept that is not easy to translate into specific actions that individ­
uals or governments can undertake."69
Perhaps the best solution is to rethink the role that tourists and locals play in the
industry. McLaren states that through responsible tourism tourists can help bring
about positive changes. As McLaren contends, "a more generous spirit and greater
volunteerism with respect to tourism issues goes hand in hand with a condemnation
of elitist, materialistic view that tourists are entitled to purchase other environments
and cultures. Travelers must be willing to be on equal footing with locals, to try to
understand cultures widely disparate from their own, to contribute to the communi­
ty."70 While I agree that this is part of the solution, as McLaren points out the locals
must also change their views as well, such as developing educational programs in
order to learn how to protect their natural resources. 71 In addition the idea of re­
sponsible tourism would correspond with Fanon's vision of cultural relativity in
which both sides view each other as equal. Perhaps the packaged tour idea could be
revised so that tours would focus on cultural enrichment and exchange. For less
developed nations tourists could possibly volunteer while they are traveling. As an
example, an orphanage in Sucre, Bolivia posts ads (in English) to travelers asking
them to volunteer there. A drawback of this type of tourism, known as "voluntour­
ism," is the question of how much people actually benefit from the experience.
Nevertheless it would be one way to overcome the more materialistic aspects of the
industry.

Toward a New Humanity

In focusing on the issues surrounding contemporary tourism, this chapter has of­
fered suggestions for improving its impacts on human relationships. But perhaps
one may question whether or not tourism is a relevant topic especially when more
pressing political and economic issues confront today's world. After all tourism is a
luxury rather than a necessity. Humanity could definitely survive without it. But, I
 Tourism as Racism 1 89

find that critical examination of the industry is relevant insofar as it reflects how
people treat each other. It can also provide us with lessons in creating a concept of
humanity that does not objectify people. In this new humanity, we can envision a
form of tourism in which two cultures actually enrich each other, where people are
truly brothers and sisters.
The question becomes what would this new tourism look like, if it could exist
at all? At a minimum, it seems that tourism would need to be radically altered in
order to achieve Fanon's vision of a new humanity. One way of moving in a new
direction may be found in the conclusion of The Wretched ofthe Earth. Fanon urges
his comrades not to follow in the footsteps of Europe. As Fanon states, "the Euro­
pean game is finally over, we must look for something else. We can do anything
today provided we do not ape Europe, provided we are not obsessed with catching
72
up with Europe." For Fanon what matters is not profitability, increased productivi­
ty, nor production rates; nor is it a question of going back to nature. Instead, "it is
the very basic question ofnot dragging man in directions which mutilate him, ofnot
imposing on his brain tempos that rapidly obliterate and unhinge it."73 Based on his
account of what humans should not do, Fanon indirectly reveals that mass tourism
and its focus on profits is inadequate for creating a new future.
While these points may seem to indicate that tourism must be eradicated in or­
der to develop a new humanity, Fanon's vision of humanism shows us a way in
which an altered form of tourism could be beneficial. Fanon maintains that "it is not
a question of stringing the caravan out where groups are spaced so far apart they
cannot see the one in front, and men who no longer recognize each other, meet less
and less and talk to each other less and less."74 This passage opens up the possibility
of recreating tourism in order to help achieve the future vision. In other words, we
could alter tourism in such a way that it helps people communicate with each other,
and more importantly, accept each other's humanity.
Both Fanon and Memmi indicate a possible solution through the concept of so­
lidarity. Fanon calls for humans to be actional, meaning that we first need to recog­
nize our humanity and reject human exploitation while Memmi claims that people
need to focus on their common denominators. As Memmi contends, "to accomplish
this program, we must convince ourselves of our solidarity. . . . Solidarity is not
only a philosophical and moral concept, it is a practical necessity, without which
our life would be one continuous torment."75 We can apply Memmi's concept to
Fanon's goal of cultural relativity. While the notion of"relativity" may seem to go
against the concept of"universality," by accepting each culture's values as relative,
we truly engage in enriching each other's culture, rather than denigrating the other
side. Thus, we can accept the variety of cultures within the universal notion of hu­
man dignity.
Despite the problems associated with certain forms of the tourist industry, in
the end I want to suggest that tourism can be transformed, especially if both sides,
meaning the tourists and the local people, are willing to accept a transformation of
the industry. Of course, the solution cannot rest on the tourist side alone. We can
1 90 Elizabeth A. Hoppe

draw a parallel between tourism and the example of bridge-building that Fanon uti­
lizes in his hope for a new government that would be run by the people. According
to Fanon, "if the building of a bridge does not enrich the consciousness of those
working on it, then [do not] build the bridge, and let the citizens to continue to swim
across the river or use a ferry."76 Likewise, if tourism does not enrich our sense of
humanism and instead continues to objectify people, then we perhaps we should
abandon it as a possible solution. But, in his example Fanon also maintains that
"there is no doubt architects and engineers, foreigners for the most part, will proba­
bly be needed, but the local party leaders must see to it that the techniques seep into
the desert of the citizen' s brain so that the bridge in its entirety and in every detail
can be integrated, redesigned, and reappropriated. The citizen must appropriate the
77
bridge. Then, and only then, is everything possible." Note that Fanon does not tear
down existing bridges as much as set up new ones. In other words, the damage has
been done, so there is no point in trying to eradicate the colonial past. However, we
can form a new future by allowing the citizens to create bridges that can be reap­
propriated in such a way that these structures are truly the work of the citizens, not
the former colonizers. This example also applies to new possibilities for the tourist
industry. If the citizens recreate tourism in such a way that it elevates humanity,
then we can envision a type of tourism that goes beyond its colonial, racist past.

Notes

I . Fanon's account should be analyzed in contrast to the 1 960s view of international

tourism that "was seen largely in terms of economic development and thus almost entirely in
a positive light" (Malcolm Crick, "Representations of lntemational Tourism in the Social
Sciences: Sun, Sex, Sights, Savings, and Servility," Annual Review ofAnthropology 1 8
( 1 989): 3 1 4).
2. Crick, "Representations of lntemational Tourism," 3 1 5 .
3. Crick, "Representations of lntemational Tourism," 3 1 5.
4. Raymond Betts, Decolonization (New York: Routledge, 2004), 6.
5. Betts, Decolonization, 6.
6. Betts, Decolonization, 7-8.
7. Frantz Fanon, "Racism and Culture,'' Toward the African Revolution (New York:
Grove Press, 1 967), 34.
8. Fanon, "Racism and Culture," 34.
9. Fanon, "Racism and Culture," 35.
I 0. Adventuremaui.com, www.adventuremaui.com/luaus/htm.
1 1 . Adventuremaui.com, www.adventuremaui.com/luaus/htm.
1 2. Although one of the fifty states, Hawaii can also be viewed as one of the remaining
colonized places on this planet.
1 3 . Frantz Fanon, The Wretched ofthe Earth (New York: Grove Press, 2004), 97.
1 4. Fanon, Wretched, 98.
1 5. Fanon, Wretched, 99.
1 6. Fanon, Wretched, 10 I .
1 7. Fanon, Wretched, 1 0 1 .
 Tourism as Racism 191

1 8. Fanon, Wretched, 1 0 1 .
1 9. Fanon, Wretched, 1 02.
20. According to Crick, "tourists do not go to Third World countries because the people
are friendly, they go because a holiday there is cheap; and that cheapness is, in part, a matter
of the poverty of the people, which derives in some theoretical formulations directly from the
affluence of those in the formerly metropolitan centers of the colonial system" (Crick, "Re­
presentations of International Tourism," 3 1 9).
2 1 . Fanon, Wretched, 1 0 1 .
22. Fanon, Wretched, 1 02.
23. Adel Ait-Ghezala maintains that, "perhaps the strongest impact that the tourism in­
dustry has had on the identities oflocal peoples and the way that they are viewed by visitors
is the issue of servitude. Strongly linked to the economic effects of the industry, local work­
ers are rarely given positions of power " (Adel Ait-Ghezala, "At Home Abroad Tourism and
the New Anti-Colonialism in the Middle East and South East Asia," AMSS 36'h Annual
Conference, Perils ofEmpire: Islamophobia, Religious Extremism and the New Imperialism,
October 26-28, 2007, 8).
24. Fanon, Wretched, 1 08.
25. Fanon, Wretched, 1 08.
26. Frantz Fanon, Black Skin, White Masks (New York: Grove Press, 2008), 54.
27. Fanon, Black Skin, 63.
28. Fanon, Black Skin, 3.
29. Albert Memmi, Decolonization and the Decolonized (Minneapolis: University of
Minnesota Press, 2006), 1 1 .
30. Memmi, Decolonization, 1 1-12.
3 1 . Crick, "Representations of International Tourism," 3 1 6.
32. Betts claims that "the industry that is prevalent in most ofthe former colonial world
is tourism." He states that in the year 2000, 698 million tourists spent about U.S.$200 bil­
lion. However, he also notes that tourism largely employs unskilled workers. According to
Betts, "economic development requires more sophisticated activities in this time of informa­
tion technology" (Betts, Decolonization, 68).
33. Memmi, Decolonization, 1 39.
34. Ait-Ghezala, "At Home Abroad," 5 .
3 5 . A s Ait-Ghezala points out, the term "neocolonialism" came t o be used within four
years of Ghana's independence of 1 96 1 (Ait-Ghezala, "At Home Abroad," 3). Kwame
Nkrumah contends that while the state appears sovereign, in reality its economic and politi­
cal systems are directed from the outside. Nkrumah's claim can be applied to tourism in
which the tourist economy is directed from the outside. In other words, those who profit
from tourism tend to be international corporations, not the local populations.
36. Oxford Analytica, "Mexico: U.S. Downturn Exacerbates Tourism Challenges," In­
ternational Herald Tribune, May 2, 2008, www.iht.com/articles/2008/05/02/news/2oxan­
tourism.php.
37. Fanon, Wretched, 1 39.
38. Fanon, Wretched, 1 35.
39. Fanon, Wretched, 1 36.
40. Fanon, "Racism and Culture," 3 1 .
4 1 . Fanon, "Racism and Culture," 3 1 .
42. Fanon, "Racism and Culture," 3 1 .
43. Fanon, "Racism and Culture," 44.
1 92 Elizabeth A. Hoppe

44. Fanon, "Racism and Culture," 44.

45. Crick, "Representations of lnternational Tourism," 330.
46. Crick further describes this type of tourism as follows: "with an air-conditioned
coach, an expatriate guide, a group of travelers from one's own country, and a stay in a star­
classified hotel, the tourist need not feel threatened" (Crick, "Representations oflntemation­
al Tourism," 327). His account can be applied to Fanon in that the tourist does not necessari­
ly want to interact with the local people and instead wants a playground for oneself.
47. Fanon, "Racism and Culture," 43 .
48. Fanon, "Racism and Culture," 43.
49. Betts, Decolonization, 54.
50. Betts, Decolonization, 58.
5 1 . Edward W. Said, Orienta/ism, (New York: Vintage Books, 1 979), 40. Said's point
coincides with Memmi' s claim that "it is the West's conception of the universe, strongly
inspired by advances in science, and its universalist morality that govern, for better or worse,
the relations between inhabitants of the planet" (Memmi, Decolonization, 90).
52. Memmi, Decolonization, 1 04.
5 3 . George H. W. Bush, "Toward a New World Order," Address before a Joint Session
of the Congress on the Persian Gulf Crisis and the Federal Budget Deficit, September 1 1 ,
1 990.
54. Memmi, Decolonization, 125.
5 5 . Memmi, Decolonization, 1 26.
56. Memmi, Decolonization, 1 27.
57. Memmi, Decolonization, 1 06.
58. Fanon, Black Skin, 1 97.
59. Fanon, Black Skin, 1 97.
60. Memmi, Decolonization, 94.
6 1 . Memmi, Decolonization, 94.
62. Eva Garen, "Appraising Ecotourism in Conserving Biodiversity," in Foundations of
Natural Resources Policy and Management (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2000),
22 1 .
63. Julie Dasenbrock, "The Pros and Cons ofEcotourism in Costa Rica," Ted Case Stu­
dies, no. 648 (January 2002), www.american.edu/TED/costa-rica-tourism.htm#general.
64. Dasenbrock, ''The Pros and Cons of Ecotourism."
65. Deborah McLaren, Rethinking Tourism and Ecotravel: The Paving ofParadise and
What You Can Do to Stop It (West Hartford, CT: Kumarian Press, 1 998), 3 3 .
66. McLaren, Rethinking Tourism, 34.
67. D. B. Weaver, Ecotourism in the Less Developed World (New York: CAP Interna­
tional, 1 998), 62. One of the problems with the growth of the tourist industry in Costa Rica
is its growing reliance on international donors (Dasenbrock, "The Pros and Cons ofEcotour­
ism"). This problem was also discussed by both Fanon and Memmi in terms of the depen­
dence of formerly colonized countries on foreign capital.
68. Weaver, Ecotourism, 5, quoting the World Commission on Environment and De-
velopment, 1 987.
69. McLaren, Rethinking Tourism, 1 09.
70. McLaren, Rethinking Tourism, 130.
71. McLaren, Rethinking Tourism, 1 25 .
72. Fanon, Wretched, 236.
73. Fanon, Wretched, 238.
74. Fanon, Wretched, 238.
 Tourism as Racism 1 93

75. Memmi, Decolonization, 1 43 .

7 6 . Fanon, Wretched, 1 4 1 .
77. Fanon, Wretched, 1 4 1 .
PART VI

BEYOND

FANON
 Chapter 1 1
Amilcar Cabral:
A Philosophical Profile

Olufemi Taiwo

Amilcar Cabral was born on September 12, 1 924, at Bafata in Guinea-Bissau, in

West Africa. He was educated in Cape Verde. In 1 945 he went to Portugal, the
colonial power that ruled Guinea and Cape Verde, and trained and graduated as
an agronomy engineer in 1 95 1 . During his Lisbon years, the Pan-Africanist
movement gathered momentum and anticolonial nationalism fostered different
philosophies of identity among an incipient but burgeoning group of Western­
trained, Western-inspired, African intellectuals and political activists. In Mario
Andrade's words, Cabral's graduation "was the starting-point for a new phase
that was to have a decisive effect in the future." 1 This future was one in which
he dedicated his life to the political struggle to free Guinea and the Cape Verde
Islands from the clutches of Portuguese colonialism. The principal vehicle for
this struggle, the Partido Africano da Independencia-Unial do Povos de Guine e
Caho Verde, was founded by him and six others on September 1 9, 1 956. 2 It was
later renamed PAIGC (African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape
Verde) on October 8, 1 960. On January 23, 1 963 the PAIGC transmuted into a
liberation movement. Cabral remained at the head of the Party and its military
struggle until January 20, 1 973, when he was assassinated by agents of the Por­
tuguese Secret Police in Conakry, Guinea. 3
Some might wonder what an chapter on Cabral's philosophy is doing in a
book dedicated to Frantz Fanon's writings on decolonization. Such a query is
not misplaced especially given that this chapter is not comparative; that is, it is
not devoted to a comparison of the respective views of Cabral and Fanon. Yet it
takes but a little reflection to see why it is important for us to juxtapose the
views of Cabral that are expounded in this chapter and those of Fanon that are
expounded by other contributors to this collection. In the first place, both of
them were responding to challenges posed by the indignities of colonialism to
the daily realities of the colonized. Both engaged with common themes includ­
ing, but not limited to, the nature of colonialism, national liberation and culture,
the nature of genuine human emancipation, the best explanatory model of histor­
ical evolution in colonized cultures, and so on. That Cabral's responses were
framed by the peculiarities of Portuguese colonialism gives us a comparative

1 97
1 98 O!Ufemi Taiwo

context for understanding the vagaries of colonial operations in Africa. As we

shall see presently, the fact that they reflected on common themes does not mean
that they came up with common theoretical or explanatory positions. I can only
hope that my explication of Cabral's formulations serves to expand our theoreti­
cal horizons and comparative understanding.
There are many reasons why the thought and writings of Amilcar Cabral are
important to the study of intellectual history in the twentieth century. "A su­
preme educator in the widest sense of the word, Cabral can be recognized even
now as being among the great figures of our time."4 Although he did not start
out or train as a philosopher, he bequeathed to us a body of writings containing
his reflections on such issues as the nature and course of social transformation,
human nature, history, violence, oppression, and liberation. He fought a peculiar
variety of colonialism and did so with a small population, predominantly pea­
sant, rife with illiteracy, and victim of rampant poverty. He and his colleagues
had to develop innovative ways of reaching a vast audience, spread across vast
terrains, in order thereby to mobilize their people to see the truth, possibility,
and desirability of the new world that Cabral was urging them to help construct.
Given this background, it is not surprising that Cabral, not unlike others such as
Mao Zedong, Ho Chi Minh, and until recently, Frantz Fanon, has been seen as
less a philosopher and more a political leader and military strategist. But a closer
perusal of his writings reveals a sophisticated thinker whose social and political
philosophy, as well as philosophy of history, hold promise for our understanding
of ( I ) the comparative philosophy of colonialism; (2) the adaptation of Marxism
to indigenous terrain, thereby extending its theoretical reach; (3) national libera­
tion and culture; and (4) the possibility of genuine human emancipation in spite
of the violence of colonialism and the viciousness of racial oppression. I shall
treat these elements of Cabral' s philosophy seriatim.

Comparative Philosophy of Colonialism

Cabral was born into and grew up under Portuguese colonialism. This meant
that he had, from the onset, to contend with what colonialism, of the variety that
took roots in Africa, represented for the colonized. Although there were differ­
ences in the varieties of colonialism that they lived under, the experience was
shared by both Fanon and Cabral. According to Cabral, there are at least two
forms of colonialism:

1 . Direct domination-by means of a political power made up of agents foreign

to the dominated people (armed forces, police, administrative agents, and set­
tlers)-which is conventionally called classical colonialism or colonialism.

2. Indirect domination-by means of a political power made up mainly or

completely of native agents-which is conventionally called neocolonialism.
 Amilcar Cabral 1 99

In the first case, the social structure of the dominated people, at whatever
stage they are, can suffer the following experiences:

a. Total destruction, generally accompanied by immediate or gradual elimina­

tion of the aboriginal population and consequent replacement by an exotic pop­
ulation.

b. Partial destruction, generally accompanied by more or less intensive settle­

ment by an exotic population.

c. Ostensible preservation, brought about by confining the aboriginal society to

areas or special reserves generally offering no means of living and accompa­
nied by massive implantation of an exotic population. 5

It is important to point out that Cabral' s talk of "classical colonialism" hides

a subtle but crucial distinction that is often elided in discussions of colonialism,
especially in Africa. No doubt, central to this idea of colonialism is the domina­
tion of one people by another foreign to them. But the kind of colonialism refe­
renced by Cabral must be differentiated from that which people have in mind
when they speak of "the American Colonies" or colonial Canada or colonial
Australia. Only when viewed from the viewpoint of the indigenous peoples of
Canada, United States, and Australia, respectively, will Cabral's notion of colo­
nialism be applicable to those areas. For, in those areas it was not the indigenous
peoples of the geographical spaces involved who were the objects of coloniza­
tion, but crucially their lands.6 Hence, it is more appropriate to talk of settler
colonialism in those lands involving what Cabral describes in ( l a) as "total de­
struction." ( l b) and ( l e), he wrote, are widely present in Africa. We can point to
instances of both in southern Africa, especially Zimbabwe and South Africa, and
in parts of Kenya as well as, while it lasted, in Algeria. Although Cabral does
not seem to be focusing on the standard theme in discussions on colonialism­
the economic aspect-there can be no doubt that he was very well aware of it
and accommodated it in more creative ways as we will see below.
Cabral focused sharply on the intimate connection between colonialism and
imperialism and on the fact that their reach was far in excess of the economic
dimension that is often at issue in radical discourse. He pointed out: "[t]he main
effect produced by the impact of imperialism on the historical process of the
dominated people is paralysis, stagnation (even in some cases, regression) in
that process." 7 But this domination, absent the "physical elimination of a signifi­
cant part of the dominated population," must necessarily be partial, and it has
always to contend with survivals of the dominated population's culture. That is,
however much the dominators persuade themselves that they have broken the
resistance of the dominated and taken away from them wholly the capacity for
autonomy, the truth is that the dominated never give up on their prerogative as
history-makers. In fact, the sheer fact of their survival in subjugation and
200 O!Ufemi Taiwo

through it is evidence of the preservation of their agency in the face of imperial­

ism. Even when they are no longer calling the shots in their lives, they never
stop living and creating cultural forms, however muted their expressions may
have become. The persistence of these cultural forms remains the beachhead for
resistance on the part of the dominated people. In order to remove this node of
resistance, the colonizer "tried to create theories" which "deny the culture of the
people" under its domination. 8 "The principal characteristic, common to every
kind of imperialist domination, is the denial of the historical process of the dom­
inated people by means of violent usurpation of the freedom of the process of
development of the productive."9 For him, then, colonialism is a complex of
several aspects: ( 1 ) material domination, (2) cultural domination, and (3) the
decimation of the dominated's capacity for agency, for making history.
In the specific case of Guinea Bissau and the Cape Verde islands, Cabral's
homeland, as well as those of other Portuguese African colonies, colonial rule
was particularly vicious due to the peculiar character of Portugal as a colonizing
power. Unlike France and Britain, the other dominant colonizing powers, Por­
tugal was a most improbable colonizer. Portugal itself was a very backward
country, with little or no industrialization and barely capable of holding its own
as a power without the material support of her other European allies. 1 0 In fact,
Portugal was only surpassed in the race to the bottom by Belgium. Neither coun­
try could have been much of a colonial power, especially in Portugal ' s case,
without its membership in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the sup­
port, both material and ideological, that came with it. Thus it became part of
Cabral's own theoretical exertions to seek to understand how this backwardness
affected Portugal as a colonial power and determined its operations in its colo­
nies. Cabral concluded that because Portugal itself was not a modem polity, had
not become suffused with the ideology that promised, even if it could not or did
not intend to deliver, equality, liberty, and fraternity, it lagged behind France
and Britain that, at least, paid lip service to the rights of their colonized. 1 1 The
result was that the moment of violence that was central 12 to the colonial enter­
prise was particularly pronounced in the Portuguese colonies.
In addition to this especial brutality, 1 3 Portugal did not have the wherewithal
to procure any significant level of material and social transformation in any of
its African colonies. 1 4 Social institutions ossified under Portuguese rule and the
material conditions of the majority of the inhabitants declined. 15 This was mani­
fested in the backwardness of the education system, the underdevelopment of
the economy, and the proliferation of illiteracy, poor health, and poverty among
the populace.
Cabral was primarily concerned with the issue of how to free Guinea Bissau
and Cape Verde from the yoke of Portuguese colonialism. But it quickly became
clear to him and to his colleagues in PAIGC that they had to take seriously Karl
Marx's eleventh thesis on Feuerbach that "the philosophers have interpreted the
world in various ways; the point, however, is to change it." 16 This awareness
that they could not change a world they had not understood could be said to be
 Amilcar Cabral 20 1

the motive force behind his hugely insightful effort at understanding the nature
of colonialism, the necessity of the "weapon of theory," the imperative of dis­
seminating and fostering ideas among different sectors of the population and,
ultimately, the instrumentality of violence in the peculiar terrain of Lusophone
Africa.

Adapting Marxism to African Conditions

It will be wrong and at least inadequate to dismiss or embrace Cabral as a Marx­

ist, as some commentators have done. 17 There is little doubt that much more than
Fanon, he made more direct references to the superiority of materialist analysis,
and he did present extended discussions of class structure, modes of production,
and other staples of Marxist discourse. But Cabral didn't just incorporate Marx­
ist theory into his analyses, he extended and, in profoundly original ways, trans­
formed it and suited it for the African terrain.
There are two major ways in which Cabral enriched Marxism in the course
of domesticating it. First, he contended that the core Marxist tenet that identifies
"class struggle" as the "motor of history" is apt to generate some counterintui­
tive, even if unintended, consequences in concrete applications. To so insist is to
risk excluding from history all those areas of the world and eras in which the
development of the forces and relations of production had not yielded the cate­
gory of social classes. 18 Needless to say, such exclusion, usually articulated in
Marx's distinction between "nations with history" and "nations without history,"
had been put to dishonorable use by racist writers, especially where Africa and
its phenomena are concerned. Even when it is not appropriated by racists but
deployed in analyses by otherwise respectable scholars, its consequences are no
less exclusionary and pernicious.
Cabral decided that the category of "class" is too restrictive in its theoretical
application. That it is a historical category offered Cabral the opening that he
needed to posit that we must take the historicity of the concept seriously and see
whether we m ight not be better off substituting a more expansive theoretical
concept. He said, "Those who assert-and in our view rightly-that the motive
force of history is the class struggle, would certainly agree to re-examining this
assertion to make it more precise and give it even wider application, even if they
had a deeper knowledge of the essential characteristics of some of the colonized
peoples (dominated by imperialism)." 19 Given that the emergence of classes is
itself a function of "at least two essential and interdependent variables: the level
of productive forces and the system of ownership of the means of production,"20
it stands to reason that we might have situations in which particular societies had
not developed their productive forces or evolved the requisite system of owner­
ship of the means of production to warrant our predicating of them that they had
classes in them. What we may not do is to deny that such societies made history
202 O!Ufemi Taiwo

in spite of the absence of classes in them.

Does history begin only from the moment of the launching of the phenomenon
of class and, consequently, of class struggle? To reply in the affirmative would
be to place outside history the whole period of life of human groups from the
discovery of hunting, and later of nomadic and sedentary agriculture, to cattle
raising and to the private appropriation of land. It would also be to consider­
and this we refuse to accept-that various human groups in Africa, Asia and
Latin America were living without history or outside history at the moment
when they were subjected to the yoke of imperialism. 21

It was obvious to Cabral that it would not do simply to stretch the meaning
of "class" to cover those instances. He contended that rather than exclude a pri­
ori so many areas of the world from history, we should study each area and see
whether or not there are more illuminating ways of periodizing their history in­
cluding, in appropriate cases, the peculiar social structures of class and other
categories. By following this conclusion, Cabral came up with some original
analyses of the social structure of Guinea Bissau and Cape Verde that are now
22
regarded as classics in sociology, the uneven development of material and cul­
tural forces under colonial rule that, as we have seen above, themselves are a
function of the relative development of the colonizing countries, and the impli­
cations of these for the character of the anticolonial struggle and that of the libe­
rated country that would emerge from it. As a result of his critical exploration of
the idea of the class struggle as the motor of history, Cabral settled upon the
notion of the mode ofproduction as a more appropriate and more theoretically
productive candidate for the motive force of history.
In effect, in place of class struggle, Cabral substituted a different Marxian
concept and tried to show that it includes, at some stage, the notion of class and
class struggle while allowing us to affirm the history-making capacities of hu­
man beings who lived before classes emerged and whose level of production
never reached one in which class struggle became a factor. To be sure, Marx and
Engels themselves agreed that class is a historical phenomenon. But they would
appear to have downplayed this basic insight when they anointed class and class
struggle as the motive force of history. In a sense, then, Cabral was restoring to
the centre of his theory the significant Marxian insight that production, liberally
conceived, is the lynchpin and motor of history. "We have no hesitation in say­
ing that this factor in the history of each human group is the mode ofproduction
(the level of productive forces and the system of ownership) characteristic of
that group."23 Although we can envisage a human group without classes­
Marxism has a classless society as a primary goal of its praxis and spoke of a
time before classes came on the scene-we cannot envisage one without a sys­
tem of production, however rudimentary.
Given that "class and class struggle are themselves the result of the devel­
opment of productive forces in conjunction with the system of ownership of the
means of production,''24 it can be argued that the concept of mode of production
 Amilcar Cabral 203

packs more explanatory power while avoiding the counterintuitive denial of

history-making capacity to any people. "If we accept this conclusion, . . . then
existence of history before the class struggle is safeguarded, and we thus avoid
for some human groups in our countries (and perhaps in our continents) the sad
position of being peoples without history, then on the other hand we can see that
history has continuity even after the disappearance of class struggle or of
classes. " 25 One cannot overstress the significance of this theoretical tum for res­
toring the history-making capacity of dominated peoples and recognizing the
autochthony of peoples and nations that are habitually treated as if their history
is coterminous with or an appendage to that of their conquerors.
Second, Cabral reinterpreted the theory of imperialism. This is a point of
difference between him and Frantz Fanon. "Imperialism may be defined as the
worldwide expression of the profit motive and the ever-increasing accumulation
of surplus values by monopoly financial capital, in two regions of the world:
26
first in Europe and, later, in North America." The prevailing wisdom when
Cabral was writing was that the sole aim of imperialism was to loot and pillage
the colonies and repatriate their wealth for the benefit of the colonizer. He ar­
gued that part of the historical mission of imperialism is to effect revolutionary
transformations in the areas where it predominates. "Imperialism ' s historical
mission: the speeding up of the process of development of the productive forces
and transformation in the direction of increasing complexity of the characteris­
tics of the mode of production: sharpening class differentiation with the devel­
opment of the bourgeoisie and intensification of class struggle; and appreciably
raising average standard levels in the economic, social, and cultural life of the
populations."27 Imperialism had achieved this goal in both Europe and North
America but, unfortunately, not in Africa. "We shall neither condemn nor
excuse imperialism here," Cabral wrote, "but merely say that, whether on the
economic level, or on the social and cultural levels, imperialist capital has been
a long way from fulfilling in our countries the historical mission carried out by
28
capital in the countries of accumulation." This was not a lament. It was an in­
29
dictment. We should not be fooled by Cabral's seeming noncommittal tone in
the passage just quoted.
Cabral was not naive nor had he a benign understanding of imperialism. He
was not suggesting, a la Marx, that the colonized, specifically in India and Alge­
ria, required imperialism to rouse them from their stupor. Nor was he arguing
that only forces exogenous to these countries could have brought about revolu­
tionary transformations in them. To so argue would mean discounting the agen­
cy of the colonized and offering a dubious account of historical transformation.
We might construe him as suggesting that, given that imperialism had imposed
itself on the peoples concerned, the least it could do was to deliver on its prom­
ise of greater productivity and material improvements. That imperialism could
have unfolded otherwise: it could have introduced new techniques and technolo­
gies into Africa and, by so doing, enhance the return on its investments.
Regardless of how we understand such professions, it is always part of co-
204 O!Ufemi Taiwo

lonialism' s apologia in Africa that part of its aim was to move the peoples of
African along the path to modernity, especially where material progress for its
inhabitants was concerned. It is this profession that Cabral partly had in mind in
his indictment of imperialism. Of equal, if not greater, significance is the fact
that imperialism did build what admittedly are successful modern societies in
the United States, Canada, Australia, and white South Africa. This imperialism
did not do in other African nations, even in those areas colonized by Britain and
France, admittedly the more advanced vanguard of the imperialist countries. The
failure was more severe in the areas colonized by Portugal, an admittedly back­
ward rearguard of imperialists and this material-technological backwardness
ultimately made for a more brutal variety of colonialism.
Cabral's point was that the derivative processes that would have been trig­
gered by imperialism, especially those concerning the development of the pro­
ductive forces and the incorporation of a system of ownership of the means of
production which in turn would have engendered the crystallization of class dif­
ferences and the emergence of a truly national bourgeoisie, never occurred in the
African colonies. Consequently, it would not make sense to start looking to non­
existent empirical analogues of classic Marxist categories to effect the revolu­
tionary transformation of the colonies: there simply were no bourgeoisies nor
proletariats to be found in Portugal's African colonies.
The requisite development of the productive forces was absent because the
colonial authorities were not in favor of it. Every effort by the colonized, espe­
cially among those of their ranks who had embraced the modern way a transition
to which formed part of the colonialist justification of its rule, was stifled and
any attempt by them to differentiate themselves from their fellow colonized,
drew the ire and condemnation of their imperialist overlords. Instead, given that
the consequence of Portuguese colonialism had been the systematic denigration
of the colonized as a whole and the sacking of their social institutions and values
had been done again to the societies as wholes, Cabral insisted that the task of
revolutionary transformation must be preceded by a national liberation struggle
the successful conclusion of which must be the reconstitution of the people, the
whole people, as autochthonous history-making agents once more. This is why
he introduced the notion of the "nation-class" as the principal objective for the
preparation for national liberation.30

National Liberation and Culture

We have seen that a defining characteristic of colonialism in Africa was the ab­
ridgement, if not evisceration, of the agency of the colonized which normally
manifests itself in their history-making activities. In their capacity as history­
makers, individuals and groups have the prerogative of setting their own agenda
and working on realizing them without the intervention, save on invitation, of
 Amilcar Cabral 205

external forces. It is no surprise then that Cabral would call for national libera­
tion as the antithesis of the colonial situation. National liberation, according to
Cabral, was the immediate objective of the anticolonial struggle. It is "the phe­
nomenon in which a socio-economic whole rejects the denial of its historical
process. [T]he national liberation of a people is the regaining of the historical
personality of that people, it is their return to history through the destruction of
the imperialist domination to which they were subjected."3 1 As if to emphasize
the centrality of the restoration of agency to the colonized to the idea of national
liberation, Cabral declared: "For us the basis of national liberation, whatever the
formulas adopted in international law, is the inalienable right of every people to
have their own history; and the aim of national liberation is to regain this right
usurped by imperialism, that is to free the process of development of the nation­
al productive forces."32
Some of the key elements of Cabral's social and political philosophy are at
the heart of deep and long-lasting controversies in the philosophy of history and
the philosophy of the social sciences. For example, there are very few references
to individuals in his explanations of the play of imperialism, colonialism, and of
their impact on their victims. Although these various phenomena were expe­
rienced and perpetrated by named and nameable individuals, he insisted that the
injuries of colonialism were inflicted on peoples-as-a-whole. Even those indi­
viduals among the colonized who insisted on breaking free from the collective
operations of colonialism were not allowed to do so without severe transaction
costs: colonial officials ignored individual differences, often punished them, and
continually reduced the colonized to types and insisted on treating them as such.
We will not be able to develop these themes here. 33 But there is little doubt that
Cabral's preference for holistic explanations and his insistence on attributing
efficacy to social wholes are bound to generate controversies. Such controver­
sies might include that of whether or not historical forces rather than individuals
are historical actors; whether or not explanations of social phenomena can ever
be adequate, correct, or complete, which are not ultimately couched in terms of
individuals and their actions. Cabral's embrace of holistic explanations must
provide grist for the mills of interested philosophers of social science.
But having argued that colonialism inflicted injury on the people-as-a­
whole, it is not surprising that Cabral proferred national liberation as a process
in which the dominated people regain their inalienable right to have their own
history. They recover their capacity for agency, for history-making. But colo­
nialism also involved the systematic denigration of the colonized's culture, ar­
rested development of their institutions and value systems, and the overall denial
of their cultural achievements. To effect a complete reversal of this process, the
colonized must as a precondition secure their mode of production from the
clutches of foreign domination.

The aim of national liberation is therefore to regain this right [to history]
usurped by imperialist domination, namely: the liberation of the process of de-
206 Ollifemi Taiwo

velopment of the national productive forces . . . . The liberation of productive

forces and consequently of the ability freely to determine the mode of produc­
tion most appropriate to the evolution of the liberated people, necessarily opens
up new prospects for the cultural process of the society in question, by return­
ing to it all its capacity to create progress. 34

Again, I have no doubt that locutions like those in the quoted passage pro­
vide support for those who contend that Cabral was a Marxist. But, as I have
insisted throughout this discussion, I am less concerned by the accuracy or oth­
erwise of whatever label we stamp on Cabral and his ideas. For me, it suffices
that in appropriating Marxism, Cabral rearranged some of the key pieces and
emerged with a theoretical model whose subtlety may have deceived some
commentators into thinking that he merely deployed standard Marxism.
The focus on the people did not mean that Cabral fell into the error of see­
ing the people as an undifferentiated monolith. Nor did he fall into the tempta­
tion to believe that the people would always make the right choice. He cau­
tioned: "The liberated people should be careful, however, not to associate
everything that the erstwhile colonialists had done with evil. They should not
"underestimate the importance of positive contributions from the oppressor's
culture and other cultures" even as "they return to the upwards paths of their
own culture."35 There is no room in Cabral's philosophy of culture for any un­
critical celebration of every element of the indigenous culture. Quite the con­
trary, he was insistent that "such a path would be no less harmful to Africa."36
Hence, he condemned

unselective praise; systematic exaltation of virtues without considering defects;

blind acceptance of the values of the culture without considering what is actual­
ly or potentially negative, reactionary or regressive; confusion between what is
the expression of an objective and historical material reality and what appears
to be a historical creation or the result of a special nature; absurd connexion of
artistic creations, whether valid or not, to supposed racial characteristics; and
finally non-scientific or ascientific critical appreciation of the cultural pheno­
menon. 37

Only when they have done the preceding will they be in a position to com­
mence on the longer and much more arduous road to the reestablishment and
redevelopment of their culture. But the overthrow of the colonial regime is itself
"an act of culture" for it represents an assertion of collective identity, a declara­
tion that this people are everything that the colonizer had denied that they were.
The victorious people must then set about the critical retrieval of their heritage,
watching out for myriad pitfalls on the path to their cultural renaissance.
In his discussion of the connection between national liberation and culture,
there is considerable convergence between Cabral's views and those of Fanon.
They both warned the colonized against what Fanon aptly called "the pitfalls of
national consciousness" 38 while urging them to critically engage both their indi-
 Amilcar Cabral 207

genous culture in its utter dynamism and complexity and that of their erstwhile
colonizers as well as other cultures in the world towards their making genuine
contributions to the discourse of civilizations across the world.

Toward Human Emancipation

We come now to the final theme with which Cabral illuminates our philosophi­
cal understanding: the possibility of genuine human emancipation despite the
depredations of colonialism. One cannot stress enough the importance of this
topic and its centrality in the philosophical postulations of most of those who led
anticolonial struggles in Africa. Despite the oppressive rule of the colonizer,
they remained doggedly committed to the capacity of the colonized to not only
be human but also to help the erstwhile colonizers, too, recover their own hu­
manity. The capacity for agency, the essential precondition for making history,
is definitive of humanity. Once the colonizer is physically removed from the soil
of the colonized, the newly liberated people must set about creating a new cul­
ture and a new way of being human, shorn of the violence, oppression, and ex­
ploitation that had hitherto dominated their experience.
No doubt, there is little articulation of the philosophy of humanism in Ca­
bral's writings. But there are enough references scattered throughout his writ­
ings with which one can construct such a philosophy. For example, he was care­
ful always to point out that the object of their anticolonial struggle was the
Portuguese ruling class; that ordinary Portuguese, too, would enjoy the libera­
tion that would come with the liquidation of Portuguese colonialism. Few would
deny that this indeed was the case for the Portuguese people after the radical
revolution of 1 974. Additionally, he constantly reminded his audience that, "be­
fore being Africans, we are men, human beings, who belong to the whole
world."39 And the building of a new human not only in Africa but in the whole
world remained a key theme of his humanism. "We . . . are fighting in Africa
because Africa is our birthplace, but we shall all of us be ready to go anywhere
at all to fight for the dignity of man, for the happiness of man."40 He insisted that
the success of the anticolonial struggle must be measured by how well it moves
towards the establishment of this new era.

We are struggling to build in our countries . . . a life of happiness, a life where

every man will have the respect of all men, where discipline will not be im­
posed, where no one will be without work, where salaries will be just, where
everyone will have the right to everything man has built, has created for the
happiness of men. It is for this that we are struggling. If we do not reach that
point, we shall have failed in our duties, in the purpose of our struggle. 41

It is not an accident that I elected to conclude this discussion of Cabral' s

philosophical profile on an optimistic note. Not only i s i t in line with Cabral 's
208 OlUfemi Taiwo

and Fanon's preoccupations, it is also one principal reason that I think that they
deserve more attention from scholars. If all that concerned them was the suc­
cessful conclusion of the immediate respective struggles that each one of them
participated in and theorized for or about, there would have been no need for
them to write for and address audiences far beyond the boundaries of their re­
spective locales. Rather both Fanon and Cabral were philosophers with very
deep roots in that modem philosophy structured by what we now generally call
the Enlightenment Project. Their humanism, their commitment to the idea of
progress, their faith in the centrality of reason, and the necessity for building a
society of knowledge in Africa were, I would like to insist, their likely motiva­
tion for their involvement in the struggle and the focus of their philosophical
reflections.
They saw that the colonial authorities swindled their colonial wards by
claiming to put the latter on the path to the promise of modernity respecting the
themes I just iterated. But their discovery that the colonizer either did not intend
or could not be counted on to deliver on the promise of modernity to the colo­
nized inclined them to action and advocacy on behalf of the victims, in the pri­
mary instance, and that of suffering humanity, in general. This is a point that is
often lost in discussions of African and African diasporic philosophers. It is al­
most as if whatever they have to say has to be relativized to the narrow bounda­
ries of their immediate location or their so-called ethnicity. But it is obvious that
in their insistence on restoring the damaged humanity of the colonized and that
of the colonizer, too, they give the lie to all interpreters and commentators, Afri­
cans and non-Africans alike, who paint them as parochial thinkers or refuse to
address them as philosophers at all, much less as philosophers in the modem
mode. If I am right, a genuine decolonization of philosophy must include the
reconfiguration of the layout of the house of modem philosophy to reflect the
true cosmopolitanism of its builders. If this chapter helps indicate some of the
building blocks for that reconstruction, its modest purpose shall have been well
served. 42

Notes

This is a revised and longer version of an earlier piece published as "Cabral," in Compa­
nion to the Philosophers (Oxford: Blackwell, 1 999).

I. Basil Davidson, "Introduction," Unity and Struggle (London: Heinemann, 1 980),

xxiv. In the rest of this chapter, I will cite Amilcar Cabral's specific essays by title but all
page references, unless otherwise indicated, are to the collection Unity and Struggle.
2. Mario Andrade, "Biographical Notes," Unity and Struggle (London: Heinemann,
1 980), xxvii.
3. Most of the information in this biographical sketch has been culled from Mario
Andrade, "Biographical Notes," xxviii-xxxv.
 Amilcar Cabral 209

4. Basil Davidson, "Introduction," x.

5. Amilcar Cabral, "The Weapon of Theory," 1 28.
6. I have discussed this extensively in How Colonialism Preempted Modernity in
Africa (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2009).
7. Cabral, "The Weapon of Theory," 1 28.
8. Amilcar Cabral, "National Liberation and Culture," 1 40.
9. Cabral, "National Liberation and Culture," 1 4 1 .
1 0. Amilcar Cabral, Revolution in Guinea (London: Stage I , 1 974), 1 2- 1 3 .
1 1 . Amilcar Cabral, "The Facts about Portugal's African Colonies," 26-27.
12. See Frantz Fanon, The Wretched ofthe Earth (New York: Grove Press, 1 972).
1 3 . Amilcar Cabral, "The Eighth Year of Armed Struggle for National Liberation,"
1 80-8 1 , 1 90.
1 4. Cabral, "The Facts about Portugal's African Colonies," 25-26.
1 5 . Cabral, "The Facts about Portugal's African Colonies," 20-26, for details.
1 6. Karl Marx, "Theses on Feuerbach," Selected Works, volume I (Moscow:
Progress Publishers, 1 969), 1 5.
1 7. See Jock McCulloch, In The Twilight of Revolution: The Political Theory of
Ami/car Cabral (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1 983); Basil Davidson, "Introduc­
tion."
1 8 . Amilcar Cabral, "Presuppositions and Objectives of National Liberation in Rela-
tion to Social Conditions," 1 23-24.
1 9. Cabral, "Presuppositions and Objectives," 1 23.
20. Cabral, "Presuppositions and Objectives," 1 23 .
2 1 . Cabral, "Presuppositions and Objectives," 1 24.
22. See especially "The Social Structure of Guinea Bissau" in Cabral, Revolution in
Guinea, 46-6 1 .
23. Cabral, "Presuppositions and Objectives," 1 24-25. I don't think that anyone
would deny that this construal of the mode of production is one of the many senses dep­
loyed by both the founders of Marxism as well as many of their followers.
24. Cabral, "Presuppositions and Objectives," 125.
25. Cabral, "Presuppositions and Objectives," 1 25.
26. Cabral, "Presuppositions and Objectives," 1 27.
27. Cabral, "Presuppositions and Objectives," 1 27.
28. Cabral, "Presuppositions and Objectives," 1 27.
29. Similar charges would later be leveled against colonialism in Africa by Geoffrey
Kay, Development and Underdevelopment (London: MacMillan, 1 975); and Anne Phil­
lips, The Enigma of Colonialism: British Policy in West Africa (London: James Currey/
Indiana University Press, 1 989).
30. There might be questions that one can raise about this locution but they belong
in another discussion.
3 1 . Cabral, "Presuppositions and Objectives," 1 30.
32. Cabral, "Presuppositions and Objectives," 1 3 0.
3 3 . As important as this issue, this is not the place for its deep exploration. Suffice it
to say that, under colonialism, Africans were not permitted to be individuals. And, in
appropriate contexts, I would argue that the continent is still suffering from the lingering
effects of this denial of subjectivity and the subsequent retardation of the emergence of
individualism as a principle of social ordering. We see this in the persistent affirmation
by African scholars and their sympathizers that Africans are naturally communalists and
this in the face of growing urbanization and other indices of individualism all across the
210 O!Ufemi Taiwo

continent. For an extended exploration of how colonialism subverted the implantation of

individualism as a principle of social ordering in Africa, see Taiwo, How Colonialism
Preempted Modernity in Africa.
34. Cabral, "National Liberation and Culture," 1 43 .
3 5 . Cabral, "National Liberation and Culture," 1 43.
36. Cabral, "National Liberation and Culture," 1 50.
37. Cabral, "National Liberation and Culture," 1 50; see also Ami!car Cabral, "To
Start Out from the Reality of Our Land," 57.
38. Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth, chapter 3. I have discussed this at
length in "On the Misadventures of National Consciousness: A Retrospect on Frantz
Fanon's Gift of Prophecy," in Frantz Fanon: A Critical Reader (Oxford: Blackwell,
1 999) 255-70.
39. Ami!car Cabral, "Independence of Thought and Action," 80.
40. Ami!car Cabral, "The Options of CONCP," 253.
4 1 . Cabral, "The Options of CONCP," 253.
42. For possible ways of doing this in the curriculum, see O!Ufemi Taiwo, "On Di­
versifying the Philosophy Curriculum," Teaching Philosophy 1 6, no. 4 ( 1 993): 287-99.
 Chapter 1 2
Fanonian Presences in South Africa :
From Theory and from Practice

Nigel C. Gibson

To speak about Fanonian practices in postapartheid South Africa one first needs
to think about the question of method in two not necessarily opposite directions:
first, as an engagement with Fanon's critique of decolonization in its contempo­
rary South African context; and second, from the perspective of new emergent
movements of the damned of the earth that challenge philosophy. At the same
time, since philosophy-not simply practical philosophy, but an elemental phi­
losophy of liberation-is always already present in the strivings of liberation of
1
the damned of the earth, a philosophic moment makes itself heard when the
exchange of ideas becomes grounded in both the strivings for freedom and lived
experience of those excluded, marginalized, and dehumanized and when, as
Marx puts it, philosophy grips the masses. These dialogues-often hidden, un­
derground, and subjugated-make up what could also be called a philosophy of
liberation.
Since his death, practicing Fanon's philosophy of liberation has taken many
forms. For example, one could consider the resonances of James Cone's "Black
Theology of Liberation" in the United States or Paulo Freire's "Pedagogy of
Liberation" in Brazil. 2 Each drew significantly upon Fanon as a liberation theor­
ist. Fanon remained vital to liberation struggles on the African continent after
his death. The 1 966 French edition of The Wretched of the Earth carried a pic­
ture of Congolese rebels still fighting years after Patrice Lumumba's murder. In
the Portuguese colonies, Amilcar Cabral remained one of Fanon' s most impor­
tant interlocutors. In Mozambique, Yoweri Museveni, 3 who would later become
the President of Uganda, wrote about Fanon's applicability to "liberated Mo­
zambique." But on the African continent it was Steve Biko in South Africa who
was perhaps the most significant practitioner of Fanon's philosophy of libera­
tion.4 In a new context Biko extended Fanon's project and developed "black
consciousness" as a philosophy of liberation. In this chapter I want to consider
how Fanon's philosophy of liberation has been engaged and challenged by fo­
cusing on two distinct movements-namely as a movement from theory toward
action that develops into the philosophy of black consciousness in the work and
211
212 Nigel C . Gibson

writings of Steve Biko, and as a movement from practice as a form of theory,

specifically the action and thought of the shack dwellers movement, Abahlali
baseMjondolo in postapartheid South Africa of the 2000s-and how each
movement has redeveloped the politics of space into new spaces of autonomous
politics. Namely, how black consciousness challenged the race-based politics of
space by creating a new space for autonomous politics and how the shack dwel­
lers movement has challenged the "official" politics of space and (postapartheid)
exclusions by creating a democratic grassroots politics. With both movements a
critique of white liberals (whether that be in the guise of anti-apartheid or pater­
nalistic NGOs) has been important to the development of an autonomous poli­
tics.

Grounding Fanon in South Africa:

James Cone and the Critique of White Liberals

Liberals-few as they are-should not be determining the modus operandi of

those blacks who oppose the system, but also leading it, in spite of their in­
volvement in the system.
-Steve Biko5

Accept life together or nothing at all.

-Karl Jaspers

In an interview with Gail Gerhart in 1 972 Biko notes that "people like Fanon
[and] . . . Senghor . . . were very influential." The influence was not bookish.
That is to say Biko was always "reading from a certain standpoint." Thus one
point here is not to trace Biko's philosophic sources but to consider how his
decision to read this or that text is not a passive activity but an action that is phi­
losophically grounded and a practical necessity: "[i]t wasn't a question of one
thing out of a book and discovering that it's interesting . . . [but] also an active
search for that type of book."6 He adds, "I always go to find something from a
book." Ideas to Biko are alive and books are active repositories that are referred
to in ongoing discussions about philosophy and strategy. Thus our readings of
Biko should be informed by this context. And like Fanon, Biko considered con­
sciousness "situational-experiencing." In other words, Black Consciousness phi­
losophy is grounded in the South African experience, in discussions with blacks
about their everyday experiences of oppression and attitudes formed from that
experience. B iko found the sources of many of his "Frank Talk" columns listen­
ing to and talking with people on trains and buses and in the shebeens and on
street comers and from this dialogue the analysis of the situation would be shar­
pened and framed by an engagement with Africana philosophers like Fanon.
Fanon arrived in apartheid South Africa (where the regime banned anything
that smacked of Marxism) via the Black Power movement building in the United
 Fanonian Presences in South Africa 213

States-in the form o f young black students schooled i n apartheid' s "Bush col­
leges" and hungry for a philosophy of liberation to call their own. Founded in
1 969, the South African Students Organization (SASO) heralded the beginnings
of the new Black Consciousness Movement, which found an affinity with Fa­
non's philosophy, not across the Limpopo but almost subterraneanously through
the writings of an emergent American black theology, specifically that of James
Cone. 7 The importance of black theology as a medium for Fanon's travel into
South Africa meant that the usual primacy given to Fanon's so-called theory of
violence was muted. 8 Indeed the emphasis on Fanon's conception of identity and
liberation by figures like Cone had a direct connection to blacks' experience in
South Africa where, as Biko put it, "the most potent weapon in the hands of the
oppressed [was] the mind of the oppressed."9
Like Cone, B iko recognized that Christianity was an effective tool for men­
10
tal enslavement. But while Christianity in Africa was recognized as "West­
ern"-part of the oppressive system and colonizing process-black theology,
with its focus on the liberation of black people from tyranny and servitude, and
on Jesus as a political rabble-rouser of the poor and a "fighting God," 1 1 was con­
sidered a positive contribution. Rooted in the language of the slave revolts led
by Denmark Vesey and Nat Turner in the early nineteenth century, black theol­
ogy in the United States also emphasized the significance of churches as spaces
of black political autonomy. But it was Cone's critique of white liberals that
particularly resonated with Biko, and his first articulations of black conscious­
ness were a sharp critique of white liberalism, a suggestive point given that con­
temporary South Africa has embraced not only neoliberal economic policies but
also neoliberal ideas of possessive individualism mediated through the capitalist
market place.
Biko directly engaged Cone in his paper "Black Consciousness and the
Quest for a True Humanity," which was submitted to Black Theology: The South
African Voice. 12 The paper speaks of a vision of a true humanity that drew
strength from solidarity, an articulation that was in stark contrast to the talk
about "integration" popular among liberal whites. Indeed, Biko holds that the
liberal discussion of integration forgets that people and human relationships are
at stake, not the liberal's instrumentalist concern with the administration of
things. For this "forgetting," according to Biko, far from an aberration, is de­
rived from the exploitative values on which liberalism is based. As if intimating
a critique of postapartheid society, he argues that the liberal' s idea of integration
"is an integration in which black will compete with black, using each other as
rungs up a stepladder leading them to white values. It is an integration in which
the black man will have to prove himself in terms of these values before merit­
ing acceptance and ultimate assimilation, and in which the poor will grow poor­
er and rich richer in a country where the poor have always been black." 13
In 1 970 Biko began writing articles called "I Write What I Like" and signed
"Frank Talk" for the SASO monthly newsletter. These articles and the discus­
sions they created became an important expression of Biko' s philosophy. In his
214 Nigel C . Gibson

first article as Frank Talk, "Black Souls in White Skin" which was directed to
the problem of white liberalism, he argued that the kind of integration that white
liberals talk about is "artificial" and would only perpetuate the "in built com­
plexes of superiority and inferiority" which would "continue to manifest them­
selves even in the 'nonracial' set-up." 14 Echoing Cone, Biko then asks, "Does
this mean that I am against integration"? He answers,

if by integration you understand a breakthrough into white society by blacks, an

assimilation and acceptance of blacks into an already established set of norms
and codes of behavior set up and maintained by whites, then YES I am against
it. . . . If on the other hand, by integration you mean there shall be free partici­
pation by all members of a society, catering for the full expression of the self in
a freely changing society as determined by the will of the people, then I am
with you. 15

Thus Cone' s influence is manifest in Biko's articulation of black consciousness

16
philosophy as a critique of white liberalism.
Taking many of its themes from the first chapter of Cone' s Black Theology
and Black Power, 1 7 B iko concretized them for the South African condition. Like
Cone, Biko takes issue with the Iiberal's idea of integration, insisting that mutual
recognition can only come from a rejection of the other' s definition. Mark Sand­
ers argues that Biko's critique of white liberals is essentially a "more 'true' libe­
ralism," 1 8 and to a degree he is right. In so far as "liberal" is understood in terms
of a discourse of mutual reciprocity and dignity, of equals facing each other in
an equal situation, even Biko would agree. To be a "true" liberal, the situation
has to change in a double sense: in its structure and its values. Lewis Gordon
makes this point in his 2002 foreword to Biko's I Write What I Like:

Liberalism offers a double-edged sword. On the one hand, there is "conserva­

tive" liberalism, where the goal is to be colorblind. The problem with this kind
of liberalism is that it changes no structures. Thus, this liberalism expects us to
be colorblind in a world of white normativity, a world where whites hold most
of the key cards in the deck. Another kind of liberalism focuses on bringing
blacks "up" to whites. The problem with this strategy is that it makes whites the
standard. Blacks would thus fail here on two counts. First, they would fail
simply by not being white. Second, why must it be the case that what whites
have achieved constitute the highest standards that humanity can achieve? 1 9

Rather than acknowledging their ability to think for themselves, Biko ar­
gues that white liberals and leftists treat blacks as if they were perpetual "under­
sixteens" always looking toward whites for recognition. This situation, clear to
Biko as a student in the 1 960s, led to his first articulation of black conscious­
ness. Responding to his experiences of white liberal domination in the national
student union, NUSAS, he argued that since the dialogue between blacks and
whites was always going to be unequal, mutual reciprocity was not possible. In
 Fanonian Presences in South Africa 215

contrast to the old "non-racial approach,"20 which i n reality does nothing to un­
dermine the dominant paradigm, Biko argued that the black' s "inferiority com­
plex" was a "result of 3 00 years of deliberate oppression, denigration and deri­
sion" and to expect mutual respect between whites and blacks would be like
"expecting the slave to work with the slave-master' s son to remove all the con­
ditions leading to the former' s enslavement."21 For Biko, it was only by remov­
ing all the conditions of oppression that one could begin to speak about mutual
respect and a non-racial society, a direct echo of Fanon, who, in his critique of
Hegel in Black Skin, White Masks, made it clear that freedom was not given­
could not be given-but must be consciously created by becoming actional. 22
Black action, nevertheless, led to the white libera!' s reaction. Cone had also
addressed the issue, arguing that the idea of "Black racism is a myth created by
whites to ease their guilt feelings."23 The guilt is a product of whites projecting
onto blacks the whole edifice of white society's "brutal" oppositional myths:
"myths of progress, civilization, liberalism, education, enlightenment, refine­
ment,"24 as Fanon puts it, with the black constructed as the white's scapegoat,
while the white liberal's superiority is based on a notion of the black's inferiori­
ty, or more precisely nonexistence.
Challenging whites to confront their own "indiffe;ence to suffering,"25 Biko
quotes Karl Jaspers on metaphysical guilt by way of Cone ' s essay, who in tum
takes it from Fanon's Black Skin. 26 The problem is not a "Black problem," Biko
insists, "the problem is WHITE RACISM." Indeed, in his Frank Talk article,
"Fear: An Important Determinant," Biko repeats the Jaspers' quotation including
the following lines from Fanon's Black Skin, White Masks excerpt ellipsed by
Cone: "somewhere in the heart of human relations, an absolute command im­
poses itself: in the case of criminal attack or of living conditions that threaten
physical being, accept life for all together or nothing at all."27 For Jaspers, the
obligation of human solidarity in the face of injustice stems from God, but for
Fanon the obligation derives not from God but "the reality of the feeling respon­
sible for one's fellow man." Additionally, Biko sees in Jaspers' proclamation of
"life for all or not at all" not so much the issue of white metaphysical guilt but
black solidarity. What for Jaspers might be ethical bad faith becomes for Biko a
discourse on the fear created by the apartheid state security police. According to
Biko, the issue is circular, for it is solidarity that will undermine the fragmenta­
tion and division on which fear breeds, and for Biko as with Fanon, solidarity is
based on action "alterity of rupture, of conflict, of battle . . . to educate man to
be actional."28

Dialectic of Solidarity and Autonomy

[I]t is too late in a sense. We don't need an organization to push the kind of
ideology that we're pushing. It's there; it's already been planted. It is in the
216 Nigel C . Gibson

people. They could ban five of us; it makes no difference.

-Steve Biko29

In contrast to the liberal argument that black consciousness is a closed world,

Biko's conceptualization expresses the dialectic of liberation he found in Fanon.
In "White Racism and Black Consciousness," Biko takes a quote from the con­
clusion of Fanon' s chapter "The Pitfalls of National Consciousness" in The
Wretched of the Earth which summed up Fanon's dialectic of self­
consciousness. "As Fanon puts it," Biko writes, "'the consciousness of self is
not the closing of a door to communication . . . . National consciousness, which
is not nationalism, is the only thing that will give us an international dimen­
sion. "'30 This notion of dialectic is important to Biko who situates the struggle in
South Africa within the "black world." In "White Racism and Black Conscious­
ness" (which was first published in Student Perspectives on South Africa31 ), Bi­
ko cites Aime Cesaire's 1 956 letter of resignation from the French Communist
Party, finding Cesaire ' s remarks about the specificity of the black's place in the
postwar world resonating with his own understanding of South African politics.
For, according to Biko, in the South Africa of the mid- l 950s, black conscious­
ness was germinating among "young Black men who were beginning to ' grasp
the notion of (their peculiar) uniqueness' and who were eager to define who they
were . . . . Disgruntled with the direction imposed on the African National Con-
gress . . . [they were] beginning to realize that they need to go it alone and to
evolve a philosophy based on, and directed by, blacks."32 After the banning of
the Pan Africanist Congress (and the ANC) in the early 1 960s, black political
expression was silenced and in such a situation the evolution of a philosophy
based on self-determination appeared difficult. Yet for Biko it was not altogether
impossible if blacks realized that they were truly on their own that is, auto­
-

nomous-and that genuine liberation must be an act of self-activity articulated

in contrast to being beholden to white liberals and their values. In response to
the old "multiracial" approach, 33 black consciousness would represent a new
direction and new articulation that drew from cultures of resistance in the
present.
Thus Biko saw black consciousness as an important challenge to young
educated blacks wooed by white liberals. Eschewing the "old non-racial ap­
proach," black consciousness' claims to authenticity and self-determination
would have to come endogenously. But this did not mean that it could not look
to anything outside of itself for its becoming; self-determination did not signal a
"closing of the door to communication." Rather, it encouraged mutual reciproci­
ty. This philosophical ground of being on your own can be traced to Fanon's
discussion of black consciousness in Black Skin, White Masks, and Biko's col­
league, Barney Pityana, 34 quotes the following from Fanon as a crucial articula­
tion of black consciousness in his paper, "Power and Social Change in South
Africa," also published in Student Perspectives in South Africa:
 Fanonian Presences in South Africa 217

The dialectic that brings necessity into the foundation of my freedom drives me
out of myself. It shatters my unreflected position. Still in terms of conscious­
ness, Black consciousness is immanent in its own eyes. I am not a potentiality
of something; I am wholly what I am. I do not have to look for the universal.
No probability has any place inside me. My Black consciousness does not hold
itself as a lack. 35 It IS. It is its own follower. 36

Pityana then adds, 37 "This i s what we Blacks are after T O BE. We believe that
we are quite efficient in handling our BEness and for this reason we are self­
sufficient." In short, even if Pityana's articulation of black consciousness had an
individualist existential moment of self-examination and personhood3 8-a quest
"TO BE"-the emphasis was still on becoming actional social beings. And Bi­
ko, following Fanon, linked psychological liberation to a "sociodiagnostic,"
grounding individual alienation in its socio-economic and political context and
individual liberation in the social situation. 39 In other words, they all saw and
built on Fanon's concern with the social individual and the idea that individual
liberation required a psychological revival that had to be intersubjective.
Thus, B iko' s Frank Talk article, "We Blacks,"40 expresses the collective na­
ture of social action, which in apartheid South Africa necessitated a complete
break with an ideological and psychological system produced by colonialism
and apartheid. For Biko, such an action demanded the understanding that white
liberals were not simply apartheid's beneficiaries, but actively complicit in rein­
forcing the idea that blacks were not capable of becoming autonomous human
beings. Moreover, black consciousness ' internal revolution-its becoming­
required the subj ect's total commitment. Black consciousness was a political
movement whose philosophy was not simply strategic but a demand for total
liberation. 41 This does not mean that Biko rejected strategy, but neither does it
mean that Biko' s vision, like Fanon's, was a total critique. The quest for a new
humanity required fundamental change.

Radical Mutations: Culture and Revolution

Colonialism is not satisfied merely with holding a people in its grip and empty­
ing the native's brain of all form and content. By a kind of perverted logic, it
turns to the past of the oppressed and distorts, disfi gures, and destroys it.
-Frantz Fanon

The historical contexts for Fanon writing the Wretched of the Earth and Biko
developing black consciousness are quite dissimilar in that the situation in South
Africa in 1 969 is far different from that of revolutionary Algeria in 1 959. Biko
argues, for example, that by 1 960 "all Black resistance was killed, and the stage
was left open to whites of liberal opinion to make representation for Blacks."42
In other words, the 1 960s in South Africa was less a decade of turbulence than
218 Nigel C . Gibson

quiescence. Nevertheless it is clear that Biko found the issues Fanon developed
in The Wretched of the Earth similar enough, and compelling for this reason.
For example, in "Some African Cultural Concepts" (a paper given at a the Ecu­
menical Lay Training Centre at Edendale, Natal in 1 97 1 ) B iko, like Fanon,
views African cultures as neither time bound nor precolonial but having very
nearly been battered out of shape by settler colonialism. 43 In fact, he says even
talking about African culture is a difficult thing to do because the African is not
supposed to have an understanding of his or her own culture. Thus Biko, like
Fanon, is critical of educated blacks who, mimicking white liberals, take an elit­
ist attitude toward African cultures, failing to understand that the rural folk' s
attitudes are based o n a fundamental truth, that i t i s an elemental resistance to
the destruction of the African, especially communalist, ways of life.44 Biko's
call for a reconnection to the people's elemental resistance is, as we remember
from reading Fanon, a critical element of the dialectic of national consciousness.
While Biko acknowledged the Fanonian notion of cultural resistance, he also
recognized Fanon's critique of the native intellectual, especially since black
consciousness first emerged among black students.45 Like Fanon, Biko argued
that a critical consciousness must encourage a self-critical attitude toward elit­
ism. In this vein he argued that in order to transition from being a student organ­
ization, SASO, to becoming a national organization, the Black People's Conven­
tion (BPC) had to "stress . . . the relation of the intellectuals with the real needs
of black community." In thus emphasizing the need for national policies that are
grounded in the "real needs"-the experience--of common people, Biko's no­
tion of solidarity was a rejection of "tribal cocoons . . . called 'homelands'
which he saw as nothing else but sophisticated concentration camps where black
people are allowed to 'suffer peacefully."'46 At the same time, he was also fol­
lowing Fanon' s conception of dialectic of a national consciousness, which in­
sisted not only that radical intellectuals reject the racist regime and its invention
of "tribal" politics, but that they also, somewhat paradoxically, use what they
learnt in the apartheid schools and "Bush" colleges against the regime itself.
This, of course meant that, far from a simple critique of "Bantu education," "tri­
bal homelands" and any collaboration with apartheid, intellectuals had to rethink
concepts of collectivity and what is meant to "return to the source."47 Such a
return required a mental liberation from all the inferiority complexes that had
been produced by years of living in apartheid South Africa. And, for Biko, that
meant a liberation grounded in African cultural concepts of collectivity and
sharing that put the human being at the center. Like Latin American liberation
theologians and U.S. black theologians such as Cone, Biko rejected the Christian
homily that the poor are always among us.48 When it came to black communal­
ism, Biko remarked that the Christian-Marxist dialogue in South America had
influenced "black communalism." After all, for Biko, the kind of poverty and
destitution that one sees in Africa are not endemic to Africa, but a product of
colonialism and apartheid. He maintained that "poverty was a foreign concept"
in precolonial Africa. 49 Even European economists like Karl Polyani who
 Fanonian Presences in South Africa 219

viewed black South Africans as nothing other than broken and suffering hu­
manity, nevertheless maintained that starvation and malnutrition did not exist in
communal societies in Africa where assistance to the destitute was given un­
questionably. 50
While Biko emphasized the specificity of the African situation, he also un­
derstood the international urban scope of the modern Black Consciousness
51
Movement that was developing among the youth in Africa. 52 Young blacks,
53
Biko argued, were finding inspiration from the soulful and defiant message of
James Brown' s anthem "Say it Loud, I ' m Black and I ' m Proud." Biko identified
this song as part of "our modern culture; a culture of defiance, self-assertion and
group pride and solidarity."54 Indeed, Cone had also applauded James Brown' s
"Say i t Loud" a s a source o f black theology, adding, "It is the Christian way of
saying, 'to hell with your stinking white society and its middle-class ideas about
55
the world. It has nothing to do with the liberating deeds of God. "' So, going
back to Biko' s demand for African cultural concepts for self-becoming, how did
the "Soul Power" of the African-American singer, James Brown, singing from
the heart of the capitalist monster, the United States, with its narrowly instru­
mental individualist ideology, j ibe with his conception of black communalism?
While Biko did not address the possible ambiguities, rivalries, and incipient
class divisions in the black world, like Fan on, his rejection of white liberal (and
colonial) culture was based not on a cultural essence but on embracing the tradi­
tion of popular resistance to apartheid. Emphasizing the threads of solidarity in
the black community, Biko argues that "the basic tenets of our culture have
largely succeeded in withstanding the process of bastardization."
But when it comes to difference between Fanon and Biko, 1 969 is not 1 959
in another important sense. South Africa aside, 1 969 is almost synonymous with
the word revolution, especially the black revolution in the United States. And
Biko's notion of African cultural concepts, of "giving the world a more human
face," is, as I have argued, worldly and revolutionary, not harking back to any
imagined past but rooted in the lived experience of the here-and-now. Its sources
are continental and intercontinental, including the intellectual and cultural ex­
changes between the United States and South Africa. Thus, for Biko, the refer­
ence to James Brown is not external to African cultural concepts but the expres­
sion of an "all-engulfing rhythm" that "immediately caught on and set millions
of bodies in gyration throughout the world."56
Anyone familiar with Fanon' s Black Skin will be immediately wary of such
a claim of "rhythm" since it echoes Senghor' s essentialist claims about the
black's emotion, sensitivity, intuition, and rhythmic attitude. 57 In fact, in "Some
African Cultural Concepts," Biko does approvingly quote Kenneth Kaunda (then
the president of Zambia) waxing elegiac about Africans being pre-scientific
people. Yet, if we briefly hold this in abeyance, we see that 1 969 is not 1 94858 or
1 949, when negritude was essentially a literary movement connected to the
burgeoning anticolonial movements. In 1 969 black consciousness was a world­
wide mass and revolutionary phenomenon, and "Say it Loud I ' m Black and I ' m
220 Nigel C. Gibson

Proud" took on a revolutionary significance; 59 listening to this song, B iko seems

to have been referring to the rhythm of a mass movement and the immediacy of
black revolt rather than to an essential black being. After all, B iko was not inter­
ested in making claims about a black essence, but attempting to develop authen­
tic links (in an existential, not essential, sense) for an autonomous and revolutio­
nary humanist politics which he called "situational-experiencing."6° For him, the
future of South Africa is black, in the sense of struggle rather than a timeless,
static essence, and black solidarity meant rejecting the apartheid division along
essentialist "tribal" lines. In short, black becoming is the black masses making
themselves and making history: it is a process of re-entry into their own history
and the creation of another history that had been buried and dismissed by colo­
nialism and apartheid in particular. In other words, Biko's conception that self­
determination was an "endogenous" process was a critique of liberalism and
elitism not an embrace of an ahistorical cultural racial or essentialism.
A major, though subtle, shade of difference between Fanon and Biko's con­
ception of culture seems to be over their attitudes toward "native" culture under
colonialism. Though Fanon appreciates how the "native' s" culture has continued
to resist colonialism, "On National Culture" seems to follow a different trajecto­
ry emphasizing how this clandestine culture of resistance is "condemned to ex­
tinction."61 Inert and already destroyed, indigenous culture can only be rejuve­
nated, indeed transformed by the "struggle." Fanon sums up the dialectic: The
struggle for freedom does not give back to the national culture its former values
and shapes; this struggle which aims at a fundamentally different set of relations
between men cannot leave intact either the form or the content of the people's
culture.62 Indeed, for Fanon this development is crucial to the definition of a new
humanism.
Where the primary focus of "On National Culture" is the problematic of the
colonized intellectual and the central relationships between the colonized intel­
lectual coming to consciousness and the struggles of the mass of the people,
elsewhere in The Wretched of the Earth Fanon speaks of the importance of the
stories of resistance that keep the spirit of struggle alive, and at the same time
how the anticolonial struggle rejuvenates and transforms those cultures of resis­
tance. When Fanon speaks of culture, he maintains that it is opposed to custom.
Culture is living and changing; custom is reified, formal, and rigid. 63 And it is
culture, not custom, Fanon argues, that the damned of the earth hang onto even
under the most extreme conditions. Contested and clandestine, and however
broken-down, rigid, and smashed by poverty this culture has become, it remains
a source of resistance. However, the reduction of culture to custom alongside
collaboration with the colonial authorities colors Fanon's analysis. After all,
national culture is also a struggle against the reification of tradition and custom
(and with them the narrow nationalism of xenophobia, regionalism, and racism),
and even as Fanon appreciated the recovery of the history of African civiliza­
tions, he insisted that such a discovery did not change the objective situation.
For Fanon national culture was a fighting culture, drawing from the long resis-
 Fanonian Presences in South Africa 221

tance to colonial occupation which is transformed in the struggle for national

liberation.
64
Paraphrasing Fanon's statement in "On National Culture" Biko writes "as
one black writer says, 'colonialism is never satisfied with having the native in its
grip but, by some strange logic, it must tum to his past and disfigure and distort
it. "'65 If, for Fanon, the struggle, and the new points of contact and relationships
between the rural and the urban areas that the struggle engendered, created new
forms of culture, then, for Biko, the importance of African cultural concepts was
not limited to blacks in rural areas. In fact, black consciousness was at first
mainly an urban movement, and moreover his idea of African cultural concepts
was concerned with expressing a critique of the alienating character of capital­
ism based, as Biko argued, on dehumanization. 66 In other words, Biko ' s con­
cern, not unlike Fanon's, was first and foremost with the need to reconnect with
national culture to resist reification-the inert, static, and outworn custom that
was serving as the outer shell on which ethnic entrepreneurs and chauvinists, as
well as homeland leaders, apartheid academics, and colonial apologists, based
and drew their power. When it came to the rural areas, the centrality of the so­
called "homelands" to apartheid's hegemony made it clear to B iko just what the
recovery of the people ' s culture and their history was about-namely, the real
history of anticolonial struggle. Indeed, for Biko, revolutionary anticolonial his­
tory relates "the past to the present and demonstrates a historical evolution of the
black man." When Biko speaks about paying attention to "our history,"67 it has
nothing to do with the "customary"-reified traditions and manners-which
have been fashioned with the needs of the colonial state in mind, nor does Bi­
ko's idea of history jibe with the tactics ofBantustan leaders like Buthelezi, who
claim to be fighting the regime from the inside. As Biko puts is, "We are op­
pressed not as individuals, not as Zulus, Xhosa, Vendas, or Indians. We are op­
pressed because we are black."68 And while Bantustans play an important ma­
terial and ideological role for white South Africa, the mass of people in the rural
areas do not accept Bantustans because they are fundamentally at odds with "the
basic tenets of our culture which have largely succeeded in withstanding the
process of bastardization."69 Thus apartheid fabrication of the tribal homeland is
an imposition which is utterly in contradiction with the real needs of the mass of
the people. For Biko, African cultural values, which centered on appreciating
"man for himself," are crucial to the "quest for a true humanity" and in direct
contrast to white liberal culture:

Ours is a true man-centered society whose sacred tradition is sharing. We must

reject, as we have been doing, the individualistic cold approach to life that is
the cornerstone of Anglo-Boer culture. We must seek to restore to the black
man the great importance we used to give human relations . . . to reduce the tri­
umph of technology over man and the materialistic element that is slowly
creeping into our society. 70
222 Nigel C. Gibson

Rather than simply a "multi-ethnic" or "multi-racial" nation, the black con­

sciousness slogan "One Azania, One Nation" echoed Fanon' s double warning
that if social consciousness is reached without a strong national consciousness, it
could "paradoxically" lead to racism and ethnic xenophobia. At the same time, if
"nationalism" was not made explicit and "enriched" into a "consciousness of
social and political needs, in other words humanism, it leads up a blind alley." 71
In short, for B iko, appreciating the nation building attempts of Shaka, Moshoe­
shoe, and Hintsa did not mean accepting "Bantustan theory" grounded in coloni­
al concepts of race and tribe. What was important was that the basis of that hu­
manism would be a dialogue with the strivings for freedom of the formerly
excluded and dehumanized mass of people who are now encouraged to hear
themselves speak.

Fear and the Fragmentation of Black Resistance

Ground for a revolution is always fertile in the presence of absolute destitution.

-Steve Biko

When I turn on my radio, when I hear that someone in jail slipped off a piece of
soap, fell and died I say that we have been lied to: Hitler is not dead, he is like­
ly to be found in Pretoria.
-Steve Biko72

Biko's critique of white liberals and his challenge to the blacks' "inferiority
complex"73 was not the main issue in the townships where, Biko argues, blacks
have no respect for white people since there is an "aura of immorality and naked
cruelty" perpetrated in the name of whites. 74 Indeed, paralysis is not created by a
complex or hallucination; it is a social fact created by force and the fear of re­
75
prisal that "erodes the soul of Black people." So, just as Fanon insists in chap­
ter four of Black Skin that one return to "the real," so does Biko. This leads us to
the second idea of hegemony that Fanon discusses in The Wretched of the Earth,
76
a hegemony based on pure force. Hemmed in and controlled by the colonial
policing system, the "native," subjected to violence, struggles to survive. Farron
contends that this violent atmosphere, deprived of an appropriate outlet against
its real source, results in an aggressiveness turned against "his own people."77
Apartheid is simply the logical conclusion of the rule that is meant to teach the
"native [to] learn to stay in his place and not go beyond certain limits." In this
totalitarian context, Fanon argues freedom is achieved during sleep, "in the
dreams of movement and aggression." 78
Echoing Fanon ' s discussion of life under colonialism, B iko argues, "Town­
ship life alone makes it a miracle for anyone to live up to adulthood. There we
see a situation of absolute want, in which black will kill black to be able to sur­
vive. This is the basis of vandalism, murder, rape, and plunder that goes on
 Fanonian Presences in South Africa 223

while the real sources of evil-white society-are sun-tanning on exclusive

beaches or relaxing in their bourgeois homes."79 In other words, the system of
oppression is not nuanced; white domination is maintained by fear and force,
and blacks in the township understand this. While this understanding alone does
not undermine the reality of force on which fear is constructed, it does allow
another point of view. Biko once again takes up Fanon's position, understanding
that colonial society is a Manichean reality, a world split in two, where the "na­
tives" are bowed but not broken and kept in check only by force.
Because it can subdue blacks only by force, the apartheid system "is the
80
best economic system for revolution." Biko argues that apartheid is a "great
leveler" because it blocks the development of a black middle class in the urban
areas. In the townships people tend to live in the same-sized four-room houses
and take the bus or train to work and thus solidarity could emerge across class
lines. "It's a perfect system for common identification," he argues, because "the
evils of it are so pointed and so clear, and therefore make teaching of alternative
methods, more meaningful methods, more indigenous methods even, much easi­
er. "8 1 Arising from a new generation of young blacks, black consciousness was,
in a sense, a product of this leveling, reinscribing non-white" and with it "In­
dian" and "Coloured" as "Black," and promoting black consciousness as a trans­
formative social action. Black consciousness is, in this sense, a fairly
straightforward philosophy of solidarity that reflects what the people already
know. It does not, therefore, stand outside black reality, telling people what they
should think. Instead, it explains what they know even if they have not systemat­
ically thought about or articulated it. Biko's focus is on the work needed to
break the hold of fear that has been so crucial to apartheid rule, which violently
fragments black resistance and with the aid of agent provocateurs and infor­
mants turns the movement against itself, and Biko's objective remains similar to
Fanon' s: blacks need to stand up as a group, and the role of black consciousness
is to rechannel the "native's" "pent-up" aggression toward the real source of
violence. 82 On this score, Biko heeds Fanon's warning that liberation cannot
come about from a reactive action based on a politics of revenge. Thus, Biko
emphasizes solidarity, one that is based not on a dogmatic sinking of differenc­
es, but on an intellectual elaboration that encourages blacks to follow up their
chain of reasoning:

"Black consciousness" therefore seeks to give positivity in the outlook of the

black people to their problems. It works on the knowledge that "white hatred"
is negative, though understandable, and leads to precipitate shot-gun methods
which may be disastrous for black and white alike. It seeks to channel up the
pent-up forces of angry black masses to meaningful directional opposition bas­
ing its entire struggle on realities of the situation. It wants to ensure a singulari­
ty of purpose in the minds of the black people and to make possible total in­
volvement of the masses in a struggle essentially theirs. 83
224 Nigel C. Gibson

In short, black consciousness is a philosophy of self-emancipation. Like Fanon,

Biko understands that there is no demiurge, that freedom will not come from
outside. 84 There is no use simply waiting for men with machine guns to come
and liberate them. They must stand up to oppression together. Surely this was
what the Soweto student rebellion of 1 976 heralded. And, for Biko, this idea of
autonomy was not only necessary but practical. In retrospect, Biko ' s position
seems absolutely correct. Black consciousness would soon represent a new stage
of cognition and revolt, a stage that was essential--even to those in the mass
democratic movements of the 1 980s who had not been part of black conscious­
ness85-to the eventual unraveling of apartheid South Africa. Indeed after Sowe­
to in 1 976, black consciousness became a philosophy whose time had come.
Alreaed Stubbs notes that in May 1 976 Biko's evidence at the black con­
sciousness trial had become public knowledge. Reported daily in the Rand Daily
Mail, he had become the "toast of the shebeens." "Here was at last the authentic
voice of the people not afraid to say openly what all blacks think but are too
frightened to say. . . . Can the example of this man's courage have inspired the
boys and girls of Soweto to face death, as they bravely did just six weeks lat­
er?"86
The concreteness, indeed brilliance, of Soweto as an "event," a subject mo­
ment that had become objective, initiated a new stage: the beginning of the end
of apartheid. Grounded in a specific situation and experience, black conscious­
ness in South Africa is a product of the experience of a "moment"--of aparthe­
id, of postcolonial Africa and of the black consciousness mediated by U.S. black
freedom movements. Black consciousness signified a new stage of cognition
and, as an idea of liberation, it still remains essential for any contemporary criti­
que. Raya Dunayevskaya's 1 973 discussion of the African "revolutions" seems
to speak to this issue when she argues that

it is not possible to comprehend the African reality apart from the compelling
objective forces of world production, the pull of the world market, and the un­
derlying philosophy of the masses which Marx called "the quest for universali­
ty". . . . [E]ven now . . . after all the set backs . . . far from rigor mortis having
set in among "the poor Africans," they are continuing the discussion of the rela­
tionship of philosophy to revolution.87

Philosophy born of struggle is ongoing. There is nothing to prevent it from pre­

senting epochal truths. Even if philosophy belongs to its time, it should not be
reduced to its time. After all, Soweto's "concretization" of black consciousness,
as a new stage, enlivened rather than worked out the "contradictory processes"
internal to it. 88 Thus while the brilliance of the Bikoan moment is a historical
event, "Biko Lives." With the death knell of apartheid sounded, what became
urgent was working out the problem of the aftermath, namely what needs to
happen after the end of apartheid. To work through the contradictory relation­
ship of subjectivity to objectivity by "hold[ing] onto the principle of creativity,
 Fanonian Presences in South Africa 225

and the contradictory processes by which creativity develops."89 Indeed this is

what Fanon confronted and summed up in The Wretched of the Earth as he re­
flected on the "pitfalls" of the anticolonial movements. And it is this problemat­
ic that we are still confronting in the long postcolonial moment.

Fanon and the Shack Dwellers

The shantytown sanctions the native's biological decision to invade, at whatev­

er cost and if necessary by the most cryptic methods, the enemy fortress.
-Frantz Fanon

Before the expression exceeded the content; now, the content exceeds the ex-
pression.
-Karl Marx, quoted by Frantz Fanon

Historically, the development of shack settlements in South Africa was the result
of the contradictory forces of the colonizers' need for cheap labor and their fear
of Africans, on one hand, and the people's overdetermined desire for an urban
life, on the other hand. 90 The shack settlement was a response to the rural crisis,
the desire for urbanization but, also, a way for women and families to access the
city. The shack settlements, in other words, are in part a consequence of struc­
tural forces (the rural crisis) and an innovative popular response to it.
Wars, taxes, and the expropriation of land, formalized by the Natives' Land
Act of 1 9 1 3 , created debilitating poverty in the rural areas9 1 and helped produce
a class of landless laborers who moved to the cities and developed inventive
ways to circumvent the state to maintain an urban life. The first shacks in Dur­
ban emerged after the destruction of the Zulu kingdom and the loss of land in
the late nineteenth century. As Durban became a major port in the twentieth
century, the African urban population grew and, with it, white fears of contagion
and the consequential implementation of urban segregation. Indeed South Afri­
ca's "multiracial cities," argues Jean Comaroff, 92 were already "being trans­
formed in response to contagion and medical emergency" such as the bubonic
plague in 1 900. This notion of contagion was embedded in earlier attitudes like
those of Mayhew and other British urban reformers who, sympathetic toward
London's poor in the 1 850s, wrote of the London "slums," the "terra incognita"
and "dark netherworld," inhabited by "a savage or heathen race" in the geo­
graphic heart of the Empire. 93 Thus it was logical that the class assumptions of
British urban reform would be extended to the "heart of darkness" with missio­
naries playing an important role in the discourse of pollution and health. In
South Africa, urban planning and the practices and discourses of public health
have always been vehicles for controlling African populations. By the early
1 900s, it became clear that the long-term solution to the purported "medical cri­
sis" that was articulated by colonial public health officials was nothing but the
226 Nigel C. Gibson

mass removal of the black population. Thus, "in the name of medical crisis, a
radical plan of racial segregation was passed under the emergency provisions of
the Public Health Act."94 Indeed what Fanon calls the "native' s biological deci­
sion" (perhaps better thought of as "biopolitical decision") to move to the citadel
was countered by the colonialist's attempt to stem the tide of Africans to the
cities by legislating "influx control" and "pass laws." In the 1 93 0s, white public
health concerns, manifested in "slum" acts, systematically destroyed African
housing, yet the growth of shantytowns continued in the margins of urban areas
and was further encouraged by the demands for labor power during the Second
World War.
Once the war ended, however, the socio-economic/political threat and the
repressed white fear of Africans flooding over the cities found a new expression,
providing a basis for apartheid's popularity and a new period of forced removal
of urban Africans. With its detailed planning, apartheid South Africa became
one of the largest builders of housing in the world,95 forcing Africans from ci­
ties, relocating "townships" in peripheral areas, or removing them to far-off
"homelands." But as much as the planners created an apartheid dystopia, it could
not halt the process of its own contradictions. By the 1 980s the decision by mil­
lions of people to transgress the narrow world of apartheid prohibitions and
surge into the forbidden quarters of apartheid's cities to create shack settle­
ments,96 to remain in or move close to those cities, with all the dangers that such
a move would bring, helped bring to a head the crisis that brought down the
apartheid government.97 As the postapartheid city has "developed" in the new
millennium and more and more marginal areas have become profitable, the very
spaces the shack dwellers occupy have become threatened. This has been the
case of the Joe Slovo settlement next to the N2 highway outside Cape Town.
The eviction of the 20,000 residents in 2009 was upheld by the Constitutional
Court. The government argues that the dangerous and unhygienic conditions in
the settlements justify their "eradication," yet it is the desirability of the space
that has determined government action (especially in the context of the 20 1 0
World Cup), 98 since the land the poor occupied i s going to be used to provide
housing that is beyond the means of the poor. In short, the shack dwellers are
being relocated out of the city, removed to the relatively isolated Delft Tempo­
rary Relocation Area (TRA). The TRAs are government built tin shacks meant
to be used for emergency housing for disasters, but in practice emergency hous­
ing is becoming a permanent condition for the relocated urban poor. Thus post­
apartheid South Africa becomes, once again, the "narrow world, strewn with
prohibitions"99 that described apartheid. The deep structural contradictions of
capitalist-colonial South Africa, on which postapartheid society has been built,
have meant that the issues of space, housing, and people' s livelihoods have be­
100
come key areas of contestation, even with the end of apartheid's formal laws.
It is, therefore, not surprising that resistance to attacks on the means to basic
necessities, of "bare life," by the state and corporate power-disconnections
from water and electricity, and evictions from homes-remain, in Fanon' s
 Fanonian Presences in South Africa 227

sense, biopolitical struggles. Additionally, it is not surprising that major contes­

tations in postapartheid South Africa would be around space and land and
around the struggles of the poor to remain in the cities. It is also not surprising
that a social movement of urban shack dwellers emerged in the twenty first cen­
tury in the face of the postapartheid government's attempt to "privatize" these
issues-that is to say, shift the "human rights" to land and housing, inscribed in
1
the constitution, 10 to a discourse of cost recovery backed by the state 's force. In
short, poor people in South Africa regularly do not have the access to constitu­
tional rights and if they do it is a long process which doesn't defend them from
"illegal" acts of eviction. For them "the state of emergency"-the routinely un­
lawful and illegal acts by local government against the poor (such as violent
evictions, demolitions, forced removals, and repression of poor people ' s organi­
zations)-is increasingly the rule. David Harvey maintains that the "right to the
city" 102 is "one of the most precious yet most neglected of our human rights"
and this struggle over rights, namely the right of the damned to the city and the
rights of capitalist markets and private property interest to the city, has become
even more acute in the present period of neoliberal capitalism. 103 Postapartheid
South Africa has "embarked on one of the most ambitious deregulatory schemes
in the world," argues Thomas Frank. "South Africa is again a one-party state,"
1 4
he adds; "But money-thank God-is free last." 0 Since colonial and apartheid
South Africa was built on spatial exclusion of blacks from "white South Africa,"
the struggle against it was also a struggle about the right to the city. Thus, it is
not surprising that "the antinomy of right against right," as Marx puts it, 105 of
one conception of the city against another in postapartheid South Africa, con­
tains fundamentally different alternative visions of the city. Indeed a deep, if
only implicit, critique of postapartheid society has emerged from those often
denied rights to the city.

The Misadventure of South African National

Consciousness

Since colonialism is about the expropriation of space, it is immediately political.

Addressing the politics of space, Fanon challenged the newly independent na­
tions to deal with the legacies of colonialism by redistributing land and decentra­
lizing political power, vertically and horizontally. This move seems counter­
intuitive in the context of Fanon's critique of regionalism and chauvinism, and
the threat of xenophobia, but the point is that the degeneration of national libera­
tion arises in part from the race to take over the seats of power, leaving intact the
privileges of the centers of colonial administration and expropriation. Addition­
ally, for South Africa, Fanon's critique is an important challenge to the centralis­
tic and hierarchical culture of the ANC. As Fanon argues, decentralization is not
simply an administrative or technical issue; it is connected with the goal of in-
228 Nigel C. Gibson

volving the damned of the earth in what the shack dwellers movement Abahlali
1 6
baseMjondolo calls a "living politics." 0 And explaining to the formerly ex­
cluded but newly politicized people that the future belongs to them, that they
cannot rely on an imaginary leader, prophet, or anybody else, 107 necessitates a
decentralization of politics. But also, emergent movements demand it and chal­
lenge intellectuals to break with their elitism and help work out new concepts.
Abahlali baseMjondolo arose from a road blockade in 2005 organized from
a settlement on the Kennedy Road in Durban (named after the U.S. President)
who were protesting the sale of land that had been promised by the local munic­
ipal councilor to shack dwellers for housing. Soon other shack settlements
joined in demonstrations against their local councilors, and in other actions and
marches on police stations, municipal offices, newspaper offices, and the City
Hall. Thousands were organized, and Abahlali as a decentralized and democratic
organization of shack dwellers was formed by the end of the year and since has
become a national organization which has politicized and fought for an end to
forced removals and for access to education and the provision of water, electrici­
ty, sanitation, health care, and refuse removal, as well as bottom-up popular de­
mocracy. Abahlali has helped democratize the governance of many settlements
and demanded that those who assume that they can speak on behalf of the poor
listen to them and take their thinking seriously. 108
The development of Abahlali and the rise of xenophobic violence in shack
settlements across South Africa's major cities are also connected. Both are res­
ponses to crisis, to the increasing pauperization and spatial and political exclu­
sion. The pogroms 109 are the result of the channeling of anger-by politicians,
entrepreneurs, and media-toward African immigrants and the increasing im­
portance of claims of indigeneity in politics; but they are also a consequence of
the criminalization and repression of revolts and political demands of the poor
by the police and governmental authorities including local ANC politicians
threatened by such movements, as well as the depoliticalization of these de­
mands by NGOs (including those on the left) who try to take them over by nar­
rowing them into technical questions of "service delivery." The attacks on Afri­
can foreigners, in other words, are products of pauperization but are also a
11
consequence of the state's and the NGOs' silencing of alternatives 0-what
Fanon would consider a suppression of politics and oppositional discourses that
allow the poor to organize and make their own demands. The pogroms did not
occur "out of the blue," but have been brewing ever since the birth of a "new"
South Africa and are encouraged by politicians and also the media whipping up
hostility to "illegal aliens," not to mention the government's own "crackdowns"
on "illegal immigrants." 1 1 1 Every year the South African Human Rights Com­
mission reports on state agencies harassing and detaining so-called "illegal
aliens": people being apprehended by the police for being "too dark" or "walk­
ing like a black foreigner"; people rounded up and sent to deportation centers,
such as Lindela on the outskirts of Johannesburg where the "undocumented" are
"systematically" denied basic rights. 1 12 Neocosmos notes the Government and
 Fanonian Presences in South Africa 229

the law itself has been reinforcing a discourse of xenophobia, of foreigners tak­
ing "our jobs," "our houses," and "our women," while African migrants are "fair
game for those in power to make a quick buck." m Officials are given such ex­
cessive powers over "extremely vulnerable people," argues Neocosmos, "that
the bribery, extortion and corruption become not only possible but regular prac­
tices." So one could argue along with Fanon that xenophobia is not simply an
elemental expression of mass rage, but a politics that in "rainbow" South Africa,
is promoted or at least channeled by factions of the political elites. In the context
of the housing crisis, the mayor of the city of Johannesburg argues that the prob­
lem with informal settlements is "in-migration to Johannesburg. People from all
over the country and beyond its borders [are] streaming into Johannesburg seek­
ing a better life, further straining City resources." Thus, we are faced with a self­
fulfilling zero-sum game. Xenophobia is the official position of the mayor of
Johannesburg. He tells us that the shortage of resources is a result of people
"streaming across" the country' s borders. The class hypocrisy of Johannesburg
1 14
as "a world class African host city" is clear; it is neither a welcoming host nor
"worldly." The suppression of politics is all the more clear at the local level. For
example, the shack dwellers movement, Abahlali baseMjondolo, that invites all
shack dwellers, wherever they are from and whatever language they speak, to
participate, on an equal basis, in open and free meetings and discussion, is be­
ing-as I write this on September 28th, 2009-subjected to a number of well­
organized attacks by gangs of armed men, supported by the state and the police,
calling on all "amaZulu" to come out and defend the settlement against "amaM­
pondo." The call to ethnic cleansing can only be understood politically: these
attacks are a direct assault on the democratic openness of the organization. The
attacks have been planned and organized by local political elites, namely the
leader of the Branch Executive Committee of the local ANC with the support of
the local ward councilor Yakoob Baig both of whom have much to lose from a
democratically constituted shack settlements. During the attacks against the Ab­
ahlali-affiliated Kennedy Road Development Committee, Abahlali released a
press statement noting that the ethnic politics in the local ANC started with Ja­
cob Zuma' s election campaign and before then it was unknown in the settle­
ment.
By 2009 Abahlali baseMjondolo had become the largest autonomous grass­
roots poor people's organization in South Africa with members across the coun­
try. 1 1 5 Propelled by those who have almost nothing, the shack dwellers move­
ment, which lives in a daily state of emergency and contingency, represents a
truth of postcoloniality and offers a critique of its ethics in the most Fanonian
sense. After all, the damned of the earth judge wealth not only by indoor plumb­
ing, taps, and toilets, but also by human reciprocity and the relationships that
develop through a rigorously democratic and inclusive movement. It is a wealth
that builds on and emphasizes thinking, namely the thinking that is done collec­
tively and on a continuing basis in the shack communities. Theirs is a politics of
the lived experience of scale that begins at the bottom. It challenges policy-
230 Nigel C. Gibson

makers "up there" to come down to the settlements and listen to the poorest of
the poor and thus by doing so encourages a new language of dialogue. The
shack dwellers movement represents a clear and emergent case that makes the
intertwining of household and community scale explicit with national politics
and responds to Fanon's critique and call to realize the radically humanist, de­
centralized national scale of postcolonial struggle. In other words, Fanon's revo­
lutionary theory also necessitates that space is produced differently. For exam­
ple, while land and housing are essential elements to the struggle for a
decolonized society, Abahlali understands that the struggle is ultimately about
building democratic spaces open to all and creating a society that recognizes the
humanity of all. Because shack dwellers are from many different backgrounds,
come from different places, hold different religious beliefs, and speak in differ­
ent languages, Abahlali represents the genius of a new beginning because it is
working out a form in which ensure that "the spirit of humanity is everyone." It
is forced to do that because Abahlali is

the collective culture that we have built within the movement, that pride of be­
longing to this collective force that was not spoken about before, becomes a
new concept, a new belief-especially as Abahlali in its own nature, on its
own, is different to other politics. It requires a different style of membership
and leadership. It requires a lot of thinking, not only on what is read, but on
what is common to all the areas. Therefore one learning Abahlalism demands,
in its nature, the form that it takes. It doesn't require one to adopt some ideas
and approach from outside . . . . [Abahlali's] nature demands the form that the
movement takes. It doesn't require one adopting some other ideas and approach
from outside . . . . It requires a different approach from normal politics. . . . We
did not start with a plan-the movement has always been shaped by the daily
activities of the people that make it, by their daily thinking, by their daily influ­
ence. This togetherness is what has shaped the movement. 1 1 6

Zikode adds that the "common sense that all are equal comes from the very
new spirit of ubuntu." In other words the new spirit of "ubuntu" would express
the idea of respect and dignity of every human person, but it is also firmly
grounded in the common lived experience of the poor, where they live now in
the cities. Just as Fanon argued that culture (including local democratic forms
such as the Djemma in Algeria) is reinvigorated and reconfigured through the
struggles for freedom, and just as Biko argued the need to "restore" to black
people "the great importance we used to give human relations" ubuntu notions
of dignity and respect for others are made concrete for the contemporary urban
and cosmopolitan reality of shack life. Rather than naturalized, ubuntu is refa­
shioned in everyday lifeworld of the shack dwellers movement and thus not nar­
rowly conceived in terms of language or ethnicity; that is to say, not limited by
language. 1 1 7 Thus rather than taking for granted, for example, that a person is a
person through other persons (umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu), Abahlali envision
reinventing ubuntu, the most Fanonian sense of radical mutation in practice,
 Fanonian Presences in South Africa 23 1

based on the diversity of cosmopolitan realities of the urban shack settlements.

This cosmopolitan "fact of shackness" becomes the basis for shifting the geo­
graphy of reason and rethinking the politics of space and scale from a genuinely
grassroots and genuinely democratic standpoint.
Considered "temporary"---even though families have lived in the settle­
ments for generations-shack dwellers are often not served by city services like
garbage removal which means garbage mounts up and rats are a constant threat;
they are often denied the electricity connections promised at the end of aparthe­
id, and with only a few accessible taps and toilets, shacks settlements are
cramped, fumy spaces. Because cooking is by paraffin stoves and lighting by
candlelight, death, injury, and the destruction of property by fire is a constant
threat. Living in a shack is made harder by the threat and fact of forced removal
to far-off badly built "houses," or barbed wire fenced "transit camps," or tempo­
rary government shacks. These camps are the "dumping grounds" that herald the
destruction of communities and social life and herald the future if there is no
resistance. Thus the situation has created the shack dwellers revolt, but it is the
shack dwellers who have created the necessary form of the movement. From the
lived reality of life in South Africa's shack communities and in the context of
"liberation' s" broken promises, a wholly democratic and thoughtful new politi­
cal movement has evolved, and their politics expresses Fanon' s warning that the
newly independent nation must destroy the geography of colonialism and devel­
op a politics and social awareness that he called a new humanism.
Shack dwellers fight against the government's desire to move them out of
the city into small poor quality houses built in peripheral ghettoes that have en­
trenched the spatial logic of apartheid-miles from their lives away from their
communities, jobs, schools, hospitals, parks, libraries, churches, and the cultural
life of cities. They want more than a barren life far from town. "It is not un­
usual," writes Richard P ithouse, "for people to simply abandon relocation hous­
es and move back to better located shacks or to refuse to leave shacks for reloca­
tion houses." 1 1 8 While laws prohibit the building of new shacks, the shack
dwellers are voicing their right to live in the city, challenging the idea of citizen­
ship, and insisting on an active democratic polity. In this sense, Abahlali shack
dwellers are expressing a new kind of inclusive politics from the ground up, one
which appears local and reformist, such as the life-saving need to electrify the
settlements, but is also radical and national. They do not speak in terms of a cri­
tique of "the state," or in terms of a critique of political economy, but they do
address the politics of the state and the spatial political economy of postcolonial­
ism that concerned Fanon. Abahlali shack dwellers have won the struggle
against the eviction of Kennedy Road, and for the upgrade of the settlement and,
quite in contrast, for example, to the city of Johannesburg' s "formalization" of
the "informal settlements," Abahlali is insisting that each upgrade is based on
fully democratic and open discussions with the poor without reference to identi­
ty papers. Always contested, and continuously under threat, as the September
2009 armed attacks on Abahlali at Kennedy Road indicate, Abahalali's <level-
232 Nigel C. Gibson

opment suggests the possibility of a significant change in the spatial and politi­
cal economy of the city and a fundamental shift in postapartheid social con­
sciousness. Crucial to this shift, and toward the "reconceptualization of the ur­
ban," 1 19 would be a shift in cognition from technocratic state planning toward
"grassroots urban planning." 120
Such a radical change of consciousness, where as Fanon quotes the words
121
from Jesus' parable, "the last would be first and the first last," encourages a
shift in the geography of reason 122 from the elitist and technical discussion of
service delivery-mediated "between those who decide on behalf of 'private'
interests and those who decide on behalf of higher institutions and power" 1 23-
to people's needs mediated by the minds of those who were so recently reified
as dirty, uneducated, poor, violent, criminal, not fully human, named the
damned of the earth. This double movement-the decommodification of the city
and "the new rights of the citizen, tied in to the demands of everyday life" 124 is
part of a defetishization of the city: 125 a shift away from the Northern-focused
elite discourse of creating "world class" citadels in South Africa. But this
movement from the praxis of the "underside of humanity" 126 will not be easy.
Abahlali emerged from an earlier period of revolt that has been ebbing and
flowing since 2004 and continues to this day. The revolts emerge from necessi­
ty-namely from the state of emergency that is its daily reality and a historical
necessity-and in the challenge to thought about the postapartheid city itself,
toward humanist geographies based in people's needs.
The question is not simply whether Abahlali is reasonable, or whether its
practical demands can be met within the current South African political order.
The question is from what standpoint does reason emerge, since Abahlali upsets
the rational and spatial order on which modem South African society rests and
thereby fundamentally challenges its "govemmentality." Abahlali has claimed
victories; it negotiated with the city for shack dwellers to get services while they
wait for houses, for shack dwellers to get houses where they are living, and to be
part of a genuinely participatory and democratic urban planning. However Ab­
ahlali is not yet strong enough to sway the South African courts and stem their
shift to the right. They did not win their case against the "Eradication of Slums"
act at the Durban court, or their appeal against the removal of the Joe Slovo set­
tlement in Cape Town in the constitutional court. But their intervention in local
and national politics is important in significant ways. For example, when the
pogrom first broke out in Johannesburg in 2008, Abahlali immediately respond­
ed while the state denied it was happening. Abahlali's press statement "Xeno­
phobic attacks in Johannesburg" highlighted the important principle of solidarity
and the unity of the oppressed in their organization. The principle also reflects
notions of "community" rooted in African cultural concepts of collectivity and
sharing 1 27 but also something that has to be created and nurtured through digni­
ty, reciprocity, and inclusion. Without that, the "anger of the poor can go in
many directions." 128 Thus Abahlali insist that everyone-no matter on where
they are from, who they know, what language they speak, and so on-all who
 Fanonian Presences in South Africa 233

live in a shack settlement are from the community and have equal voice irres­
pective of their origins. This was not mere rhetoric. Emphasizing the importance
of maintaining a strong political self-organization, and with undocumented mi­
grants in key positions within the movement, the shack dwellers' political lea­
dership was eloquent and direct: "[w ]e have been warning for years that the an­
ger of the poor can go in many directions. That warning, like our warnings about
the rats and the fires and the lack of toilets, the human dumping grounds called
relocation sites, the new concentration camps called transit camps and corrupt,
cruel, violent and racist police, has gone unheeded." 129
Demonstrating the political self-education acquired in their living discus­
sions in the shack settlements, Abahlali insists that the issue is not educating the
poor about xenophobia. Instead they challenge society to educate itself about the
real situation in the settlements and also educate themselves "so we can take
action":

Always the solution is to "educate the poor." When we get cholera we must be
educated about washing our hands when in fact we need clear water. When we
get burnt we must be educated about fire when in fact we need electricity. This
is just a way of blaming the poor for our suffering. We want land and housing
in the cities, we want to go to university, we want water and electricity-we
don't want to be educated to be good at surviving poverty on our own. The so­
lution is not to educate the poor about xenophobia. The solution is to give the
poor what they need to survive so that it becomes easier to be welcoming and
generous. The solution is to stop the xenophobia at all levels of our society. It is
time to ask serious questions about why it is that money and rich people can
move freely around the world while everywhere the poor must confront razor
wire, corrupt and violent police, queues and relocation or deportation . . . . Let
us all educate ourselves on these questions so that we can all take action. 130

Abahlali's philosophy is simple as it is practical. Indeed the clarity of expression

emerges out off the state of emergency: no one is illegal; as Abahlali puts it, "a
person cannot be illegal. A person is a person whether they find themselves."
Let us educate ourselves so that we can take action. Part of that education is the
re-appropriation of struggle history, such as "unfreedom day" and "Soweto day"
arguing that "fifteen years into our so-called democracy . . . the struggle for libe­
ration [is] still being fought by the poor." 131

Living Learning

True reflection leads to action but that action will only be a genuine praxis if
there is a critical reflection in its consequences. To achieve this praxis it is ne­
cessary to trust the oppressed and their ability to reason.
-Paulo Freire
234 Nigel C. Gibson

As much as all debates are good, fighting only by talking does not take us much
further. Sometimes we need to strengthen our muscles for an action debate, that
is a living debate that does not only end on theories.
-S'bu Zikode

As I have argued, Abahlali is a new kind of organization of shack dwellers: it is

not a political party, it is not an NGO, it is not outside, above, or separate from
the shack dwellers; it is the self-organized shack communities insistent on de­
centralization, autonomy, grassroots democracy, and accountability. It appre­
ciates acts of living solidarity but shuns money and political power from gov­
ernment and nongovernmental groups. It is an organization, as Fanon
understood it, a "living organism." Abahlali calls it a living politics, and it
represents the kind of challenge to committed intellectuals and activists that Fa­
rron mapped out in The Wretched of the Earth, namely that intellectuals need to
put themselves in "the school of the people." Abahlali had no illusions about
left-leaning intellectuals since it had no experience of them, but after experienc­
ing the elitism of some of the left, and often Northern-focused middle class in­
tellectuals who actively deny that poor people can think their own politics, Ab­
ahlali has become very aware of how intellectuals often undermine the
movement. Thus they demand that intellectuals, who really want to dialogue and
work with them, should first come to the settlements and listen to what they
have to say and be a part of the "University of Abahlali": "[w]e have always
thought that the work of the intellectual was to think and to struggle with the
poor. It is clear that for [some] the work of the intellectual is to determine our
intelligence by trying to undermine our intelligence. This is their politics. Its
result is clear. We are shown to the world to not be competent to think or speak
for ourselves." 132 This clarity of expression comes from experience, and think­
ing about these experiences profoundly challenges anyone interested in genuine
liberation. From its beginning, the organized shack dwellers developed an infra­
structure for self-organization in the "University of the Abahlali." It was a prac­
tical, not theoretical, endeavor that begins by shifting the geography of reason
by putting "the worst off' at the center. Abahlali was also seriously committed
to discussing liberatory ideas in terms of what they considered a "living debate."
Thus the "University of Abahlali baseMjondolo" was born as a concrete exam­
ple of Fanon' s conception that the oppressed can think for themselves and in­
deed, by thinking for themselves, open up new avenues for thought. The educa­
tion at the "University of Abahlali" would occur where people live and struggle
in the languages that they speak, through ongoing collective reflection of expe­
riences of oppression and resistance.
Fanon argues that "political education" must not be a directive given to the
masses. He rejected a "banking" notion of political education, to use Freire' s
term, 133 and argued against the elite politics o f the nationalist party whose aim is
only to use the mass movements for state power. The nationalist party, he argues
"is the modern form of the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, unmasked, unpainted,
 Fanonian Presences in South Africa 235

unscrupulous, and cynical." 134 "Political education" is often thought to be a hie­

rarchical, monological and one-way process. Even among the postmodern radi­
cal left critical of vanguardist politics, political education often takes place in
spaces that are not accessible to masses of poor people. For Fanon, political
education explains to the people the meaning of their own actions. If political
education fails to enter into this dialogue, it becomes dogmatic and sclerotic.
Like Freire' s concept of pedagogy, Fanon argues that political education is di­
alogic and ongoing, but he also intimates that the idea of educating the masses
politically also means shifting the ground of reason:

In fact, we often believe with criminal superficiality that to educate the masses
politically is to deliver a long political harangue from time to time. . . . To edu­
cate the masses politically does not mean, cannot mean, making a political
speech. What it means is to try, relentlessly and passionately, to teach the
masses that everything depends on them; that if we stagnate it is their responsi­
bility, and that if we go forward it is due to them too, that there is no such thing
as a demiurge, that there is no famous man who will take the responsibility for
everything, but that the demiurge is the people themselves and the magic hands
are finally only the hands of the people. In order to put all this into practice, in
order really to incarnate the people, we must repeat that there must be decentra­
lization in the extreme. 135

The importance of subjectivity in Fanon's dialectic does not mean that Fa­
non operates under a romantic illusion that there will be an immediate under­
standing of complicated problems. For Fanon, as I have argued, dialectical prax­
is is something that has to be painstakingly worked through. There are no a
priori answers, there are no easy solutions. Breaking the bounds of Manichean
thinking, self-consciousness does not and cannot come about all at once; the
intellectual' s role is not to mechanically impute consciousness but to help de­
stroy all the ideologies that characterized "the damned" and "out of order" as
backward. Fanon' s faith in the ability of the masses to understand everything
does not and cannot mean the end of intellectual work. Indeed Abahlali under­
stands this. Practice, in other words, enlivens contradictions and makes clearer
the necessity to work out new concepts. Quite literally, shifting the ground of
reason does not mean the end of reasoning but aiding the reason that is born in
the struggle to become a social force by testing itself out and raising itself to
truth and therefore to a new humanist praxis.

Mind-Forged Manacles of Unfreedom

The most important weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the
oppressed.
�Steve Biko
236 Nigel C. Gibson

In every cry of every man,

In every infant's cry of fear,
In every voice, in every ban,
The mind-forged manacles I hear
�William Blake

Whatever challenges the movement faces in the future, the strength of the shack
dwellers movement must be judged by its commitment to freedom and libera­
tion. The idea of freedom is central to "Living Leaming." How could it not be,
since fifteen years after freedom was won there is no freedom for the poor? An
idea of freedom becomes necessary because of the daily situation. The quest for
freedom is the human response to the situation, the daily emergency, of millions
of shack dwellers and rural dwellers in South Africa; it is a situation that de­
mands freedom. This is uncomplicated and absolute, in Fanon's sense, a situa­
tion of life and death. This world is unviable and therefore people must rebel:
"Our world is burning and so we need another world." J3 6 This absoluteness is
expressed in the movement's uncompromising language of change: "There is a
difference when the poor say another world is necessary and when civil society
says that another world is possible. We conclude to say that it is the formations
of the poor and the grassroots that are the agency to make this other world
come-not civil society." 13 7 The emphasis on the concrete condition of the
shack dwellers highlights the fact that the fundamental difference between pos­
sibility and necessity turns on the importance of their own agency. In other
words, the necessity of another world in the here-and-now is something de­
manded by conscious agency, their thought and their action. There is another
philosophical point about necessity and freedom that Marx makes in Capital that
has a resonance with the Living Learning discussion. Marx argues that freedom
is not about imagining the possible but freedom only begins where necessity
ends: "[t]he true realm of freedom, the development of human powers as an end
in itself, begins beyond it, though it can only flourish with this realm of necessi­
ty as its basis." JJs
The nature of freedom is also a complicated question. The answer devel­
oped here is that it is the self-organization of the shack dwellers and the insis­
tence on their own agency and intelligence-as force and reason for the recon­
struction of societ/39-that gives content to freedom. Freedom is not an
abstraction. Its content is generated out of the reality of "unfreedom." In other
words, Abahlali do not need to hear a philosophic discourse on Freedom be­
cause they are already "professors of our own poverty." Freedom "will come
from becoming masters of our own history . . . and from making our own paths
out of unfreedom."i 4o It is this vision of freedom as collective empowerment that
transforms the struggle into one for a whole new society. The struggle does not
demand greater technical efficiency from the state nor a change in the relation­
ship between a community and the state, but rejects "the state's logic of free­
dom" which is limited to voting in exchange for "bits and pieces of service deli-
 Fanonian Presences in South Africa 237

very" and argues instead that the state become subservient to poor people's
needs. The participants are clear that:

We also see that our ideas about freedom go much further and deeper than the
way our struggles are presented when they are described as "service delivery
protest." If the heart of our struggle was just for houses and services to be deli­
vered, we would be just like beggars with our hands out, waiting someone to
help us. No, what we are struggling for, a real freedom, goes much further than
that! 1 4 1

They insist, against the stunted and antipolitical language of the NGOs and lm­
man rights organizations, that freedom is not only the goal but must also be
something that is practiced now in the day-to-day critical, democratic, open­
ended, and praxis-based vision that Fanon envisioned would be needed to coun­
ter the degeneration of liberation: "[ w ]e don't say that we in the movements are
perfect, but at least we are opening these gates; at least we are on a right path to
search for the truth. We have a deep responsibility to make sure that no-one can
shut the gates." They stress that collective reflection on the experience of op­
pression and resistance is essential to that praxis: "[o]ur experience in life and in
the movement means that we must always remain open to debate, question and
new learning from and with the people." The point is not to tell the people what
to think but to create spaces that can enable people to discuss how and why they
are not free. The notion is dialogic rather than hierarchical and relies on the
"damned of the earth" speaking for themselves. As Fanon reminds us, the strug­
gle for freedom aims for a fundamental change in social relations. After the con­
flict, there is not only the disappearance of the unfreedom but also the unfree
person. 142 It is praxis that enables the transcendence of unfreedom, transforming
the system and individuals. That transcendence depends on breaking the mind­
forged manacles of unfreedom. 143
Fanon's visionary critique of postcolonial elite politics mapped out a "living
politics" based on a decentralized and democratic form of self-governing which
opens up new spaces for the politics of the excluded from the ground up is being
practiced in "living learning." It is only a small beginning toward building coun­
ter-hegemony from below that opens up spaces that fundamentally change the
political status quo and contest the moral and intellectual narcissism of the rul­
ing elites. Recently Fanon's conclusions to The Wretched of the Earth-with its
challenge to Europe and its call to work out a "new humanism" based on the
inclusion, indeed centrality, of the "enlightening and fruitful work" of nation
building 144-has been concretely rearticulated by S 'bu Zikode of Abahlali: "[i]t
is one thing if we are beneficiaries who need delivery. It is another thing if we
are citizens who want to shape the future of our cities, even our country. It is
another thing if we are human beings who have decided that it is our duty to
humanize the world." 145
238 Nigel C. Gibson

Postscript

Fanon argues in The Wretched ofthe Earth that the newly independent nation in
Africa is fragile and in permanent danger. 146 As I revised this chapter for publi­
cation, the Kennedy Road Development Committee, Abahlali baseMjondolo, at
Kennedy Road in Durban was under attack by armed thugs supported by the
police, orchestrated by local ANC bosses, and mobilized by chants of Zulu
chauvinism and threats of ethnic cleansing against the multiethnic Abahlali. Es­
sentially a coup has taken place, the removal of the democratically elected
KRDC by force. Sadly the press have so far followed the party line of blaming
the victims and accusing the KRDC of creating a curfew. The truth is that the
KRDC was asking that shebeens (where alcohol is sold) be closed by 1 0 p.m.
and not run 24 hours a day as before. There is also an important gender dimen­
sion to this given the links between alcohol and violence against women. The
shebeen owners, whose business would be affected by the policies, were not
advocating murder and destruction, but the local ANC political entrepreneurs
were as they saw an opportunity to take over the settlement. The situation is
fluid and the truth is surely emerging through the networks of national and in­
ternational support that Abahlali has created. But the situation also reflects the
permanent danger which is the daily reality of the shack dwellers organization as
it challenges the postapartheid state. S 'bu Zikode's house has been destroyed,
and he, like thousands of others, threatened by the violence, has left his shack
and is now a refugee. Anyone associated with Abahlali or the KRDC has been
threatened with death and their shack destroyed. ANC thugs, who now run the
settlement, are keeping the remaining shack dwellers in a state of fear. Zikode
writes:

This attack is an attempt to suppress the voice that has emerged from the dark
corners of our country. That voice is the voice of ordinary poor people. This at­
tack is an attempt to terrorize that voice back into the dark corners . . . . Our
crime is a simple one. We are guilty of giving the poor the courage to organize
the poor. We are guilty of trying to give ourselves human values. We are guilty
of expressing our views. 147

By the time you read this chapter, you will know whether the postapartheid
state has been able to smash the organization and further curtail democracy in
South Africa or whether the organization has been able to respond and thereby
open up new areas for democratic discourse and continue the process of what
Zikode calls the slow revolution from below that is turning the political system
upside down and building what Walter Benjamin called "the real state of emer­
gency" or state of exception [Ausnahmezustand], that is the abolition of domina­
tion and the creation of a truly humanist society.
 Fanonian Presences in South Africa 239

Notes

1 . I use the phrase "the damned" rather than "the wretched" because I think it better
emphasizes the philosophical, existential, and material being of those people who are
damned, outside, and silenced. However, throughout I use the standard English transla­
tion of Fanon's book Les Damnes de la Terre, The Wretched of the Earth (New York:
Grove Press, I 968).
2. See James H. Cone, A Black Theology of Liberation (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis
Books, I 996); James H. Cone, Black Theology and Black Power (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis
Books, I 997); and Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed (New York: Continuum,
2000). Freire's Pedagogy ofthe Oppressed has been viewed as an extensive reply to The
Wretched of the Earth. Freire's relationship to Africa, specifically to post-independence
Guinea-Bissau should also be noted. See Paulo Freire, Pedagogy in Process: The Letters
to Guinea-Bissau (New York: Seabury, I 978).
3. Y.T. Museveni, "Fanon's theory of violence, its verification in liberated Mozam­
bique," in Essays on the Liberation ofSouthern Africa (Dar es Salaam: Tanzania Publish­
ing House, I 97 I ).
4. This is certainly not to downplay the significant influence of Fanon on the revolu­
tionary theorist Amilcar Cabral, or on writers such as Ayi Kwei Armah and Ngilgi wa
Thiong'o; the point here is Biko's debt to Fanon in his creation of a philosophy of libera­
tion. On the continuing legacy of Fanon's thought, see Nigel C. Gibson, Rethinking Fa­
non: The Continuing Dialogue (Amherst, NY: Humanity Books, I 999).
5 . Steve Biko, I Write What I Like (London: Heinemann, I 979), 89.
6. Steve Biko, interview by Gail Gerhart, in Biko Lives! Contesting the Legacies of
Steve Biko (New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2008), 24.
7. Cone's book Black Theology and Black Power was an important source for Biko
and his colleague Barney Pityana. The University Christian Movement (UCM) sent a
delegation of three to meet Cone. One was a special branch spy, another Manana Kg­
ware, was killed in a car accident, and the other person was Basil Moore who compiled a
book of essays on black consciousness including writings by Biko, Cone, and Pityana.
8. For example, see Hannah Arendt's discussion of Fanon in On Violence (New
York: Harvest Books, I 970).
9. Biko, I Write, 68.
I O . James Cone, A Black Theology of Liberation (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books,
[ 1 970] I 986), I 27.
I I . Biko, I Write, 94.
I 2. Basil Moore, ed., Black Theology: The South African Voice (London: C. Hurst,
I 973).
I 3 . Biko, I Write, 9 1 .
I 4. Biko, I Write, 20.
I 5. Biko, I Write, 24.
I 6. Mark S anders suggests that Biko's nom de plume "Frank Talk" echoes Frantz
Fanon. See Complicities (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2002), I 79.
I 7. Cone, Black Power.
I 8. Sanders, Complicities, 1 68.
I 9. Lewis R. Gordon, Foreword to Steve Biko, I Write What I Like (Chicago: Uni­
versity of Chicago Press, 2002), x.
20. Biko, I Write, 3 5 .
240 Nigel C. Gibson

2 1 . Biko, I Write, 3 5 .
2 2 . Frantz Fanon, Black Skin, White Masks (New York: Grove Press, 1 967), 220-22.
23. Cone, Black Power, 1 5 .
24. Fanon, Black Skin, 1 94.
25. Biko, I Write, 23. Cone takes this up directly in the section of Black Power titled
"How Does Black Power Relate to White Guilt?"
26. Fanon, Black Skin, 89.
27. Biko, I Write, 78.
28. Fanon, Black Skin, 222.
29. Gerhart, "Interview with Steve Biko," 37.
30. Biko, I Write, 72.
3 1 . Hendrik W. van der Merwe and David Welsh, eds., Student Perspectives in
South Africa (Cape Town: David Philip, 1 972). The ordering of the papers is suggestive
of an implicit racism. After the editors' papers, the ordering of the papers is as follows:
English speaking White South Africa, Afrikaner student politics, new Afrikaners fol­
lowed by two papers on NUSAS after which we get to African high school pupils and
students at Fort Hare. Only then do we have Pityana's and Biko's articles.
32. Biko, I Write, 67, my emphasis.
3 3 . The alliance of the ANC with the white Congress of Democrats and the Indian
Congress.
34. Pityana became SASO president after Biko in 1 972. After a decade of political
activity and bannings, he left the country and for a short while became the leader of the
BCM's external wing before joining the ANC. He became an ordained minister in Eng­
land and returned to South Africa to head the Human Rights Commission and later UN­
ISA.
35. Pityana writes this sentence as '·My negro consciousness does not hold itself out
as black." I am not sure that this makes sense, especially in the context of Pityana's ex­
planation. I assume it is a typo.
36. Fanon, Black Skin, 1 35, quoted by Pityana in Student Perspectives, 1 80. It
should be noted that this most Fichtean of Fanon's declarations is made unstable by the
shattering of the "unreflected position." Fanon's dialectic, like Hegel's, is skeptical of a
foundation based on first principles. As Robert Williams maintains, "Fichte is inconsis­
tent: On one hand, he holds the idealist position that there is nothing in the ego except
what is posited by the ego, and, on the other hand, he maintains that the Antoss influ­
ences or summons the ego to action . . . Fichte's ethics remain like Kant's, an internalized
conflict of lordship and bondage" (Williams, Recognition: Fichte and Hegel on the Other
(Albany: State University of New York Press, 1 992), 82-83). In Black Skin, the shatter­
ing of the unreflected position returns in a skepticism: "The few working class people I
had the chance to know in Paris . . . knew they were black, but, they told me that made no
difference to anything. In which they were absolutely right" (Fanon, Black Skin, 224).
37. Since the quote marks are not closed it appears that it is Fanon, not Pityana, who
is speaking.
38. In Cone's black theology, the quest to be somebody required a break with the
black nobodyness in a racist society.
3 9. Fanon, Black Skin, 1 1 .
40. Biko, I Write, 27-32.
4 1 . In this context, Pityana's revision in his 1 99 1 retrospective is interesting. He de­
clared that black consciousness "was not a political philosophy or ideology but a strategy
for action." See N. Barney Pityana, Mamphela Ramphele, Malusi Mpumlwana, and Lin-
 Fanonian Presences in South Africa 24 1

dy Wilson, eds., Bounds of Possibility: The Legacy ofSteve Biko and Black Conscious­
ness (London: Zed Books, 1 992), 2 1 2.
42. Gerhart, "Interview with Steve Biko," 2 1 .
43. Biko, I Write, 4 1 .
44. Biko, I Write, 69-70.
45. During colonialism Fanon argues that "the mass of people maintain intact tradi­
tions which are completely different from those of the colonial situation." In contrast,
during the anticolonial period the native intellectual "throws himself in frenzied fashion
in the frantic acquisition of the culture of the occupying power and takes every opportuni­
ty of unfavorably criticizing his own national culture" See Fanon, The Wretched of the
Earth, 236-37. Since I am quoting Fanon often through Biko's "Frank Talk" I am using
the Constance Farrington translation throughout rather than the newer translation of The
Wretched by Richard Philcox.
46. Biko, I Write, 86.
47. Amilcar Cabral, Return to the Source: Selected Speeches (New York: Monthly
Review Press, 1 973).
48. Cone argued that the Christian message of liberation of the poor in American
must be a black theology.
49. Biko, I Write, 43.
50. Karl Polyani, The Great Transformation (Boston: Beacon Press, 1 957), 1 63-{)4.
5 1 . I am referring widely to black consciousness, rather than specifically to a
movement called the Black Consciousness Movement (BCM) using uppercase letters.
52. Biko noted that Black Consciousness was a "sequel" to the continental anti­
colonial struggle that was making its way South (Biko, I Write, 69). This is not to down­
play the international importance of the U.S. black movement. Indeed, in contrast to the
hegemony of the apartheid state and the apparent quiescence of the political opposition
during the 1 960s, the black revolution in the United States resonated powerfully across
the black world.
53. This is James Cone's term.
54. Biko, I Write, 46.
55. James Cone, "Black Theology and Black Liberation," in The Challenge ofBlack
Theology (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books), 55. See also "The Sources and Norm of Black
Theology" in James Cone, A Black Theology of Liberation (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis
Books, 1 990), 25.
56. Biko, I Write, 46.
57. Fanon, Black Skin, 1 27. Ousmane Sembene argues that the negritude underpins
Africa's situation as poor and economically in disarray. While Europe is considered tech­
nological and rational, Africa is happy "just being" (Noureddine Ghali, "An Interview
with Ousmane Sembene," Film and Politics in the Third World (Brooklyn, NY: Autono­
media, 1 987), 52).
58. The year of the publication of Senghor's groundbreaking collection of negritude
poetry introduced by Sartre's "Orphee Noir," which is subsequently criticized by Fanon
in Black Skin, White Masks. See Nigel C. Gibson, Fanon: The Postcolonial Imagination
(Cambridge, UK: Polity Press, 2003), 6 1--83.
59. Sec Ahmed Veriava and Prishani Naidoo's fine chapter "Remembering Biko For
The Here and Now," in Biko Lives!, 233-5 1 . Veriava and Naidoo make a case for Biko
taking a third position which is neither Senghor's nor Fanon's.
60. Biko, I Write, 43.
6 1 . Frantz Fanon, Wretched, 273.
242 Nigel C. Gibson

62. Fanon, Wretched, 246-47.

63. Fanon does not theorize culture and "customary rule." For a discussion of the
importance of customary rule in late colonial Africa see Mahmood Mamdani, Citizen and
Subject (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1 996). For an analysis of this in post­
apartheid South Africa see Lungisile Ntsebeza, Democracy Compromised (Johannesburg:
HSRC Press, 2005).
64. Fanon, Wretched, 2 1 0 .
6 5 . Biko, I Write, 9 5 .
6 6 . See Andries Oliphant's excellent " A Human Face: Biko's Conceptions o f Afri-
can Culture and Humanism," in Biko Lives!, 2 1 3-32.
67. Biko, I Write, 95.
68. Biko, I Write, 97.
69. Biko, I Write, 95-96.
70. Biko, I Write, 96.
7 1 . Fanon, Wretched, 204.
72. Biko (I Write, 75) is adding these lines to a speech quote remembered from
Aime Cesaire's mayoral campaign in Fort de France, 1 945. See Fanon, Black Skin, 1 09.
73. Biko, I Write, 45.
74. Biko, I Write, 76.
75. Biko, I Write, 76.
76. Fanon introduces two ideas of hegemony in his work. Speaking of the situation
of the evolue in France, in Black Skin, White Masks, Fanon writes of what we might un­
derstand as a quite "normal" system of cultural hegemony. The black, he writes, "is a
product of [the] cultural situation" which "slowly and subtly-with the help of newspa­
pers, schools and their texts, advertisements, films, radio-work their way into one's
mind" (Fanon, Black Skin, 1 52). In The Wretched ofthe Earth, he argues that the system
is not legitimated by "moral teachers" and "bewilderers" but is based on brute force:
"Colonialism is not a thinking machine . . . it is violence in its natural state" (Fanon,
Wretched, 1 06). These two concepts of hegemony are central to Biko's idea of black
consciousness and the idea of a liberated Azania. The first is essential to Biko's critique
of white liberals. For though colonialism and late colonialism-apartheid-is most cer­
tainly a system based on separation and force, Biko argues, educated blacks, especially,
have too easily based their opposition to apartheid on the ground furnished by white lib­
erals and leftists.
77. Fanon, Wretched, 52.
78. Fanon, Wretched, 52.
79. Biko, I Write, 75.
80. Gerhart, "Interview with Steve Biko," 42.
8 1 . Gerhart, "Interview with Steve Biko," 45.
82. Fanon argues that during the freedom struggle "the native discovers reality and
transforms it" laying hold of the violence which was previously held in check and chang­
ing it direction toward the colonial regime (Fanon, Wretched, 58).
83. Biko, I Write, 3 0-3 1 .
84. Fanon argues that political education means teaching "the masses that everything
depends on them . . . the magic hands are finally only the hands of the people" (Fanon,
Wretched, 1 97).
85. See Nigel C. Gibson, "Black Consciousness after Biko," in Biko Lives!, 1 29-55.
86. Biko, I Write, 1 20-2 1 .
 Fanonian Presences in South Africa 243

87. Raya Dunayevskaya, Philosophy and Revolution (New York: Columbia Univer­
sity Press, 1 989), 246.
88. I tried to develop some of these issues at the time ( 1 988) in "Black Conscious­
ness After Biko."
89. Dunayevskaya, Philosophy and Revolution, 246.
90. This includes economic necessity and a flight for freedom, the wish to escape
authoritarian "chiefs," as well as the authority of fathers and husbands, in the rural areas.
9 1 . For a brief history of shack settlements in colonial and apartheid South Africa
see Richard Pithouse, "A Politics of the Poor: Shack Dwellers' Struggles in Durban,"
Journal ofAsian and African Studies 43, no. 1 (2008): 63-94.
92. Jean Comaroff, "'The Diseased Heart of Africa' : Medicine, Colonialism, and the
Black Body," Knowledge, Power, and Practice: The Anthropology ofMedicine and Eve­
ryday Life (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1 993), 322.
93. See Judith R. Walkowitz, City ofDreadful Delight: Narratives ofSexual Danger
in Late- Victorian London (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1 992), 1 9.
94. Comaroff, "'The Diseased Heart of Africa,"' 322.
95. Underlining the fact that building houses and a democratic polity are not syn­
onymous. Postapartheid South Africa government's involvement in massive building
projects has, as I argue, also been about removing the poor from cities, not including
them in the creation of democratic cities.
96. Fanon, Wretched, 37, 40.
97. Africans were never simply passive victims in the urbanization process. Because
settlements were free from municipal regulations and close to work, they offered a mod­
icum of autonomy that included opportunities for activities in the "informal economy."
98. In this case the settlement was near to the main road from the airport to Cape
Town that tourists use.
99. Fanon, Wretched, 37.
1 00. Slum clearance was stopped in the late 1 980s due to struggle and started again
only in 200 1 . In other words there was a break during the transition, then a return to re­
pressive practices.
1 0 1 . This situation is not unique to South Africa but a global phenomenon (see Da­
vid Harvey, "The Right to the City," New Left Review 53 (September-October 2008):
23-40).
1 02. Harvey, "The Right to the City."
1 03 . As Michael Neocosmos argues, postapartheid South Africa was never a "deve­
lopmental state" (with "development" as a state project); it has always been a post­
development state (based on a "private/public partnership" and cost recovery) ("Analyz­
ing Political Subjectivities: naming the post-development state in Africa today," Journal
ofAsian and African Studies, forthcoming).
1 04. Thomas Frank, The Wrecking Crew: How Conservatives Rule (New York:
Metropolitan Books, 2008), 1 2 1 .
1 05 . Karl Marx, Capital (New York: Vintage, 1 976), 344.
1 06. "Living politics" is a commitment to a politics that in Fanon's terms speaks in
the language that everyone can understand. As Zikode puts it, "we must-as we always
do-start with a living politics, a politics of what's close and real to the people. This has
been the basis of the movement's success" (quoted in Mark Butler and David Ntseng,
"Politics at stake: a note on stakeholder analysis," 2008. http://sanhati.com/articles/902/).
1 07. Fanon, Wretched, 1 97.
244 Nigel C. Gibson

1 08. See "The University of Abahlali baseMjondolo" on the Abahlali baseMjondolo

website, www.Abahlali.org.
I 09. A more political term than xenophobia indicating that the actions had to be un­
derstood politically rather than as simply hatred or fear of outsiders.
1 1 0. On the importance of NGOs in Africa see Julie Heam, "African NGOs: The
New Compradors," Development and Change 38, no. 6 (2007): 1 095-1 1 1 0. In the South
African context, one should note the importance of the Shack (Slum) Dwellers Interna­
tional, which has been funded by the Gates Foundation. SDI is not a democratic organiza­
tion of shack dwellers but an elite organization that works as a gatekeeper with other
NGOs organizations and academic institutions (such as the Sustainability Institute at
Stellenbosch University). Echoing World Bank "boot-strap" programs for the poor as
well as currently fashionable micro-financing programs, their major initiative is to en­
courage micro-saving and credit schemes which often pathologize the poor for their "ina­
bility" to save. Progressive NGOs, akin to vanguardist left groups, tend to try to take over
movements and redirect them toward larger "political" movements like the World Social
Movement and away from grassroots issues. On Abahlali's attitude to "progressive"
NGOs see "Supporting Abahlali" baseMjondolo" (2006) www.abahlali.org/node/269;
also see (Marcelo Lopes de Souza, "Together with the state, despite the state, against the
state: Social movements as 'critical urban planning' agents," City IO, no. 3 (December
2006): 327-42) for a Brazilian perspective.
1 1 1 . Michael Neocosmos, "The Politics of Fear and the Fear of Politics: Reflection
on Xenophobic Violence in South Africa," Journal ofAsian and African Studies 43, no. 6
(November 2008): 586-94; and COHRE (Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions,
2008), "Cohre Statement on Xenophobic Attacks in South Africa," www.cohre.org/view
_page.php?page_id=3 l l .
1 1 2. IRIN: United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs New
Service, "Burning the Welcome Mat," May 1 9, 2008, www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?Re­
portid=7767 1 .
1 1 3 . Neocosmos, "Politics of Fear," 588-89.
1 1 4. According to the city's website, www.joburg.org.za.
1 1 5 . By November 2009 the paid up membership of Abahlali was just over 1 0,000
in fifty-three settlements. In 2008, Abahlali together with the Landless People's Move­
ment (Gauteng), the Rural Network (KwaZulu-Natal) and the Western Cape Anti­
Eviction Campaign Anti-Eviction formed the Poor People's Alliance, a national network
of democratic membership based poor people's movements.
1 1 6. S ' bu Zikode, "To resist all degradations and divisions," interview with Richard
Pitho use, http://antieviction. org. za/2009/04/28/to-resist-al1-degradations-divisions-an-in­
terview-with-sbu-zikode/.
1 1 7. Ubuntu, the common form of muntu (person) means humanity in Bantu lan­
guages. Limiting ubuntu to language, and then a test of language authenticity, becomes
the basis for a limiting reactionary politics of space, exclusion and belonging.
1 1 8. Richard Pithouse, "A Progressive Policy without a Progressive Politics: Les­
sons from the failure to implement Breaking New Ground" (unpublished ms, 2009). In
the low-cost housing development of "France" in Imbali outside Pietermaritzburg, argues
Pithouse, more than 1 00 houses built at the cost of over R2 million have been vacant
since their completion in 2002. The intended "beneficiaries" have refused to take occupa­
tion or transfer on the grounds that the houses are too far away from the city. In the words
of one community member: "We want to stay here because we don't pay for transport to
 Fanonian Presences in South Africa 245

the city. It is better for us to stay in our mud houses rather than be forced to relocate to a
place that we don't like."
1 1 9. Henri Lefevbre, The Urban Revolution (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota
Press, 2003), 1 5 .
1 20. Souza, " Together with the state," 327-42.
1 2 1 . Quoted in Fanon, Wretched, 37.
1 22. "Shifting the geography of reason" is the motto of the Caribbean Philosophical
Association.
1 23 . Lefevbre, Urban Revolution, 1 57.
1 24. Henri Lefevbre, Key Writings (New York: Continuum, 2006), 250.
1 25. Since the commodity is a social relationship between things, it is important to
maintain that defetishization is crucial to decommodification. Without a critique of alie­
nation and thingification of human relations, decommodification is reduced to a critique
of the market rather than the commodity form place and a new fetish is made of nationa­
lized and public property.
1 26. Delores S. Williams, Sisters in the Wilderness: The Challenge of Womanist
God-talk (New York: Orbis Books, 1 993).
1 27. In Zulu " Ubuntu," the idea of sharing based not only on respect for others but
on interdependency expressed in the expression that "a person is a person through other
persons" and that "I am because we are."
128. "Abahlali baseMjondolo to Mourn UnFreedom Day on 27 April 2009," press
release April 24, 2009, http://abahlali.org/node/5040.
1 29. Abahlali baseMjondolo, "Xenophobic attacks in Johannesburg," press release
May 2 1 , 2008, www.abahlali.org.
1 30. Abahlali baseMjondolo, "Xenophobic attacks in Johannesburg."
1 3 1 . Poor People's Alliance, "Our Struggle Continues: Reclaim June 1 6," Poor
People's Alliance: Johannesburg, 2009.
1 32. S 'bu Zikode, "Land and Housing," speech at the Diakonia Council of Churches
Economic Justice Forum, 2008, www.diakonia.org.za/index.php?option=com_content&
task=view&id= l 29&Itemid=54.
1 33 . Freire, Pedagogy ofthe Oppressed.
1 34. Fanon, Wretched, 1 65.
135. Fanon, Wretched, 1 97-98.
1 3 6. Lindela Figlan, Rev. Mavuso, Busi Ngema, Zodwa Nsibande, Sihle Sibisi and
S'bu Zikode, Living Learning (Pietermaritzburg, South Africa: Church Land Program,
2009), 49.
1 37. Figlan, Living Learning, 49.
1 3 8 . Marx, Capital, 959.
1 39. Dunayevskaya, Philosophy and Revolution.
1 40. Figlan, Living Learning, 88.
1 4 1 . Figlan, Living Learning, 24.
1 42. Fanon, Wretched, 246.
1 43 . A phrase used by Raya Dunayevskaya.
1 44. Fanon, Wretched, 204. I hope I have made it clear that humanist practice needs
not alone a concrete grounding in the lived experience of the people but also a more ri­
gorous philosophical rather than pragmatic basis. Indeed that was the mission that C.L.R.
James rearticulated after his experiences in Ghana. Fifty years ago he had embraced
Nkrumah and Nkrumahism (Ghana became independent in 1 957) almost uncritically. But
he realized by the early 1 960s that he had "been fooled." Nkrumah had been one of the
246 Nigel C. Gibson

best of the new African leaders, James said, but had become increasingly separated from
the masses. Overly concerned with technological "backwardness" he became increasingly
authoritarian. James summed up: "Africa will go crashing from precipice to precipice
unless the plans for economic development are part of a deep philosophical concept of
what the mass of the African people need." James grounded his critique of Nkrumah in
humanism: "The African builders of a humanist society show that today all humanism
finds itself in close harmony with the original conceptions and aims of Marxism" (C.L.R.
James, Nkrumah and the Ghana Revolution (London: Allison & Busby, 1 982), 223).
145. Zikode, "Land and Housing."
1 46. Fanon, Wretched, 247.
1 47. S'bu Zikode, "The ANC has invaded Kennedy Road," www.abahlali.org.
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 Suggestions for Further Reading

Books by Frantz Fanon

Fanon, Frantz. Black Skin, White Masks. Trans. Constance Farrington. New
York: Grove Press, 1 967. [Originally published as Peau noire, masques
blancs. Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1 952.]
--- . A Dying Colonialism. Trans. Haakon Chevalier. New York: Grove
Press, 1 965. [Originally published as L 'An Cinq, de la Revolution
Algerienne. Paris: Frarn;:ois Maspero, 1 959.]
---. Toward the African Revolution: Political Essays. Trans. Haakon
Chevalier. New York: Grove Press, 1 967. [Originally published as Pour la
Revolution Africaine. Paris: Frans;ois Maspero, 1 964.]
--- . The Wretched ofthe Earth. Trans. Richard Philcox. New York: Grove
Press, 2004. [Originally published as Les damnes de la terre. Paris:
Frans;ois Maspero, 1 96 1 .]

Articles by Frantz Fanon

Fanon, Frantz. "Algeria Unveiled." Decolonization: Perspectives from Now and

Then. Ed. Prasenjit Duara. New York: Routledge, 2003. Pp. 42-55.
--- . "L'Experience Vecue du Noir." Esprit 1 9, no. 1 79 (May 1 95 1 ): 657-
79.
--- . "The Fact of Blackness." Identities: Race, Class, Gender, and
Nationality. Eds. Linda Martin Alcoff and Eduardo Mendieta. Malden, MA:
Blackwell, 2003 . Pp. 62-74.
---. "The Negro and Psychopathology." Literary Theory: An Anthology.
Eds. Julie Rivkin and Michael Ryan. New York: Blackwell, 2004. Pp. 462-
69.

263
264 Suggestions for Further Reading

Biographies of Frantz Fan on

Caute, David. Frantz Fanon. London: Fontana, 1 970.

Ehlen, Patrick. Frantz Fanon: A Spiritual Biography. New York: Crossroad,
200 1 .
Gendzier, Irene. Frantz Fanon: A Critical Study. New York: Pantheon Books,
1 973.
Macey, David. Frantz Fanon: A Life. London: Granta Books, 2000.
Perinbam, Barbara. Holy Violence: The Revolutionary Thought ofFrantz
Fanon: an Intellectual Biography. Washington, DC: Three Continents
Press, 1 982.

Related Works Concerning Fanonian Theories

Bulhan, Hussein. Frantz Fanon and the Psychology of Oppression. New York:
Springer, 2004.
Gibson, Nigel C. Fanon: The Postcolonial Imagination. Cambridge, UK:Polity
Press, 2003.
Hansen, Emmanuel. Frantz Fanon: Social and Political Thought. Columbus:
The Ohio State University Press, 1 977.
Bergner, Gwen. "Who ls That Masked Woman? Or, the Role of Gender in
Fanon's Black Skin, White Masks." PMLA [Publications ofthe Modern
Language Association ofAmerica} 1 1 0. l ( 1 995): 75-88.
Onwuanibe, Richard. A Critique ofRevolutionary Humanism. St. Louis, MO:
W.H. Green, 1 983 .
Sharpley-Whiting, T. Denean. Frantz Fanon: Conflicts and Feminism. Lanham,
MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 1 998.
 Index
Abahlali, 228-238; baseMjondolo, xix,
2 1 2, 228-229, 234, 238
abstraction, 47, 84-85, 1 74, 236
academia, xv, 1 9, 22, 25-27, 32
actuality, xv, 4 1 , 52
Adler, Alfred, 1 28; Adlerian, 1 28, 1 67
Afghanistan, 23, 8 1 , 94
Africa, xiv, xviii-xix, 4, 1 1-13, 42, 8 1 ,
1 1 0, 170-1 7 1 , 1 80, 1 85, 198-204,
206-208, 2 1 1 , 2 1 3 , 2 1 8-2 1 9, 224,
238; North Africa, ix, 59, 1 80;
sub-Saharan Africa, ix, 1 80; West
Africa, 1 97. See also individual
countries
African National Congress (ANC), 2 1 6,
227-229, 238
African Party for the Independence of
Guinea and Cape Verde (PAIGC),
1 97, 200
Agamben, Giorgio, xvi, 1 03, 1 04-106,
I 09. See also state of exception
agency, xiv, 9, 23-24, 86-87, 200,
203-205, 207, 236
aggression, 8 1 , 1 29-1 30, 222-223
Ait-Ghezala, Adel, 1 82
Alfred, Taiaiake, 77-78, 88-93, 95
Algeria, viii, xiii, xvi, 1 9-22, 26-27,
40, 42, 57, 6 1-63, 65-67, 8 1 , 84,
1 04, 1 09, 1 1 1-1 1 2, 1 85, 1 99, 203,
2 1 7, 230; Algerian School of
Psychiatry, 6 1 ; Arab-Algerians,
1 06; Radio-Alger, 20; Voice of
265
Fighting Algeria, 2 1
Algiers, battle of, 1 42, 1 44
alienation, xv, xvii, 3, 1 3, 43--44, 52,
63, 82, 94, 1 32, 2 1 7
Alighieri, Dante, 1 3
Althusser, Louis, 39, 52
America, Latin, 1 80, 1 82, 202, 2 1 8;
North, xvi, 1 5, 1 70, 203
ANC. See African National Congress
Anglo-American, 77, 1 29
An6wara Kawennote. See Turtle Island
anthropology, 8, 1 3-14, 1 69
anticolonialism, 24, 28, 49, 62, 77, 83,
86-87, 89, 90-92, 94, 1 2 1-126,
1 29, 1 3 1-1 32, 1 34, 1 97, 202, 205,
207, 2 1 9-22 1 , 225
Antilles, 1 36-137, 1 52-1 54
anxiety, 4, 1 6, 1 50, 1 53
Anzaldua, Gloria, xvii, 1 1 7-1 20, 1 26-
1 34, 1 4 1-144
apartheid, 40, 2 1 2-2 1 3, 2 1 5, 2 1 7-224,
226, 227, 23 1
apathy, 1 79-1 80
apologists, 221
Arabic, 2 1 , 1 1 7, 1 39
Arabs, 1 23, 1 30, 1 7 1
archetypes, 64-65
Arendt, Hannah, xvi, 1 03, 1 04-109,
111
Asia, xiv, 4, 1 5, 1 70-1 7 1 , 202; South
East Asia, xiv
Asians, 4, 1 2, 1 3 3
266 Index

assimilation, 1 0, 26-27, 45, 59, 78-80, Brown, James, 2 1 9

94-95, 1 75, 1 8 5-1 86, 2 1 3-2 1 4 Bryce, Peter, 79
asylums, 58-60, 66-68 bureaucrats, 1 06-1 07, 1 22
asymmetry, xviii, 1 5 5 Bush: administration, 8 1 ; George H.
Australia, 1 99, 204 W., 1 85
authenticity, 70, 2 1 6 bush colleges, 2 1 3
autobiography. See biography:
autobiography Cabral, Amilcar, xviii-xix, 44, 1 97-
autochthony, 203 208, 2 1 1
autonomy, xviii-xix, 56, 7 1 -72, 1 77, Canada, xvi, 77-80, 88, 9 1 , 93-95,
1 80, 1 99, 2 1 3, 224, 234 1 99, 204; British Columbia, 33,
88; Northern Alberta, 95;
bad faith, 40, 49, 2 1 5 Northern Quebec, 95
Bantu, 2 1 8, 22 1 -222 Cape Verde Islands, 1 97, 200, 202
bare life, xvi, 1 06, 1 09-1 1 0, 226 Capecia, Mayotte, 1 3 7, 1 50-1 54, 1 57,
bastardization, 2 1 9, 22 1 1 59
battle of Algiers. See Algiers, battle of capitalism, ix, 1 3, 82, 89, 1 24, 1 79,
Belgium, 200 22 1 , 227
Benhabib, Seyla, 23, 27, 3 3 Caravan of Death, 85
Benjamin, Walter, 1 05, 238 the Caribbean, ix, 1 2- 1 3 , 49
Betts, Raymond, 1 78, 1 85 Catholic church, 79, 1 3 1 , 1 86
Biko, Steve, xix, 2 1 1-224, 230, 235 Cesaire, Aime, 1 2, 82, 2 1 6
binarism, 85 chauvinism, 227, 238
biography, xiii, 1 1 8, 1 3 8; Cherki, Alice, 40-4 1
autobiography, 1 20, 1 5 1-1 52, 1 58 Chicano, 93, 1 29, 1 33
bio-politics, 1 04, 1 0 8 chiefdom, 1 8 5
black communal ism, 2 1 8-2 1 9 child welfare, 79
black consciousness, xix, 8 3 , 2 1 1 -2 1 2, Chile, 84-85
2 1 3-2 1 8, 2 1 9, 22 1 -224 Christian, Barbara, 92
Black Consciousness Movement, 2 1 2- Christianity, 2 1 3; Christians, 4, 1 3 , 123
2 1 3, 2 1 9 Churchill, Ward 84-85, 94
Black People's Convention (BPC), 2 1 8 CIA, 85
Black Power, 83, 2 1 2, 2 1 4 citizen, xvi, 22, 7 1 , 80, 90, 94-95, l 06-
Black Skin, White Masks, ix, xvi, xvii, 1 07, 1 09, 1 8 1 , 1 83, 1 90, 232, 237
42, 44, 50, 60, 62-64, 68, 8 1 , 83, class: dominant, 20, 26; struggle, 201-
86, 1 03, 1 09-1 1 1 , 1 27-128, 1 35- 203
1 37, 1 49-1 50, 1 67, 1 73-175, 1 80, classroom, xiv-xv, 20, 26, 28-3 1 , 79
1 86, 2 1 5-2 1 6 Cold War, xiv, 1 9, 89, 1 3 0
black theology, 2 1 3, 2 1 9 collaboration, 56, 2 1 8, 220
black world, 2 1 6, 2 1 9 colonial order, xvii, 1 1 0, 1 49, 1 58
blacks, 5 , 1 0-1 1 , 1 4, 42, 45, 67, 1 09, colonialism, vii-viii, xiii-xiv, xvii-xix,
1 23, 1 33, 1 36, 1 49, 1 54, 1 57, 1 60, 1 5 , 23-24, 3 1-32, 40-42, 44, 56,
2 1 2-2 1 9, 22 1 -224, 227 58-59, 63, 69, 77, 80-88, 94-95,
Blake, William, 236 1 03-1 06, 1 09-1 1 2, 1 1 8-1 1 9, 1 22-
bondage, 9, 1 6, 58, 1 40 1 23, 1 25-1 29, 1 32, 134, 1 3 8, 1 42-
border crossing, 30 1 43, 1 5 1 , 1 54-1 57, 1 59, 1 72-1 75,
borderlands, 1 27 1 77-1 80, 1 84, 1 97-20 1 , 203-205,
bourgeoisie, 1 2 1 - 1 22, 1 24, 1 79-180, 207, 2 1 7, 220-222, 227, 23 1 ;
203-204, 234 classical, 1 98-1 99; settler, 77,
Brazil, 60, 1 80, 2 1 1 1 99, 2 1 8
 Index
colonies, 5, 83, ! 05, 1 1 1 , 1 23, 1 25,
1 37, 200, 203-204, 2 1 1
colonization, viii, xiv-xvi, xviii-xix, 4-
6, 8, 1 4, 1 6, 1 9, 2 1 , 28, 32, 57, 59-
60, 62-63, 65-68, 1 09, 1 28-129,
1 83-1 84, 1 99
the colonized, viii, xiii, xv, xvii, 3, 6,
1 0-1 1 , 1 9, 2 1 , 42, 45, 48, 57--60,
65--66, 7 1 , 77, 8 1 , 84, 86-87, 89,
92, 1 03-1 05, I 07-1 1 1 , 1 2 1-123,
1 25, 1 27, 1 34, 1 44, 1 5 1 - 1 52, 1 55,
1 57, 1 59, 1 6 1 , 1 68-169, 1 73-1 74,
1 77-1 84, 1 86, 1 97-198, 200-20 1 ,
203-208, 220
colonizers, 9-1 0, 2 1 , 25, 57-59, 62,
65--66, 8 1 , 85, 87, 1 2 1 , 1 25, 1 77,
1 79-1 8 1 , 1 84-1 85, 1 90, 207, 225
Comaroff, Jean, 225
commodity, 1 24
concentration camps, 2 1 8, 233
Cone, James, 2 1 1 -2 1 5, 2 1 8-2 1 9
conscientization, 80, 94-96
consciousness raising, 80
conservatism, 25-28
constructivity, 9
cooperation, ix, 60, 80, 84, 88-89, 90-
91
corruption, 1 8 1 , 1 87, 229
cosmopolitanism, 208
Costa Rica, 1 82, 1 87-1 88
coup, 50, 8 1 , 85, 238
creativity, viii, 70, 1 33, 1 36, 224-225
Crick, Malcolm, 1 77, 1 8 1 , 1 84
criminality, 6 1 , 1 25
critical theory, 3 9
cultural relativity, xviii, 1 83, 1 86, 1 88-
1 89
culture, xiii, xviii, 20-23, 26-27, 32-
33, 40-4 1 , 47-48, 1 20, 1 3 1-1 34,
1 36-1 37, 1 42, 1 54, 1 56-- 1 57, 1 73,
1 82-1 89, 1 97-200, 205-207, 2 1 6,
2 1 8-22 1 , 227, 230; national, 220-
22 1 ; native 1 78, 220; white 1 49-
1 50
custom, 220-22 1
Dante. See Alighieri, Dante
de Beauvoir, Simone, 6 1
decolonization, vii-viii, xiii-xix, 3 , 1 2-
267
1 3, 1 6, 1 9-27, 29, 39, 50-5 1 , 62-
63, 65--66, 77, 84-89, 92-93, 96,
1 03, 1 1 9, 1 57, 1 67, 1 72-175, 1 8 1 ,
1 97, 2 1 1 ; o f philosophy, vii-viii,
xvi, xix, 42, 50-5 1 , 208
deconstruction, 1 60
dehumanization, xix, 8, 4 1 , 43, 46, 86,
1 1 0, 1 2 1 -1 22, 221
Delft Temporary Relocation Area, 226
democracy, xvi, 1 3 , 23, 94-95, 1 1 2,
1 83, 228, 233, 234, 238;
deliberative, 22-23, 27
Department of Justice, U.S., 9 1
Derrida, Jacques, 1 75
Descartes, Rene, 3
determinism, viii
dialectic, xviii, 9-1 1 , 1 4, 42, 84, 86,
1 2 1-122, 1 28, 1 67-170, 1 72-175,
2 1 6--2 1 8, 220, 235
dichotomy, 87, 94
disalienation, 43--44, 5 1 , 87, 1 3 5
disciplinarity, 8
disciplinarization, 57
disciplinary decadence, xiv, 6-7, 52
diversity, 22-23, 27, 3 1-32, 1 32, 1 70-
171
doctors, 58-59, 64, 67--68, 1 32
domination, viii, 23, 30, 67, 82, 84, 94-
95, 1 22-123, 1 43, 1 98-200, 205,
2 1 4, 223, 238
dreams, 64
Du Bois, W. E. B., 5, IO, 1 5
dualism, 1 1 9, 1 28, 1 4 1 , 1 44;
Manichean, 1 25, 1 27, 1 34, 1 4 1
Dunayevskaya, Raya, 224
Dussel, Enrique, 3--4
A Dying Colonialism, 1 9-20, 28, I 03-
1 04
economy, viii, 4, 1 3 , 82, 95, 1 5 1 , 1 58,
1 60, 1 79, 1 8 1 - 1 82, 200, 23 1
ecotourism, 1 87-1 88
education, viii, xv, 28-29, 78-80, 96,
1 3 1 , 1 40, 200, 2 1 5, 2 1 8, 228, 233-
235; political education, 234-235;
Living Leaming, 233, 236; self-,
233. See also pedagogy
Egypt, 4, 1 40; Cairo, 1 39
El-Moudjahid, viii
268 Index

emancipation, vii, xix, 1 07, 1 22, 1 25, 5 1 , 56, 63, 67-68, 70-7 1 , 86-87,
1 42, 1 97-198, 207; common 89, 1 05, 1 32, 1 35, 1 67, 1 84, 200,
emancipatory project, xvii, 1 20; 2 1 1 , 2 1 5, 2 1 7, 220, 222, 224, 230,
self-, 224 236, 237
empire, 1 5- 1 6, 1 9, 86, 1 07, 225 Freire, Paulo, 2 1 1 , 233-235
empowerment, xiv-xv, 1 9, 22-25, 28, the French, xiii, 2 1 , 42, 1 09
3 1 , 92, 236 French Revolution. See revolution:
Engels, Frederick, 1 24, 202 French
Enlightenment, 208 Freud, S igmund, 43, 52, 63-65, 68,
enslavement, vii, ix, 4, 1 6, 57, 2 1 3, 2 1 5 1 29, 1 49-1 50, 1 53-1 55, 1 5 9
envy, 7 , 1 5 8 Front de Liberation Nationale (FLN),
epidermalization, 42-43, 45-46, 8 1 , viii, 6 1 -62, 1 03
1 09 Fuss, Diana, 1 5 1
equality, 1 5, 23, 66, 1 70, 1 78, 1 82, 200
essential ism, 1 04, 220; essentialization, Gandhi, Mohandas, 84; Gandhian, 88
xvii, 32 gender, xix, 1 1 , 30, 40, 1 27, 1 29, 1 33,
ethics, 1 0- 1 2, 1 4, 1 6, 25, 7 1 , 229 1 4 1 , 1 43, 1 5 1 , 238
ethnic cleansing, 229, 238 genealogy, 62, 1 3 9
etiology, 43, 63, 65, 82-83 genocide, 40, 78, 8 0
Europe, 4, 40, 6 1 , 69, 1 06-107, I I O, geography, 1 69- 1 7 1 ; o f selves, 1 27,
1 2 1 , 1 29, 1 33-1 34, 1 56, 1 70-172, 1 37, 1 4 1 . See also reason
1 79, 1 8 1 , 1 86, 1 89, 203, 237 Germans, 1 06, 1 72
Europeans, 4, 60-6 1 , 1 22, 1 54, 1 57, Gibson, Nigel C., 50, 1 03
1 7 1 -1 72, 1 78-1 80, 1 85 Gilly, Adolfo, 1 9, 28
exoticism, 1 78 Glissant, Edouard, viii
exploitation, viii, 57, 67, 8 1 -82, 84, 86, globalization, vii, ix, 1 85-1 86
93, 95, 1 80, 1 86, 1 89, 207 God, 1 7 1 , 2 1 3, 2 1 5, 2 1 9
Gordon, Lewis R., 46-47, 49-50, 1 03,
feminism, 22, 24, 1 3 3 1 1 1, 1 5 1-153, 1 55, 1 60, 1 74, 2 1 4
feminist theory, 22, 26-27 graduate school, 26
fetishization, 82 grassroots, xix, 2 1 2, 23 1 -232, 234, 236
First Nations, xvi, 1 3, 78-80, 88, 9 1 , greenwashing, 1 87-1 88
93-95 Gustafsen Lake, 88
First World, 22, 25, 94
FLN. See Front de Liberation Haitian constitution, 22
Nationale Haitian Revolution. See revolution:
Flynn, Thomas, 70 Haitian
folklore, 1 32, 1 8 1 Haldimand Deed, 95-96
force, xvi, 3 , 1 0, 1 4-1 5, 57-59, 63, 67, Hawaii, 1 78, 1 82
78, 88, 90-9 1 , 95, 1 03, 1 05, 1 07, Hegel, G. W. F., xvii-xviii, 4, 1 2, 44-
1 1 0-1 1 1 , 1 23, 1 26, 1 3 1 , 1 40, 1 5 1 , 45, 1 2 1 , 1 67-1 75, 2 1 5
20 1-202, 222-223, 227, 230, 235- hegemony, 1 3-14, 80, 22 1 -222
236, 238; force of law, 1 05 historicity, 20 1
Foucault, Michel, xv-xvi, 40, 55-68, history, 4, 7, 1 1 , 2 1 , 28, 40-4 1 , 44, 5 1 ,
70-7 1 , 1 03-1 09, 1 1 1 62, 64, 66, 83, 86, 88-89, 1 1 0,
Fourth World, 77, 94-95 1 1 8, 1 3 1 , 1 39, 1 70, 1 72, 1 78, 1 87,
France, ix, xiii, 66, 1 37, 1 54, 1 58, 1 80, 1 98-205, 207, 220-22 1 , 233, 236
1 86, 200, 204; Paris, 1 80 homelands, 2 1 8, 22 1 , 226
Frank Talk, 2 1 2-2 1 5 , 2 1 7 homogeneity, 23
freedom, xiii, xv-xvi, 8-9, 1 6, 28, 4 1 , homogenization, 20, 26
 Index 269

homophobia, 30, 69 2 1 8, 228, 234-235

homosexuality, 68--69 interdisciplinarity, 7
homosexuals, 60, 68 internalization, 42--43, 45--46, 59, 63,
hooks, bell, 28-3 1 , 1 57 66, 69
hospitals, 59, 67--68, 23 1 international law, 205
human rights, viii, xix, 66, 85, 95, 1 07, international relations, xiii
1 36, 227, 237 internment, 68
humanism, xv, xix, 20, 39--42, 50-52, interpellation, 39, 1 68
1 04, 1 09, 1 22, 1 8 9-1 90, 207-208, Inuit, 78, 80
220, 222, 23 1 , 237; Fanonian, xv, Islam, 1 3 , 1 29-1 3 1 , 1 86;
4 1 , 5 1-52 Mohammedans, 1 7 1 ; Muslims, 4
humanities, 7, 22, 27
humanity, xiii, xix, 8-9, 1 3, 1 9-20, 39- Jaspers, Karl, 6, 2 1 2, 2 1 5
42, 46-52, 57-58, 1 1 0, 1 33, 1 43, jealousy, 1 5 1 , 1 58, 1 60
1 60, 1 84, 1 86, 1 88-190, 207-208, Jesus, 2 1 3, 232
2 1 3-2 1 4, 2 1 7, 2 1 9, 22 1 , 230, 232 Jews, 4, 1 3 , 3 0
Husserl, Edmund, 45--46, 49 justice, 3 1 , 4 1 , 95, I I I

identity, xviii, 1 6, 22-24, 30, 60, 84, Kanien'kehaka, 77, 88

87, 89, 92, 95, 1 28, 1 32-1 33, 1 3 9-
1 43, 1 49, 1 60-1 6 1 , 1 85, 1 97, 206,
2 1 3, 23 1 ; -relationship, viii
ideology, 20, 26, 42--43, 50, 87, 94,
1 26, 1 34, 200, 2 1 5, 2 1 9
immigrant, 78, 94, 96, 1 29, 1 86; illegal
immigrants, 228
immigration, 1 86
imperialism, 1 9, 77, 80, 82-83, 85, 94,
I 05, 1 34, 1 56, 1 99-205
India, 32, 84, 203
Indian Affairs, 78-79
Indian Residential School System, 78-
80; Truth and Reconciliation
Commission, 78, 80
individualism, xvii, 1 1 1 , 2 1 3
infantilization, 1 5 1
inferiority, 1 0, 29, 40, 42--44, 60, 63,
67, 1 28, 1 36, 1 53-1 54, 1 83, 2 1 4-
2 1 5; complex, 42, 60, 63, 1 1 1 ,
1 36, 2 1 8, 222
injustice, 5, 62, 69, 89, 1 43, 2 1 5
the insane, 58, 60
institutions, 1 5- 1 6, 26-27, 29, 33, 67,
80, 89-90, 1 10, 1 78, 200, 204,
205, 232
integration, 29, 67--68, 9 1 , 1 8 1 , 1 86,
2 1 3-2 1 4
intellectuals, 24, 6 1 , 1 1 7, 1 19-1 20,
1 24, 1 3 0-1 3 1 , 1 34, 142-143, 1 97,
Kennedy Road Development
Committee (KRDC), 229, 238
Kissinger, Henry, 85
knowledges, 3
lactification, 63
language, 4, 1 5, 20-23, 25, 28, 4 1 , 48,
58, 6 1 , 66, 1 33, 1 36-1 37, 1 42,
1 74, 2 1 3, 229, 230, 232, 234, 236-
237
Latino, 32, 1 29
legitimacy, xiv, xvi, 5, 7-8, 27, 3 1 , 78,
90, 93, 1 04, 1 3 0
legitimation, 1 4, 78, 90-9 1 , 95
Les damnes de la terre, 1 2- 1 3, 1 6
lesbian, 1 26, 1 33
liberalism, I I , 50, 95, 2 1 3-2 1 5, 220
liberation, viii, xiii-xvi, xviii-xix, 8-
1 0, 1 4, 1 6, 20-22, 26, 28-29, 3 1 ,
49, 5 1 , 63, 66, 77, 83, 1 1 0-1 1 1 ,
1 1 7, 1 22, 1 27, 1 29, 1 3 5, 1 43-144,
1 79, 1 8 1 , 1 84, 1 97-198, 204-207,
2 1 1 , 2 1 3, 2 1 6-2 1 8, 22 1 , 223-224,
227, 23 1 , 233-234, 236-237;
national, 1 97-198, 204-206;
theology, viii
libido, 1 55
L 'Internationale, 1 3
lived experience, 23-24, 28-29, 3 1 , 4 1 ,
44, 46--48, 50-5 1 , 2 1 1 , 2 1 9, 229-
270 Index

230 Mills, C. Wright, 1 1 8

living together (vivre ensemble), viii misogynist, I 5 1
logic, 3, 6, 8-9, 1 2, 1 5, 47, 8 1 , 1 26, missionaries, 78, 225
1 28-1 3 0, 1 58, 1 69, 1 72-1 74, 2 1 7, modernism, 40
22 1 , 23 1 , 236 modernity, 3, I 1 , 1 5, 40, 1 04-1 07,
London, 208-209, 225 1 09-1 1 0, I 1 2, 204, 208
love, ix, xvii, 1 37, 1 49-1 5 1 , 1 55-1 60; Mohanty, Chandra, 22-23, 25-27
intra-racial, xvii; self-, 1 49; white, Mohawk. See Kanien'kehaka
1 5 1 , 1 55-1 56, 1 58, 1 60 Monture-Angus, Patricia, 9 1
Moses, 1 6
Machiavelli, Niccolo, 3--4 Mount Hermon School, 1 3 9
Madagascar, 65, 1 3 8 Mozambique, 2 1 1
man o f color, xvii, 1 56-1 57 multiculturalism, 94, 1 06
Manicheanism, 82-83, 86-87, 94, 1 04, multivocity, xv, 1 9, 22, 24, 28, 3 1
1 09-1 1 0, 1 23-1 27, 1 34, 1 4 1, 1 43, mutative agent, 5 1
223, 235. See also dualism; world
Mannoni, Octave, 60, 1 3 8 Narayan, Uma, 24
Maran, Rene, 1 5 1 , 1 56-1 59 natalisms, 1 04, 1 1 2
market, viii, 1 3, 1 8 1 , 1 87, 2 1 3, 224, national consciousness, 1 2, 1 97, 206,
227 2 1 0, 2 1 6, 2 1 8, 222
Martinique, xiii, 42, 69, 8 1 , 1 09, 1 60; National Liberation Front. See Front de
Martinican, 1 1 7, 1 52, 1 56 Liberation Nationale
Marx, Karl, 1 2, 50, 54, 1 24, 1 32, 200- national student union (NUSAS), 2 1 4
203, 2 1 1 , 224-225, 227, 236; nationalism, 1 2, 1 04, 1 07, I I O, 1 22,
Marxism, xviii, 50, 1 98, 20 1-202, 1 32-1 33, 1 4 1 , 1 73, 1 97, 2 1 6, 220,
206, 2 1 2 222
masculinity, I 55- 1 56 nation-class, 204
master, xviii, 1 0, 3 I , I 1 1 , 1 2 1- 1 22, native, 26, 84, 86-87, 95, 1 09, 1 1 1 ,
1 37, 1 56, 1 67-1 68, 2 1 5 1 32, 1 78-179, 2 1 7, 22 1 , 225;
master-slave dialectic, 1 22, 1 67 Native Affairs, 6 1 ; Natives' Land
maturity, 1 6, 50, 52 Act, 225
May, Todd, 55-56, 70 NATO, 8 1 , 200
McLaren, Deborah, 1 87-1 88 natural attitude, 49
mediation, 1 74-175 Nazi state, I 06, 1 08
the Mediterranean, 4, I 70 negativity, xvii, 1 67
melancholia, I I , 1 6 negritude, 2 1 9
Memmi, Albert, 1 8 1 , 1 85-1 87, 1 89 Negro, 1 36-1 38, 1 52, 1 56, 1 58, 1 67
mental disorders, 43, 5 1 , 63 negrophobia, 67
Merleau-Ponty, Maurice, 44--45 neocolonialism, 77, 93, 1 27, 1 29, 1 73-
mestiza, 1 33, 1 4 1- 1 42, 1 80 1 75, 1 98
method, 3, 5-8, 1 4, 26, 39, 47, 62, 85, neocolonization, 1 6
1 24- 1 25, 1 27-128, 1 69, 21 I, 223, neoconservatism, 1 3
225 Neocosmos, Michael, 228-229
methodology, 6, 26, 44, 1 24 neoliberalism, 1 3
Metis, 78, 80 neurosis, xvii, 65, 1 37, 1 49-1 50, 1 53-
Mexico, 1 80, I 82 1 55
Middle East, 4, 1 3, 1 3 0 New Tribalism, 1 32-1 33
Mik'maq, 93 New World, 4, 1 98
military, vii, 85, 90, 1 97-1 98; Newtonian sociology. See sociology:
paramilitary, I 04 Newtonian
 Index 271

NGOs, 95, 2 1 2, 228, 237 pedagogy, 28-30, 235. See also

Ngugi wa Thiong'o, 2 1 , 23 education
Nietzsche, Friedrich, 1 1 , 44, 62, 70, pederasty, 69
1 86 peer review, 25
911 1 , 23, 85 people of color, xvii, 30, 1 54, 1 58, 1 60,
nonviolent militancy, xvi, 77, 88-89, 1 80
91 phenomenological reduction, 49, 83
normalcy, 59, 68-69 philosophy, vii-viii, xiii-xix, 3, 8-9,
normality, 1 1 1 4, 28, 39, 42, 44-47, 49-52, 1 60,
normalization, 12, 55-56, 66, 68-70, 1 67-169, 1 72, 1 80, 1 97-198, 205-
95 208, 2 1 1 -2 1 4, 2 1 6-2 1 7, 223-224,
norms, 15, 3 I, 33, 40, 56, 59-60, 67- 233; Africana, 8, 32, 208, 2 1 2; of
68, 1 56, 2 1 4 decolonization, vii; epistemology,
xiv, 3, 9, 1 2- 1 4, 25;
objectivity, 64, 1 35, 224 existentialism, xiv, 56, 70; of
obsession, 1 53-1 54 liberation, xix, 2 I I ; modern, xix,
occupation, 80, 1 27, 1 30, 1 3 5, 1 73, 208; ontology, 9, 45, 47-48;
1 83, 22 1 phenomenology, xv, 39, 46-47,
Oka, 88 49, 52, 77, 80-8 1 , 83-84, 86, 1 06,
Olympics, 95 1 72
Onkwehonwe, 89, 93 phylogeny, 42-43
ontogenesis, 52 Pinochet, Augusto, 85
ontogeny, 42-43 Pithouse, Richard, 23 I
ontologization, 45-46 P ityana, Nyameko Barney, 2 I 6-2 1 7
the oppressed, 1 2, 42-44, 48, 2 1 3, 2 1 7, pluralism, 22-23, 32
232-235 pogroms, 228
oppression, xiii-xv, xvii, xix, 9-1 0, 20, police, 30, 56, 60-6 1 , 78, 90-9 1 , 94,
22-23, 40-42, 44-46, 5 1-52, 56- 1 04-107, I l l , 1 97-198, 2 1 5, 228,
57, 63, 65, 69, 89, 9 1-93, 95, 1 1 2, 233, 238; Royal Canadian
I 1 9-1 2 1 , 1 26-127, 1 29, 1 3 I , 1 35- Mounted Police (RCMP), 79
1 36, 1 40-143, 1 68, 1 78, 1 84, 1 98, political theory, xvi, I I, 83
207, 2 1 2, 2 1 5, 223-224, 234, 237 politics, xv-xvi, xix, 1 0-1 I , 1 3-15, 1 9,
oppressor, 9, 20, 4 1 , 43, 46, 5 1 , 89, 9 1 , 56, 62, 67, 7 1 , 84, 89, 1 03, 1 06-
1 25, 1 43, 1 86-1 87, 206, 235 1 08, 1 1 2, 1 38, 1 39, 2 1 2, 2 1 6, 2 1 8,
orientalism, 1 29-132, 1 34, 1 38 220, 223, 227-229, 230-234, 237;
Ortega y Gasset, Jose, I 4-1 5 living politics, 228, 237
Portugal, 1 97, 200, 204
postapartheid, xix, 2 1 1 -2 1 3, 226-227,
pacifism, I I 0 232, 238
PAIGC. See African Party for the postcolonialism, 24, 26, 32, I 74, 23 I
Independence of Guinea and Cape postcoloniality, xviii, I I, 1 4, 229
Verde postcolonization, I 6
Palestine, 1 26-127, 1 3 0 postmodernism, 39-42, 90, 235
pan-Africanism, I 97 poverty, 40, 93, I 09, I 8 I, I 98, 200,
paradigm, xvi, 40, 59, 1 29, 1 50, 2 1 5 2 1 8, 220, 225, 233, 236
pathology, I I , 65, I 53 power, vii, xiv, xviii, 1 6, 1 9, 20-2 1 , 24,
pauperization, 228 25, 27, 32, 4 1 , 55-6 1 , 64, 67-68,
peace, viii, 80, 1 22, 1 86; studies 26 7 1 , 83-85, 88-92, 95, 1 05-1 09,
Peau noire, masques blancs, 5, 8-9, I I 1 28-129, 1 5 1 , 1 57, 1 59, 1 68, 1 72-
272
1 73, 1 77, 1 8 1-1 82, 1 84, 1 87, 1 97-
1 98, 200, 202, 22 1 , 226-227, 229,
232, 234; bio-, 1 08- 1 09; colonial,
xvi, xviii, 24-25, 57-59, 6 1 , 7 1 ,
78, 84-85, 89-90, 1 72, 1 77, 1 82,
1 84, 1 97, 200; state, xvi, 77-78,
88, 90-9 1 , 93, 234
power relations, 24, 27, 7 1 , 85, 9 1
praxis, vii, 9- 1 0, 1 1 1 , 1 29, 202, 232-
233, 235, 237
privilege, xiv, 22, 25-27, 30-3 1 , 33,
48-49, 5 1 , 56, 58, 7 1 , 1 23, 1 3 1 ,
1 4 1 , 1 52, 1 54, 1 59, 1 60, 1 7 1 , 1 75,
227
problem people, 5, 7, 1 0, 1 4
production, 3-5, 8, 22, 66, 82, 94, 1 69,
1 87, 1 89, 20 1-202, 204, 209, 224;
mode of, 202-203, 205-206
proletariat, 1 3, 1 2 1- 1 22, 204
psyche, 47, 63-66, 1 25, 1 28-129, 1 35-
1 36, 142
psychiatrist, viii, xiii, 43-44, 56, 60-
63, 67, 1 10, 1 29
psychiatry, xiv-xvi, 39, 42-44, 50-5 1 ,
55-56, 59-64, 66-67, 70-7 1 , 1 67
psychoanalysis, xv, 1 1 , 43-44, 50-52,
55-56, 60-64, 66, 68, 1 09, 149
psychology, xv, 39, 42, 46-47, 5 0-52,
55-56, 59, 65, 68, 1 28, 1 67
quanta! sociological imaginations, xvii,
1 1 8, 142
race, xiii-xiv, xviii-xix, 1 0- 1 1 , 22, 30,
32, 46, 6 1 , 77, 82-83, 86, 1 04-
1 05, 1 08, 1 10, 1 38, 1 4 1 - 143, 1 53,
1 56, 1 69-1 74, 2 1 2, 222, 225, 227
racism, vii-viii, xvi-xvii, 30, 40, 42,
45-46, 50, 63, 66, 69, 77, 94, 1 03-
1 04, 1 08- 1 1 0, 1 12, 1 1 8-1 19, 1 25-
1 26, 1 3 1 , 1 34, 1 36, 1 38, 1 42-1 43,
1 5 1 , 1 54, 1 7 1 - 1 74, 1 80- 1 8 1 , 1 83-
1 84, 1 88, 2 1 5, 220, 222; antiblack,
42, 45-46, 77
rape, 1 4 1 - 1 42, 222
rationality, xiv, 6, 1 2, 49, 1 42, 1 7 1 - 1 72
reason, 6, 8, 1 2, 66, 1 1 8, 1 75 , 208,
232-233, 235-236; geography of,
1 4, 23 1-232, 234
reciprocity, 1 0, 23, 1 2 1- 1 22, 1 67, 2 14,
Index
2 1 6, 229, 232
recognition, xviii, 9-1 0, 1 4, 23, 43, 5 1 ,
57-58, 1 2 1 , 1 52, 1 55, 1 58-1 60,
1 68, 1 83-1 84, 2 1 4
refugee, 9 3 , 96, 1 07- 1 08, 238; camps,
1 06
reification, 220-22 1
relationship, interracial, xvii, 1 58 ;
intra-racial, 1 5 1
relativism, 1 83
religion, 1 29, 1 3 1- 1 32, 1 86, 2 1 8
relocation, 23 1 , 233. See also Delft
Temporary Relocation Area
resentment, 65, 1 54, 1 60, 1 86
resistance, xvi, 1 0, 20-2 1 , 44, 48, 58-
59, 77, 80, 86, 88-90, 95, 1 22,
1 57, 1 74, 1 99-200, 2 1 6-22 1 , 223,
226, 23 1 , 234, 237; Algerian, 2 1 ,
62
revolution, 1 2, 1 9 , 2 1 , 28, 50, 83, 1 1 2,
1 23- 1 24, 1 27, 1 34-1 35, 1 77, 207,
2 1 7, 2 1 9, 222-224, 238; black,
2 19; French, 1 05-1 06; Haitian,
1 2, 49
right of rebellion, viii
Riviere, Joan, 1 58-1 59
Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, 1 1- 1 2, 1 06-
1 07
Said, Edward, xvii, 30, 1 1 7- 1 22, 1 26,
1 29- 1 32, 1 34, 1 38-140, 142- 1 44,
1 85
Sakej, 93
Salish nations, 88, 9 5
Sartre, Jean-Paul, 1 2, 44-45, 56, 70-7 1
scholarship, xv, 1 9, 22-28, 62, 1 74
science, 4-7, 9-1 0, 46-47, 56, 64, 70,
1 1 8; human, 6-7, 50, 7 1 ; modem,
6; natural, 4
self-consciousness, 47, 1 67, 2 1 6, 235
self-determination, vii, 19, 56, 78, 8 1 ,
89, 93-94, 1 26, 1 36, 2 1 6, 220
self-negation, 42-45
self-preservation, 1 55 , 1 60- 1 6 1
Senghor, Leopold, 44, 2 1 2, 2 1 9
sense of self, xvii, 1 5 1 , 1 55, 1 60
separation of powers, 1 05
settlers, 20, 77-8 1 , 87-89, 9 1-96, 1 98
sex, 5, 40, 1 57- 1 59
sexual economy, 1 5 1 , 1 60
 Index
sexuality, vii, xvii, 40, 65, 69
shack dwellers, xix, 2 1 2, 226-234, 236,
238
shack settlements, 225, 233; Joe Slovo
settlement, 226, 232
shantytown. See shack settlements
shebeens, 2 1 2, 224, 238
sibling rivalry, xvii, 149-1 50, 1 52,
1 58-1 60
singularity, 1 1 1 , 1 86, 223
Six Nations, 95-96
60s Scoop, 79
slave, xviii, 1 0, 7 1 , 1 2 1 - 1 22, 1 67-1 68,
2 1 3, 2 1 5
slavery, 8, 1 2, 57, 82
slums, 225
social change, 63, 1 27
social control, xv, xix, 1 9, 23, 25, 27,
29
socialism, ix, 89
sociality, xv, 4 1 , 47, 49, 5 1-52
sociodiagnostic, 8 1 , I 28, 2 1 7
sociogenesis, 9 , 44, 50, 52
sociogeny, xiv-xv, 8- 1 1 , 42-44, 46,
52, 1 28, 1 34- 1 35
sociological imagination, 1 17-1 1 8,
1 42-143
sociology, 202; Newtonian, 1 1 8
solidarity, ix, xv, 22, 24, 29-30, 49, 77,
93-95, 1 32, 1 89, 2 1 3, 2 1 5, 2 1 8-
220, 223, 232, 234
soul, 5, 1 28-1 29, 1 3 1 , 1 37, 1 4 1 , 1 69-
1 70, 222
South Africa, xix, 83, 1 99, 204, 2 1 1-
2 14, 2 1 6-22 1 , 224-229, 23 1 -232,
236, 238; Cape Town, 226, 232;
Durban, 225, 228, 232, 238;
Johannesburg, 228-229, 23 1 -232
South African Students Organization
(SASO), 2 1 3, 2 1 8
sovereign power, 57-58, 68, 1 08
sovereignty, 8 1 , 93-94, 1 03-1 1 I , 1 82-
1 83
Soweto student rebellion, 224
spirit, viii, 1 3 , 32, 52, 89, 1 3 1 , 1 69-
1 72, 1 88, 220, 230
spirituality, 1 29, 1 3 1 - 1 32
state of exception, xvi, 1 05, 1 08-1 09,
1 1 1 , 238
273
statelessness, 93, 1 07-108
subject, xv-xvi, xviii, 6-1 1 , 1 5- 1 6, 23,
30, 39-42, 47, 55-56, 58, 60, 65,
66-67, 7 1-72, 82, 90, 92, 95, 1 09-
1 1 0, 1 2 1 , 138, 1 68- 1 70, 1 72-1 74,
2 1 7; actional, 1 1 , 39, 50, 1 86, 1 89,
2 15, 2 1 7; barred, 1 68; colonized,
58-59, 6 1 , 66, 7 1 , 86, 89, 1 09-
1 1 0, 1 72- 1 73; subjecthood, 149
subjectivity, 1 6, 56, 7 1 , 86, 1 68-1 70,
1 72- 1 73, 209, 224, 235
subjugation, viii, 8, 50, 59, 79, 82, 1 99
sublation, 1 69, 1 74-1 75
Sudan, 23, 1 06, I l l
super-ego, 1 53- 1 54
superiority, xviii, 40, 45, 6 1 , 69, 1 30,
1 69- 1 7, 201 , 2 1 4-2 1 5
supremacy, viii, 45
surplus values, 203
sustainable development, 1 88
tactics, 56-59, 22 1
technology, 20-2 1 , 26, 22 1
terror, xvi, 6 1 ; French 1 1 1
terrorists, 6 1
textualism, 7
therapy, 1 2, 52, 63
thingification, 82
Third World, xiv, 1 3, 1 9, 22-23, 25,
40, 77, 94-95, 1 1 0, 1 23, 1 29, 1 86
Toews, John E., 55, 70
torture, 60-6 1 , 65, 85, 1 25, 1 3 8
tourism, xviii, 1 77, 1 79-190; packaged
tours, 1 78, 1 84; sustainable, 1 88;
tourist industry, 1 78, 1 80-182,
1 84, 1 88-1 90
townships, 222-223, 226
transdisciplinarity, 7
transformation, viii, 4, 8, 1 0, 1 5 , 39, 44,
50-5 1 , 87, 89, 1 1 0, 1 19-1 22, 1 27-
1 29, 1 3 1 - 1 32, 1 56, 1 85, 1 89, 203,
204; social, 8, 87, 1 20, 1 3 1 , l 98,
200
Tuhiwai Smith, Linda, 24, 26, 30
Tunisia, 62, 67, 1 8 1
Turtle Island, xvi, 77, 86, 88, 9 1 , 93, 96
ubuntu, 230
Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
274
(USSR), xiv, 1 9, 60
United Nations, viii
United States, xiv, 1 9, 60, 77, 8 1 , 83,
85, 93, 1 05, 1 27, 1 79, 1 85, 1 99,
204, 2 1 1 , 2 1 3, 2 1 9
universalism, viii-ix, 4 1
universality, 9 , 4 1 , 46, 49, 50-52, 1 7 1 -
1 72, 1 83, 1 89, 224
urban planning, 225, 232
urbanization, 225-226
veiling, 23
Veneuse, Jean, 1 50-1 5 1 , 1 56-1 59
Verges, Fran9oise, 59, 62-63
violence, vii-viii, xiii, xvi, xix, 1 0, 12,
1 5, 20, 58, 60, 65-66, 77-78, 80-
89, 9 1 -92, 94-96, 1 03-1 04, 1 07,
1 1 0-1 1 1 , 1 1 7, 1 1 9-127, 1 30-132,
1 34-1 36, 138, 1 42, 1 67-168, 1 73-
1 74, 1 98, 200-20 1 , 207, 2 1 3, 222-
223, 228, 238; absolute, 90, 1 22-
1 23; colonial, 8 1 -82, 85, 89, 9 1 -
92, 96, 1 03, 1 04, 124-126, 1 34;
counter-, 58, 86-87, 89, 92, 96,
1 03-1 04, I 1 0, 1 1 2; physical, 78,
1 1 9, 1 22-127, 1 34-136, 1 38, 1 73 ;
racist, xvii; revolutionary, xvi, 20,
5 1 , 89, 1 1 9, 1 23, 126, 1 34-135
voluntourism, 1 88
von Clausewitz, Karl, 1 38
war, xiii, xvi, 1 0, 1 5, 63, 88, 94, 1 1 I ,
1 23, 1 27, 1 3 8, 142, 226
War on Terror, 5, 8 1 , 1 05
Weaver, D. B., 1 87-1 88
the West, xvi, 9, 1 3, 23, 4 1 -42, 1 05-
1 06, 1 1 9, 1 26, 129-130, 1 34, 1 73,
1 79-180, 1 82, 1 85-1 87
Index
white privilege, 48-50
whiteness, xv, 40, 45-49, 5 1 , 1 09, 1 49-
1 54, 1 57-1 58, 160- 1 6 1
woman o f color, xvii, 1 5 1 - 1 52, 1 55-
1 56
world, vii-ix, xiv, 5, 7, 9-10, 1 2-13,
1 5-16, 24, 28, 30-3 1 , 44, 46-50,
96, 1 24, 1 28-1 30, 1 32, 1 37-1 38,
1 43, 1 52, 1 54, 1 56, 1 70, 1 75, 1 8 1 ,
1 85-186, 1 88, 200-203, 207, 2 1 4,
2 1 6, 2 1 9, 224, 226, 229, 232-234,
236; antiblack 48; Arab, 1 30, 1 39;
black, 1 56, 2 1 6, 2 1 9; colonial, 1 6,
84, 1 04, 1 27, 1 75; human, ix, xv,
47, 1 35 ; Manichean, xv, 40, 44,
47-48, 223; modern, 8, 1 2, 1 4- 1 5;
postcolonial, 1 5 1 ; quanta!, I 1 8;
racist, 63; social, xv, 8-9, 1 2, 49,
67; white, 69, 1 52, 1 54-1 55, 1 57,
1 59
World Cup, 226
The Wretched ofthe Earth, xvi, xviii,
1 9-20, 40, 5 1 , 58, 60, 62-63, 65,
8 1 , 83, 1 03-1 04, 1 09-1 1 2, I I 7,
1 2 1-125, 127, 1 3 1 , 1 33-1 35, 1 38,
1 67, 1 73-1 74, 1 77, 1 79, 1 82-184,
1 89, 2 1 1 , 2 1 6-21 8, 220, 222, 225,
234, 237-238
xenophobia, 220, 222, 227, 229, 233
Young, Robert, 83-85, 9 1
Zahar, Renate, 50, 1 2 1 - 1 22
Zikode, S'bu, 230, 234, 237-238
Zimbabwe, 1 99
Zizek, Slavoj, 1 68
zoology, 1 09-1 1 0
Zulus, 22 1 , 229, 238; kingdom, 225
 About the Contributors

Anna Carastathis is an assistant professor of philosophy at California State

University, Los Angeles. In 2008-2009, she was a postdoctoral researcher at the
Centre de Recherche en Ethique de l'Universite de Montreal (CREUM). She
previously taught Women' s Studies at the Simone de Beauvoir Institute, Con­
cordia University. She completed her doctoral studies in political philosophy at
McGill University, specializing in feminist, critical race, and anticolonial and
postcolonial theories. Her dissertation was entitled "Feminism and the political
economy of representation: intersectionality, invisibility and embodiment." She
was born in Athens, Gr�ece, and immigrated to Turtfo Island with her family in
1 990.

Mireille Fanon-Mendes France studied literature, then worked for UNESCO

before teaching in high schools and the Center for Continuing Education at
l'Universite Rene Descartes-Paris V. She is a parliamentary consultant to
France's Assemble Nationale on questions of international law and human
rights, supporting the rights of migrants, and struggles against the impunity of
the powerful and all forms of racism. She has worked for many years on behalf
of political prisoners in Palestine and the United States, and for abolition of the
death penalty. Among her most important activist commitments are her role as
president of the Frantz Fanon Foundation and her memberships in groups dedi­
cated to human rights and liberation, including an association of jurists, a group
expressing solidarity with Palestine, the Science Council of A TTAC France, and
the Permanent Peoples' Tribunal. She has written numerous articles for newspa­
pers and magazines, published in France and elsewhere. She lives and works in
Paris.

Nigel C. Gibson is director of the Honors Program at Emerson College, Boston

and a research associate in the School of Development Studies at the University
of Kwa-Zulu Natal. He is author of Fanon: The Postcolonial Imagination and
275
276 About the Contributors

edited Rethinking Fanon and Challenging Hegemony: Social Movements and

the Quest for a New Humanism in Post-Apartheid South Africa. He is coeditor
of Contested Terrains and Constructed Categories: Contemporary Africa in
Focus (with George C. Bond), Adorno: A Critical Reader (with Andrew Rubin)
and Biko Lives! (with Andile Mngxitama and Amanda Alexander). He is cur­
rently the editor of the Journal ofAsian and African Studies.

Lewis R. Gordon is the Laura H. Camell Professor of Philosophy at Temple

University, where he also is the director of the Center for Afro-Jewish Studies,
and the Jay Newman Visiting Professor of Philosophy of Culture at Brooklyn
College. He is the author, coauthor, editor, and coeditor of more than a dozen
influential books, including Fanon and the Crisis of European Man: An Essay
on Philosophy and the Human Sciences (Routledge, 1 995), Existentia Africana
(Routledge, 2000), Disciplinary Decadence: Living Thought in Trying Times
(Paradigm, 2006), An Introduction to Africana Philosophy (Cambridge UP,
2008), and, with Jane Anna Gordon, Of Divine Warning: Reading Disaster in
the Modern Age (Paradigm, 2009). His coedited work includes Fanon: A Criti­
cal Reader (Blackwell, 1 996). He works in the areas of Africana philosophy,
philosophy of human and life sciences, phenomenology, philosophy of exis­
tence, social and political theory, postcolonial thought, and philosophy of educa­
tion, and is also president emeritus of the Caribbean Philosophical Association.

Peter Gratton is assistant professor of philosophy at the University of San Di­

ego. He received his Ph.D. from DePaul University in Chicago. He is managing
editor for the j ournal Radical Philosophy Review and is coeditor of Traversing
the Imaginary (Northwestern University Press, 2007) and Jean-Luc Nancy and
Plural Thinking: Expositions of World, Politics, Art, and Sense (SUNY Press,
20 1 0). Peter has also published articles in Continental and African philosophy in
such journals as Philosophy Today, Mosaic, The Journal for Cultural Research,
Essays in Philosophy, The Journalfor Philosophical Research, and Polylog.

Ferit Gilven is associate professor of philosophy at Earlham College. He is the

author of Madness and Death in Philosophy (SUNY Press, 2005). His research
interests include nineteenth- and twentieth-century continental philosophy, so­
cial and political philosophy, postcolonial theory, and film theory. Currently he
is working on a manuscript entitled The Tyranny of Democracy, investigating
the paradox of the concept of democracy at the intersection of philosophy and
postcolonial theory concentrating on the works of Hegel, Foucault, Derrida,
Schmitt, Fanon, and Zizek.

Elizabeth A. Hoppe is associate professor of philosophy at Lewis University.

Her research interests include ancient philosophy, applied ethics, and critical
race theory. She and Ron Weed have coedited a text for the Athens Institute of
 About the Contributors 277

Education and Research, From Ancient Greek to Asian Thought. In addition she
was a guest editor for Listening: Journal of Religion and Culture on Poetry,
Drama, and Ethics in Plato 's Thought. She first presented a paper on Fanon and
tourism for a tourism conference sponsored by the International Association for
the Study of Environment, Space and Place in April 2008 and later at the Carib­
bean Philosophical Association (August 2009) and the Society for Phenomenol­
ogy and Existential Philosophy (October 2009).

Tracey Nicholls is assistant professor of philosophy and codirector of the

Women' s Studies Program at Lewis University. In 2009-20 1 0, she is on leave
from Lewis in order to take up a postdoctoral fellowship with the Improvisation,
Community, and Social Practice (ICASP) Project, based at the Centre de Re­
cherche en Ethique de l 'Universite de Montreal (CRE UM). Her fellowship
project brings together her interests in aesthetics and decolonization to explore
ways that improvisatory musical practices can help to liberate and empower
political communities deformed by imperialism. This extends work done in her
doctoral dissertation, which explores connections between improvised music,
human rights, and social justice, and considers how music-making can help
build more responsive political communities. It is also a companion project to
this book that she has coedited with Elizabeth A. Hoppe. In addition to aesthet­
ics and decolonization theory, she also publishes and presents in peace studies
and critical race theory.

Marilyn Nissim-Sabat is professor emeritus, Department of Philosophy, Lewis

University, and a practicing psychodynamic psychotherapist. Her dissertation
(DePaul University, 1 977) is entitled "Edmund Husserl's Theory of Motiva­
tion." Dr. Nissim-Sabat has numerous publications in the fields of phenomenol­
ogy, psychoanalysis, critical race theory and feminism. Her most recent publica­
tion is: Neither Victim nor Survivor: Thinking toward a New Humanity
(Lexington Books, 2009). Dr. Nissim-Sabat is a member of the executive boards
of the Association for the Advancement of Philosophy and Psychiatry and the
Caribbean Philosophical Association. Her current research and writing projects
are a monograph on the nexus between philosophy and psychology in relation to
Husserlian phenomenology, psychoanalysis, critical race theory (especially Fa­
non), and feminism, and an edited volume on postcolonial philosophy.

OIUfemi Tiiiw o is the director of the Global African Studies Program and Pro­
fessor of Philosophy and Global African Studies at Seattle University, Seattle,
Washington. He has held visiting appointments at institutions in the United
States, Germany, South Korea, and Jamaica. He is the author of How Colonial­
ism Preempted Modernity in Africa (Indiana University Press, 2009) and Legal
Naturalism: A Marxist Theory ofLaw (Cornell University Press, 1 996).
278 About the Contributors

Mohammad H. (Behrooz) Tamdgidi is associate professor of sociology, teach­

ing social theory at the University of Massachusetts, Boston. His fields of theo­
retical specialization include comparative sociological imaginations, self and
society, world-historical sociology, sociology of knowledge, social movements,
and utopias. Most recently he is the author of Gurdjiejf and Hypnosis: A Herme­
neutic Study (Palgrave MacMillan, 2009) and Advancing Utopistics: The Three
Component Parts and Errors ofMarxism (Paradigm Publishers, 2007). Tamdgi­
di's writings have appeared in Review (Journal of the Fernand Braudel Center),
Sociological Spectrum, Humanity & Society, Contemporary Sociology, and sev­
eral edited collections. He is the founding editor of Human Architecture: Jour­
nal of the Sociology of Self-Knowledge, a publication of OKCIR: The Omar
Khayyam Center for Integrative Research in Utopia, Mysticism, and Science
(Utopystics), which serves to frame his research, teaching, and professional in­
itiatives.

Chloe Taylor is assistant professor of philosophy at University of Alberta. She

works in the areas of social and political philosophy; feminist philosophy;
twentieth-century French philosophy, especially Foucault; animal ethics; and
philosophy of food. She has published a book entitled The Culture ofConfession
from A ugustine to Foucault: A Genealogy of the 'Confessing Animal, ' (Rout­
ledge, 2008) and has published articles in journals such as Postmodern Culture,
Ancient Philosophy, Hypatia, Foucault Studies, The Journal of Modern Litera­
ture, Symposium, and Philosophy Today. She is also coeditor of the journals
Foucault Studies and PhaenEx: Journal of Existential and Phenomenological
Theory and Culture.

Sokthan Yeng is assistant professor of philosophy at Adelphi University. She

earned her M.A. at the University of Toledo, where she wrote on the intersection
between continental philosophy and American philosophy. She received her
Ph.D. from DePaul University. Her dissertation applied Foucault's work on bio­
politics to American immigration policies. Her research interests include femin­
ism, Eastern philosophy, critical race theory, and political philosophy. She has
published an article entitled "Capitalist Challenges and the Grameen Bank" in
Cutting-Edge Issues in Business Ethics: Continental Challenges to Theory and
Practice, edited by Patricia Werhane and Mollie Painter-Morland, and is cur­
rently working on a book manuscript that deals with American immigration and
the genealogy of race. She teaches courses in the history of philosophy, feminist
philosophy, Eastern philosophy, and globalization.