Journal of Contemporary African Studies

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From Fanon to Biko and Beyond: looking for ways

to maintain fidelity to humanity

Jacques Depelchin

To cite this article: Jacques Depelchin (2017) From Fanon to Biko and Beyond: looking for ways
to maintain fidelity to humanity, Journal of Contemporary African Studies, 35:2, 135-147, DOI:
10.1080/02589001.2017.1289633

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02589001.2017.1289633

Published online: 21 Feb 2017.

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JOURNAL OF CONTEMPORARY AFRICAN STUDIES, 2017
VOL. 35, NO. 2, 135–147
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02589001.2017.1289633

REVIEW ESSAY

From Fanon to Biko and Beyond: looking for ways to maintain

fidelity to humanity
Jacques Depelchina,b
a
Departmento de História, Universidade Estadual de Feira de Santana, Feira de Santana, Bahia, Brazil;
b
Political and International Studies, Rhodes University, Grahamstown, South Africa

Nigel C. Gibson: Fanonian Practices in South Africa: From Steve Biko to Abahlali baseMjon-
dolo, Palgrave Macmillan. University of KwaZulu-Natal Press. 2011

Introduction: does humanity have a future?

I agreed to review this book for several reasons, among them: wanting to know more
about Fanon, Biko and emancipatory politics, I was going to be spending a semester
doing a fellowship in South Africa, and, finally, I thought that liking the topic would
make it easier to review. Regarding the latter, I was completely wrong, which is one of
the reasons why it took much longer to do the review. As I read and re-read the book,
learning and gaining a better understanding of the context in which Fanon and Biko oper-
ated, it became clearer and clearer that I needed to gain a better understanding of what
was common to Fanon and Biko, and also to understand what kept them going, far apart,
historically, and yet converging politically in what I have understood was common to both
of them: commitment to searching for ways of maintaining humanity. One could call such
a commitment ‘fidelity to humanity’, borrowing the term from Alain Badiou’s own arsenal,
even though, in the process, it twists Badiou’s own understanding.1
The reason for twisting is simple. If one puts aside the rhetoric of humanitarianism,
Christianity, Western navel-gazing at its own accomplishments, and the current situation
faced by humanity, Fanon’s writings might ring out as more than a denunciation of colo-
nialism. His denunciation echoed Césaire’s Discourse on Colonialism (1950), where it was
demonstrated that Nazism had not ended, but that it had worsened through the colonial
empires. More than 50 years after the apparent end of colonial rule, it is not just the situ-
ation in Africa that illustrates, in the words of Günther Anders, The Obsolescence of Human-
ity (1980), but also the backpedalling on issues like climate warming, and international
justice. Crimes against Humanity have become endemic even as they have been discon-
nected from some of its most obvious historical roots. For example, almost by definition,
the richest nations are unable to see how their own emergence as powerful entities has
contributed to creating practices of exercising power with impunity.2 If one is going to
understand how far ahead of their times both Fanon and Biko were, one has to
broaden the historical scope from the one within which they were operating (colonialism,
apartheid) to the biggest picture level, i.e. the one that made them see history beyond the
boundaries limited by historical and geographical customs of the times. For Fanon and

CONTACT Jacques Depelchin jdepelchin41@gmail.com

© 2017 The Institute of Social and Economic Research
136 J. DEPELCHIN

Biko, the humanity of their colonised (or bantustanised) contemporaries was not just a
theoretical or philosophical abstraction. The violence of the system crushed both sides
without distinction because humans had been letting go of their humanity without
even realising it.
Fanon and Biko focused, in different ways, on what they understood as the necessity to
maintain humanity, and, thus break away from the practices sown by slavery, colonialism
and apartheid. This kind of focus and commitment (to a radical rupture from the practices
promoted by capitalism) started long before European philosophers addressed their
minds to it, pace Hegel and others, for whom Africa was part of darkness and thus not
part of history. Intuitively, Gibson knows that humanity (or ‘new humanism’) does not
owe its existence to the baptismal ritual of European philosophy. Yet, in Fanonian prac-
tices, it is difficult not to point out that Fanon himself did not go as far as he could
have gone in the process of demystifying colonisation. At the Congresses of intellectuals
in 1956 and 1959, he must have met with Cheikh Anta Diop. Diop’s work with regard to
decolonisation converged with Fanon’s, with some difference. For Diop, the key to a com-
plete and total decolonisation was to go through a re-appropriation of Ancient Egyptian
history as an integral part of Africa’s and humanity’s history. Diop famously chided
Aimé Césaire for having repeated the European mantra about Africans not having
invented anything.3 Fanonian practices, on the other hand, can be seen as those practices
that seek to break away from what is imposed by a system that is determined to do away
with humanity as it has grown through a history that has been much longer than the
history of capitalism and its ideological by-products.
In today’s world, how could one illustrate the expression ‘striving to maintain one’s
humanity’? At the end of WW II, following the ‘discovery’ of the Nazi concentration
camps, and later, during the Nuremberg Trials, the expression ‘Never Again’ illustrated a
moment in the history of humanity when it searched for ways to recover a conscience
that had lost its compass.4 As can be seen by anyone, this ‘Never Again’ was just a
flash, not unlike the one experienced by Robert Oppenheimer, following the testing of
the ‘gadget’ in the New Mexico desert on 16 July 1945, to make sure that the atomic
bomb would work when used against Japan a few weeks later. Oppenheimer never elabo-
rated on his remembering of the Sanskrit verse he murmured to himself: ‘I am become
Death, the destroyer of the worlds’. But it is clear that even a superficial reading would
make one conclude that Oppenheimer was shocked by the destructiveness of the technol-
ogy. The discovery went beyond humanity’s capacity to control its own invention. In the
process of fabricating the atomic bomb to destroy the enemy (Japan), the Manhattan
Project had crossed a threshold in the destruction of Humanity; almost seamlessly conti-
nuing the project of the Nazis. Fanon fought in WWII and, in a sense, can be said to have
felt the same thing that any human being confronted with the destruction that had been
inflicted by war. The concept of Ma’at could be described to encapsulate the Ancient Egyp-
tians’ understanding that humanity did have a conscience and that it was worth
preserving.
How did that sense of trust, justice, balance, – i.e. the various meanings of Ma’at – grow
as humans evolved? Which ways of maintaining (and destroying) that conscience of a
moral and just way of living did humans develop? Would it be far-fetched to suggest
that individuals like Oppenheimer, Césaire, Fanon or Biko understood humanity in its
broadest dimensions, as it had grown from its origins? The same can be said about the
 JOURNAL OF CONTEMPORARY AFRICAN STUDIES 137

poorest of the poor anywhere in the world, seeking to affirm their humanity, as they are
being dehumanised. Both Fanon and Biko were determined to resist being boxed-in by
the limitations on humanity imposed by those who sought to destroy it while rebuilding
it after their own image. In all of the various phases of capitalism, including the formal
resistance to it, one can observe the destructive/reconstructive process at work. This is
the dimension that Gibson tries to convey in his book, but, I think, only partially succeeds.

On the amputation of history/humanity

It is worth looking at another reason for the selective way in which Crimes Against Human-
ity are designated by the most powerful institutions of the world. In her 2012 essay ‘Do the
Classics Have a Future?’ (NYRB, January 12, 2012), Mary Beard (a professor of classics at
Cambridge University) illustrates how history and humanity have been looked upon by
those responsible for maintaining the credibility of the Western (also referred to as
‘modern’) world as the only possible root of humanity. For Beard, ‘classics’ means Latin
and Greek, and the ‘inextricable embeddedness of the classical tradition within the
Western culture’. As she tries to fathom what could happen to Western culture if the clas-
sics ceased to be taught, she writes
I would say that if we were to amputate the classics from the modern world, it would mean
more than closing down some university departments and consigning Latin grammar to the
scrap heap. It would mean bleeding wounds in the body of Western culture –and a dark future
of misunderstanding. (54)

For Mary Beard, and many scholars of many disciplines in the academic world as
shaped, framed and formatted by western culture, there seems to be no awareness that
the model of the ‘classics’ is itself the result of an amputation of the history of humanity.
And this amputation seems to have been reproduced by people and institutions that
would baulk at being associated with the thinking of Hegel or any other philosophy dis-
criminating against humanity. From Hegel’s times to today, the process of rebuilding
humanity for the convenience of the conquerors has been pursued relentlessly: instead
of fidelity to humanity, we have the charitable practices of humanitarianism.
Charity is the opposite of solidarity. Ubuntu conveys solidarity, as does the Ancient
Egyptian concept of Ma’at. In pursuing fidelity to humanity should there not be an
effort to look for the broader and deeper roots of ubuntu (and interconnections
between ubuntu and Ma’at)? The fact that the shack dwellers have adopted (‘refash-
ioned’ Gibson, 201) the term to convey their understanding of humanity and how it
should be treated does not help in overcoming the imbedded shortcomings of the
term when compared to one of its earliest formulations in Ancient Egypt: Ma’at.
Given Gibson’s concurrence with Fanon, Biko, the poor, the shack dwellers, etc.
should there not be a greater effort at following on Fanon’s and Biko’s hunch that phi-
losophers had not quite managed to grasp the destructive nature of capitalism, with
regard to humanity. Humanity, as spelled out by Fanon and Biko, AbahlaliBaseMjondolo,
Fanmi Lavalass (Haiti), ‘Favelistas’(Brazil) and the poorest of the poor, can be looked at as
no different from the way other humans gained conscience of it, millennia before Euro-
pean philosophers began discussing words related to conscience, consciousness, justice,
ethics, etc.
138 J. DEPELCHIN

One of the best examples of how humanity’s conscience (or consciousness) worked in
recent history can be seen in the world mobilisation against apartheid. The policy of apart-
heid was felt as an assault on humanity and, as such, could not be accepted by any human
being anywhere. The worldwide mobilisation against apartheid was possible thanks, prin-
cipally, to political organisation. Yet, at the same time, it is arguable that without the sense
of solidarity connecting all human beings, the organised politics against apartheid could
not have been sustained.
Fanon and Biko can be looked at as emblematic figures of human beings determined to
carry on battling for the emancipation of humanity, for a humanity more deeply com-
mitted to reinforcing its conscience. A question immediately arises: can it be said that
from the days of Fanon, through Biko’s days until today humanity’s conscience has
increased? Given what is taking place in the world, it is difficult to respond affirmatively.
From the end of colonial rule in Algeria, to the end of apartheid in South Africa, can it
be said that Fanon’s and Biko’s calls for moving away from thinking like the former
masters have been heeded? Yes and no. Nigel Gibson’s answer is a firm yes, at least
with regard to Fanonian practices (emancipatory politics) in South Africa, especially
among movements like AbahlaliBaseMjondolo. However, it can be seen/felt that these
Fanonian practices (aimed at maintaining/healing humanity) are not the favourite topics
of the corporate media. The latter’s understanding of their role is to be at the service of
a system that has been reinforcing itself by slicing humanity away from its roots.

Why are Fanon and Biko still pertinent today?

While it is not difficult to see how pertinent Fanon, Biko (and all of the unnamed resisters of
any form of oppression and exploitation) still are, it is not easy to articulate how to main-
tain fidelity to what they were fighting for. The quotes are not sufficient, one has to be able
to move from the static meanings to what was being projected, a rupture from the estab-
lished practices imposed by capitalism. Colonial rule came to an end, as did apartheid, as
did Nazism. Paraphrasing Aimé Césaire’s Discourse on Colonialism, one is tempted to ask,
rhetorically, as Césaire did with regard to Nazism, ‘did it [they, jd] really come to an end?’
Historically speaking, is it possible to say that there were transitions from colonialism,
Nazism, apartheid to post-colonialism, post-Nazism, post-apartheid? Given how these tran-
sitions have occurred, would it not be more accurate to speak of ‘transactions’ through
which those who had benefitted the most from the previous period reorganised them-
selves to ensure that during the following period they would maintain the gains they
had acquired previously?5 The preoccupation with humanity, in the immediate aftermath
of WWII, has been replaced by one dominated by humanitarianism. Indirectly, Gibson
raises the question that may come to mind to many readers: is humanitarianism the
most efficient way of maintaining fidelity to humanity? To put it more bluntly: from the
nineteenth century through the twentieth century, can it be said that in the age of mod-
ernisation, development and progress, one also witnessed greater fidelity to humanity? Or
should one not begin to ask, from the hindsight of this beginning twenty-first century,
whether those who were slaughtered, maimed in the name of spreading capitalism,
had in fact been among the most adamant keepers of humanity. If understood from
this perspective, then Gibson’s ‘Fanonian practices’ could be the opening salvo on how
to move forward from where Fanon and Biko, and others left. Such practices, as
 JOURNAL OF CONTEMPORARY AFRICAN STUDIES 139

exemplified by the politics of the Shack Dwellers (in South Africa) can be seen as part of
the process of unlearning what the slaughterers of humanity imposed. The Shack Dwellers
of the planet can be seen as the last bastion against the liquidation of what is left of
humanity. Reconnecting with Ubuntu might be good, but it could be better if the
process of reconnecting with humanity accepted the idea that, long before Fanon and
Biko came on the scene, there had been resisters against the onslaught. They can be
found on all the bloodied paths of the conquerors, long before their triumphs led them
to believe that they could keep going on, with impunity.

Ubuntu and/or Ma’at?

Fanon’s insistence on humanity in his conclusion to The Wretched of the Earth ([1961]
1963), in addition to Sartre’s preface articulated around existentialism and humanism,
emphasised the difference between humanitarianism based on charity and humanity
based on solidarity. There was Fanon, then there was Biko and now there are collective
movements of the poor (e.g. AbahlaliBaseMjondolo). The eloquent preface by S’bu
Zikode to Gibson’s book is shorter than Jean-Paul Sartre’s Preface to The Wretched of
the Earth, but a more incisive message regarding who are the most efficient spokesper-
sons for humanity in the twenty-first century. In today’s South Africa, it is possible to
look at Fanon’s call for fidelity to humanity as an anticipation of what is referred to
as Ubuntu, but, at the same time, as South Africa seeks to look beyond pre-1652 in
order to free itself from its colonising past, one should be encouraged to examine all
the connections – linguistic, philosophical, cultural, historical – between Ubuntu and
Ma’at.
From Fanon to Biko to S’bu Zikode to ABahlaliBaseMjondolo to Fanmi Lavalass in Haiti
to the poor of the favelas in Brazil to the poor of India, it is possible to see the emergence
of an intellectual history that seeks fidelity to humanity through practices that move away
from splitting humanity toward a healing process framed by those who never reneged on
their origins. Such a perspective might be denigrated as sheer romanticism. Cheikh Anta
Diop warned against this kind of glorification of the past for the sake of glory. This would
be the ultimate victory of identity politics, leading to further splitting. The opposite path is
toward healing, not just of one particular group, but of the one we all came from (Lucy and
her descendants, in the Rift Valley). Such a process would lead to a real transition away
from charitable humanitarianism toward solidarity with humanity.
It is worth repeating that this is an important book on an urgent issue: how to think
one’s humanity in relation to what is currently taking place in the world, in general, and
in South Africa, in particular. It is written by someone who is acknowledged by his
peers as one of the leading scholars on Fanon. The book is excellent on Fanon’s contri-
butions and also on spelling out what is understood by Fanonian practices. In the book,
Fanon is presented as the leading figure or model. For the readers who do not know as
much about Biko as they might know about Fanon, the book is something between dis-
appointing, frustrating and a treasure trove. Disappointing because of an implicit hierarch-
isation between Fanon and Biko; and frustrating because this implicit hierarchy, even if not
intended, ends up casting a shadow over Biko’s accomplishments, and singularity in a his-
torical context that, while similar in many ways to the times Fanon lived through, did also
differ significantly. Yet it is a treasure trove of quotes, ideas connecting two persons who
140 J. DEPELCHIN

shared a politics of emancipating humanity from the shackles of institutionalised thinking

on humanity and its history.
In spite of the imbalance between Fanon and Biko, the book provides an excellent intro-
duction to understanding the current radical politics of the poor in South Africa. If only for
this, the book is a must-read for any person interested in understanding both today’s
South Africa and politics as practiced by those who are considered by the powers-that-
be as trouble makers or, worse, a fifth column of sorts (the word third force has also
been used by ANC politicians). Put in another way, one could say that Gibson has demon-
strated that with movements like AbahlaliBaseMjondolo, the possibilities of politics from
below and from within have taken over from where Fanon and Biko left off. From
Gibson’s book, it is possible to see how ABM has innovated politics, in the same
manner that Fanon and Biko did, in their own times.

The poor of the world as the new colonised

What can be seen through Gibson’s text is how innovative ABM’s politics are, yet Gibson
tends to lean toward showing the connections with the canonical figures (e.g. Marx) even
though in both Fanon’s and Biko’s cases they demonstrated respect and independence.
Indeed, it is this independence that led the traditional Marxists to be suspicious of both
Fanon and Biko, as Gibson himself mentions. Thus, the effort to demonstrate Fanon’s
and Biko’s closeness to Marx is more problematic than the author might think. For one,
it reinforces an implicit hierarchisation when it comes to intellectual work; and, for
another, it makes it more difficult for readers to understand the singular contributions
of both Fanon and Biko in contexts that were far from the one in which Marx himself lived.
It is arguable that Gibson could have done better with regard to bringing out what was
singular to Fanon on the one hand and what was singular to Biko on another. For Gibson,
having already worked on Fanon, it is possible that he had already done the work on
Fanon in his previous works.6 It is understandable that Gibson’s greater familiarity with
Fanon would make him frame his approach as he did, in addition to the fact that Biko
having appeared later would make it easier to speak of Fanonian practices and not of
Bikoan practices. Hierarchisation might be too strong a word, given the convergence of
Fanon’s and Biko’s political practices. Their objective, at least one generation apart, was
to do away not just with colonialism and/or apartheid, but with the very system from
which both emerged. In their singularity, both Biko and Fanon showed that the urgency
of what they were called upon to do, meant that they had to step out of what they
were supposed to do professionally, and/or politically.
Professionally, they were both deeply connected to medicine. Fanon became a psy-
chiatrist and Biko dropped out of medical school to work/lead the Black Consciousness
Movement. With regard to this aspect, a series of questions arise: Could it be that their
singular treatment of Marx and Marxism stemmed from their being more connected to
healing, something that could be described as a universal impulse present in all living
beings? Some may object that the sample (two persons) is not significant enough.
One could, for instance, add Ché Guevara, also a doctor, and also someone whose singu-
larity was to distance himself from orthodox Marxist politics while showing deep adher-
ence to parts of it. In discussing people who were influential on Biko, Gibson discusses
mostly James Cone and Barney Pityana. I was surprised not to find any mention of
 JOURNAL OF CONTEMPORARY AFRICAN STUDIES 141

Bishop Rubin who, in fact, came to know Biko intimately because of the many experi-
ences (not widely known) they lived through together, and the conversations they
had while travelling together. Listening to Bishop Rubin reminisce about such exchanges
makes one wonder why he does not appear at all in the book, except for his being men-
tioned in S’bu Zikode’s substantial and insightful foreword.7 In this disconnect, possibly,
it is possible to see one of the problems that plagues us academics (including this writer)
when writing about cutting-edge thinkers: by the time one understands them, they are
way ahead. With regard to Fanon’s legacy, the problem is compounded by the fact that
the focus, unconsciously at times, has moved away from the very politics that he was
inaugurating. In an exemplary manner, his thinking never ceased to be toward human-
ity’s emancipation from the shackles of anything directly and/or indirectly connected to
the expansion of capitalism, the most predatory system ever invented by humans
against themselves. He saw most clearly how the system ate away at humanity from
within and from without.

From the politics of splitting (amputation) to the politics of healing

One has to assume that the downplaying of Bishop Rubin is inadvertent. If so, it raises a
question about the conceptualisation of Fanonian practices, and, for lack of a better
word, the difficulty of respecting one of Fanon’s reminders that each generation has to
resolve its own problems (cf. ‘Each generation must discover its mission, fulfill it or
betray it, in relative opacity’ [The wretched of the earth]). Gibson shows that Fanon
should not be reduced to ‘the apostle of violence’. Even Sartre, in his introduction, does
not seem to have understood that dimension of Fanon’s emphasis on the necessity to
reconnect with humanity. Like most original thinkers, the legacy of Fanon will suffer
from the difficulty of sorting out his achievements and flaws from later scholars’ analysis.
Exaggeration and downplaying will always be present in any serious attempt to under-
stand original thinkers, especially those of Fanon’s calibre. The exercise of writing a
history of any kind, social or biographical is that it will most likely be steps behind the
process that is being assessed.
The combined influence of James Cone, Pityana and Rubin on Biko played a significant
role on the transition from the politics of splitting (and amputation) to the politics of
healing. Regarding the practices and consequences of settler politics, it is difficult to dis-
tinguish between places like the US, Israel, South Africa and Brazil. What can be seen in all
of these cases is a practice of splitting humanity to the point where one should wonder
whether the combined result may not have been the irreversible rupture of what one
could call the practice of ‘fidelity to humanity’ (borrowing from Alain Badiou’s use of
the word ‘fidelity’). South African practices of splitting humanity reached its zenith with
apartheid. But, one should never forget that apartheid is but a variation of something
that itself grew out of slavery and colonisation. These two are clearly connected to the
expansion of an economic system that rested on predation and fission. Both Fanon and
Biko understood that in order to combat these two violent processes of destruction,
humanity (as in humankind) would have to resort to what it had practiced, long before
the invention of capitalism. It is this reviewer’s understanding that the destiny of any
human being is in fact to constantly seek to heal, regardless of who they are, where
they are, etc. One of the questions that could be raised from this is why Gibson did not
142 J. DEPELCHIN

emphasise the politics of healing in a manner that could have reinforced his understand-
ing of Fanonian practices.
For this reader, for example, most of Ayi Kwei Armah’s writing (novels and essays) is
framed by one single theme: healing (one of his novels is even titled Healers (1979)).
Gibson, like many readers of Armah’s The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born, was struck by
how Armah contrasted graphically the gleam of power that ‘covers over the reality of
exploitation and the pauperization on which it is built’ (1968, 122), but, later, almost at
the end of the book, Gibson touches on the very theme that relates to healing by referring
to another Fanon scholar (Sekyi-Otu), whom he quotes thusly (225): ‘True decolonization,
the post-apartheid would be signaled by a reawakening of the inward eye’. This quote is
preceded by Gibson’s comment that suggests a path that could have received greater
attention. The quote is introduced by a reference to Fanon’s famous distancing from
embracing Africa just because it had a glorious past (224). This is an issue that Gibson
could also have explored simply because, on this one, Fanon’s denunciation of glorifying
African past converges with Cheikh Anta Diop’s insistence on the necessity to understand
Ancient Egyptian Civilisation, for the sake of science.8
When examining Cheikh Anta Diop’s understanding of what independent Africa could
have become, one is left wondering what might have happened between Césaire, Diop
and Fanon at the 1956 and 1959 meetings of African writers and intellectuals. The domi-
nant item on the agenda was decolonisation, yet, it is fair to note the following: (1) that the
decolonisation of Egyptology (as, say, Diop and Théophile Obenga understood it) is far
from having been accomplished, to this day; (2) As this review is being written, evidence
is mounting that Africa is being carved up again along the lines of those seeking to control
its resources, a sort of repeat of what happened at the Berlin Conference at the end of the
nineteenth century.
For some, the above criticism may seem unfair. Unfair because Gibson is aware of those
inbuilt tendencies and does go some way to combat them, especially when it comes to the
so-called ‘left’ critiques of Abahlali who accuse people like Richard Pithouse of being the
‘éminences grises’ and theoreticians of the ABM. In addition, Gibson pointedly reminds
readers about Amilcar Cabral’s connection to Fanon (44), but Fanon’s credentials within
the liberation movements is actually more problematic than Gibson makes it to be. In
Mozambique, for example, it is true that Yoweri Museveni did write about the meaning
of Fanon for the liberation struggle at the time when Museveni, as a student at the Uni-
versity of Dar es Salaam, visited FRELIMO’s Liberated Zones in Mozambique (in the pro-
vince of Cabo Delgado). However, within FRELIMO, especially later on, Fanon was not so
well accepted.9 When the author arrived in Mozambique in 1979, discussing Fanon was
frowned upon; presumably for the very reasons Fanon himself was frowned upon
toward the end of his own life when it became clear that the FLN had been taken over
by the militarists.10
It is clear from the book that Gibson’s strength is his knowledge of Fanon and Marx. The
book ends up reconciling Fanon with Marx and showing how Biko too could be seen as a
Marxist. Gibson does not explore Biko’s other connections which do not confirm his under-
standing. For example, it is surprising that there is no mention of Robert Sobukwe. At a
minimum one could have expected some explanation as to the reasons why. Whatever
the explanation, the lack of discussion of a figure like Sobukwe who had a significant influ-
ence on Biko’s growth, intellectually, culturally, socially and politically, is puzzling, as it
 JOURNAL OF CONTEMPORARY AFRICAN STUDIES 143

appears as a continuation of the solitary confinement he suffered in Robben Island, then at

the hands of the Apartheid regime. Again, Gibson might baulk at this, but, it seems to me
that one has to follow Cabral’s famous reminder of ‘never claiming easy victories’ if we are
going to make progress with regard to emancipatory politics.
Biko’s politics and Fanon’s politics converge, but the contexts in which they lived and
battled for emancipation were starkly different. These kinds of assessments are thus diffi-
cult. The core of the political, economic, social system that both were battling was the
same, to be sure, but it had also become more sophisticated; more resilient. Capitalism,
from the start, had been growing into something much bigger, much more sophisticated,
much more lethal than a system which focused on organising the economy. Its lethality
was not only visible through what it did through apartheid, but also how it orchestrated
apartheid using people who, later on, would not even see themselves as responsible for
what ‘it’ had become. It could be argued, in fact, that Biko had to make adjustments on
Fanon’s observations. Then, during the Algerian war, later, during the struggle against
apartheid, and now, against globalisation, battling the system does require understanding
how it has been evolving over the past 50 years, showing itself to look more and more like
the most destructive invention in the history of humanity.
Still, the best parts of the book far outweigh the rest: out of five chapters, three are very
informative and do help to understand the current political situation in South Africa today.
Chapter 3 and 4 must be read by anyone seeking to understand ‘the unfinished struggles
for freedom’. Rather than focus on a description of the failures of the ruling party (the
ANC), Nigel Gibson lets the poor and the shack dwellers speak for themselves. Indeed,
the whole book is written as an effort to let the poor demonstrate how they understand
their own situation, and how they think politically. One suspects that it is that effort that
leads Gibson to stay away from a formal conclusion. In place of a conclusion, the last
chapter tries to summarise experiences that are ongoing and, thus, difficult to summarise.
I was lucky to be living in Grahamstown during the time I was reading the book. Gra-
hamstown is not far from Tylden in the Eastern Province (now Eastern Cape), where Biko
was born and began his early education. From the point of view of history, I was fortunate
to have a fleeting glimpse of the kind of space/culture in which Biko lived. Biko did not
become Biko out of nowhere. What is it that influenced him as he was growing up?
Given that the work is on South Africa, the readers could have expected more attention
to the context in which Biko found himself. There are contrasts to be emphasised, such
as, for example, the exacerbated racism with which Biko had to deal with. For Fanon,
the struggle for unity took place in an environment that was, at the time, facilitated by
figures like Nkrumah and the generally positive progression toward Independence.
Even so, Fanon could see through the progression as a mirage and, accordingly,
sounded warning signals.

Who knows the poor best?

More than 50 years after the passing of Frantz Fanon, after Algerian independence, it
should be easier to understand the predatory nature of capitalism as it feeds on the
very bodies and minds (humanity) that created it. Today, four decades after the assassina-
tion of Steve Bantu Biko, while a worldwide effort by humanity did finally bring about the
end of apartheid, capitalism as a whole has grown more predatory. That process of
144 J. DEPELCHIN

destruction of humanity has also generated (dialectically) ways of knowing and maintain-
ing fidelity to humanity that are growing. This is discussed in chapter 5 (On Xenophobia
and new humanism). While Gibson illustrates the efficiency of capital in commodifying
everything it touches, he also shows how, through the University of ABM, the poor are
doing more than resisting or countering that process. Yet, both ‘ubuntu’ (as stated
earlier) and ‘new humanism’ cannot quite do justice to the depth and range understood
by the politics of maintaining fidelity to humanity. All of this comes out very clearly in
chapter 5. Gibson is at pains to show the convergence between Fanon, Biko and Abahla-
liBaseMjondolo. The latter’s politics (as illustrated by S’bu Zikode’s writings) go further than
Gibson’s efforts, in great part because of the focus on humanity as the single guideline to
reconnecting with itself, and, more importantly, because the existence of AbahlaliBaseM-
jondolo illustrates the politics of radical rupture from that imposed from outside. It is no
longer politics from the bottom, but from the bottom and from within, as living politics
(197).
In its growth, capitalism has done everything to prevent such a reconnection. If one
accepts the metaphor of splitting as the best illustration of what it has done to humanity
(long before the ‘discovery’ of the splitting of the atom), then it becomes clearer that it is
this preoccupation of fidelity to humanity (even if not expressed in such terms) that has
united thinkers from different generations, different philosophical schools, different
nationalities. Even if Capitalism did not consciously split humanity, splitting did eventually
become its most powerful weapon as it gave the impression that from the split parts, iden-
tity politics would lead to an understanding of autonomy, freedom and independence. In
fact, it was doing the exact opposite: turning humanity into dust, and remoulding it into
robots, operating for the benefit of the most lethal system ever invented by humanity
against itself.11 The examples (from within and from without South Africa) abound, and
in chapter 5 Gibson analyses how the xenophobia pogroms of May 2008 unfolded in a
country that had vowed to unite all of the split parts into one nation. While the illustrations
are blinding, Gibson’s difficulty (as well as ours) seems to lie in the inability to bridge the
differences in the language used by all those who have been fighting for humanity to
regain its conscience, and the system that is destroying it while building something else
(robots) after its own image, incapable of thinking. The motto of the system seems to
be: get rid of all useless people, and replace them with robots.

Get rid of the poor, the old, the Wretched of the Earth
Fanon’s understanding of colonialism went far beyond what was visible to most. For
him, and, it could be argued, for Césaire and Cheikh Anta Diop, a system that could
grow and prosper on splitting, disposing of humanity and profiting from this process,
with impunity, was bound to betray humanity. It is this process that has led to the inser-
tion of words and concepts aimed at preventing humans from understanding the real
and lethal objectives of the system, which is to liquidate humanity and its history. In
January 2013, Taso Aso, the Japanese Minister of Finance called for the country’s old
people to die as quickly as possible, because caring for them was a waste of
money.12 If this is not sufficient evidence of the objective of capitalism toward humanity
and its history, then, it could be argued, the process of robotisation of humanity has
advanced beyond the point of no return.
 JOURNAL OF CONTEMPORARY AFRICAN STUDIES 145

As stated earlier, ubuntu does express a similar idea as the one conveyed by Ma’at.
However, the process of humanity finding out that fidelity to itself was not a given has
a history that goes much deeper than, say, ubuntu, humanism or new humanism may
suggest. The term Ubuntu probably pre-existed Sartre’s and Fanon’s uses of ‘humanism’
and/or ‘new humanism’. The same can be said with regard to Ma’at in relation to
Ubuntu. Humanity could be looked at, graphically speaking, as having been held together
by a spinal cord that takes us back thousands of years. There is a distinction between
humanity as understood through terms like Ma’at, and humanism, new humanism,
ubuntu, and, one should add, humanitarianism. With Ma’at arose what was recognised
as humanity gaining conscience of itself in a way that had not occurred before. It is
that conscience that unites thinkers that might not even have known of each other, as
far apart (generationally, philosophically, culturally, geographically) as S’bu Zikode, Cole,
Pityana, Fanon, Biko, Mandela, Marx, Chris Hani, Kimpa Vita, Ché Guevara, Sankara, Um
Nyobe, Lumumba, Nehanda, Zumbi, Cheikh Anta Diop, etc.13
In a way, and from the perspective of keeping looking for ways of maintaining fidelity to
humanity, it does make sense for Gibson not to conclude his book. This kind of work is a
never-ending one, as it should be. Like Gibson, we all are tethered to a way of producing
and reproducing knowledge that tends to be static, clotting the way forward, relying too
much on quotations which came from a different context. However, in this book, Gibson
helps to show a way of understanding Fanon and Biko through paths projected from their
writings AND their practice. Fanonian practices is not a perfect work, but its greatest merit
is to show how knowledge could be produced and reproduced in a dynamic way. For that
we shall always be grateful to Gibson and his politically organised co-workers from the
Wretched of the Earth, past, present and future.

Notes
1. The summary of how Badiou understands ‘fidelity’ can be found in his Ethics: An Essay in the
Consciousness of Evil (1993). Fidelity requires a Subject connected to (responsible for bringing
about) an Event. In our case, the hypothesis is that at a given moment in its history, humanity
(segments of it) became conscience of its own existence in a way that had no precedent. If one
looks at the various translations of the term Ma’at (conscience, justice, just, trust, truth,
balance, ethics) from Ancient Egyptian Civilization, it is possible to argue that the Ancient
Egyptians related to Ma’at in a manner that evokes an Event, the emergence of a Subject,
and Fidelity. In times when there are reasons for seriously wondering whether Humanity
has a future, it might be worth reconnecting to how it gained conscience of itself, long
before the centuries that led to an apparent race to liquidate it. James Breasted wrote The
Dawn of Conscience (1933) not long before the term Crime Against Humanity became popu-
larized. On Ma’at, the literature is voluminous. See articles that have appeared in Ankh (http://
www.ankhonline.com/) and the work of Jan Assmann (1989). With regard to politics at a dis-
tance from power, or from state politics, I have relied, mostly, on the work of Ernest Wamba dia
Wamba, Michael Neocosmos and Peter Hallward. It was through their work that it became
easier to understand that, more often than not, the masses are ahead of the academic theo-
reticians. The radical ruptures from the Babylon System (Bob Marley) can be traced through
music (jazz), fiction (e.g. Ayi Kwei Armah’s Healers vs. Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart).
When adding all these ruptures with the dominant system, outside of academia, it is difficult
not to ask oneself if academia has not become the bastion of the status quo.
2. Subliminally, there is no difference in the mindset of a rapist anywhere in the world and
any of the so-called leaders in the political, military and financial world: their practice has
146 J. DEPELCHIN

shown them that nothing will happen to them. Sure, now and then, a scapegoat must be
found to lend credibility to a system that has been abusively called ‘The international
Community’.
3. See his comment in The African Origin of Civilization: Myth or Reality. (pp. 26, 257, 280 notes 5
and 6) Edited and translated by Mercer Cook. Lawrence Hill Books. 1974.
4. The quotation marks for ‘discovery’ are alluding to the fact that the existence of the concen-
tration camps had been known. Texts written by survivors provide a testimony of how human-
ity’s conscience was triggered by what had occurred during the Second World War.
Unfortunately, the trigger has tended to be selective in recognizing who is and who is not
a member of humanity.
5. See the recent information regarding the compensation received by slave owners when
slavery was abolished, in England. Sanchez Manning’s article in The Independent, London, Feb-
ruary 24, 2013.
6. For a correction of this impression, see Nigel C. Gibson’s dedication of Fanon: the Post-colonial
Imagination to the memory of ‘Bantu’ Steve Biko because it was through the latter that he
(Gibson) met Frantz Fanon. (2203, xi).
7. On the occasion of the thirty-fifth anniversary of Biko’s assassination, in Grahamstown, Bishop
Rubin spoke about that experience. Until that moment, I was not aware of the connection
between him and Biko.
8. Fanon’s rupture with the dominant system and/or how to resist can sound uncomfortable, at
times, as when he pointed out that he ‘cannot be held hostage to his ancestry’. If perceived as
racial, ‘ancestry’ would be referring to what followed the splitting of humanity, and its reshap-
ing after the splintered image imposed by capitalism, itself fixated on the promotion of
individualism.
9. Ché Guevara was treated in the same manner.
10. The issue of militarists taking control of liberation movements is a complex one. In the case of
Algeria, Fanon sided with the non militarists. Within Frelimo, at least theoretically, the focus
was on a political and military movement. That history still needs to be written.
11. The technological impact of the atomic bomb on humanity’s understanding of itself is still far
from being understood and assessed, as can be seen from the increased resort to violence in
order to resolve disputes and conflicts. See Jaron Lanier’s You Are Not a Gadget: A Manifesto
(2011).
12. See the article in the Guardian (UK). Accessed March 10, 2013. http://www.guardian.co.uk/
world/2013/jan/22/elderly-hurry-up-die-japanese
13. Listing names always means that one is going to forget quite a few who should be mentioned:
C. L. R. James, Harriet Tubman, W. E. B. Du Bois, Frederic Douglas, M. L. King.

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor
Jacques Depelchin is a teacher and researcher. He was born and graduated in the DR Congo,
and was trained as an historian in the USA. He taught in Latin America and in East, Central
and Southern Africa and was actively involved in struggles for a complete and total emancipa-
tion of Africa. He has written on African historiography and is the author of Silences in African
History and Reclaiming African History. In 2011, he joined a cooperative group (Shmsw Bak) to
transliterate and translate Ancient Egyptian Texts into African languages. The first two texts,
SANHAT and SMI N SHKTY PN, are available from Per Ankh Publishers. He is retired and lives
in Salvador, Bahia and Berkeley, CA.
 JOURNAL OF CONTEMPORARY AFRICAN STUDIES 147

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