Frantz Fanon

1925-1961
Writings
The Wretched of the Earth
1961
Black Skin White Mask 1952
A Dying Colonialism
Towards the African
Revolution: Essays
Frantz Fanon - Biography
Proponent of anti-colonial revolutionary
thought
Fanon was born in 1925, to a middle-class
family in the French colony of Martinique.
Married French Woman Jose Duble
In 1953, Fanon became Head of the
Psychiatry Department at the Blida-
Joinville Hospital in Algeria,
Biography continued
1956 he formally resigned his post with the
French government to work for the Algerian
cause.
Following his resignation, Fanon fled to
Tunisia and began working openly with the
Algerian independence movement.
While in Ghana, Fanon developed
leukemia, he died in 1961 in an American
hospital in Maryland.
Fanons Theories
Colonisation by language
the category "white" depends for its stability on its
negation, "black."
In The Wretched of the Earth, Fanon develops the
perspective implicit in Black skin white mask. To
overcome the binary system in which black is bad
and white is good, Fanon argues that an entirely
new world must come into being. This utopian
desire, to be absolutely free of the past, requires
total revolution, "absolute violence" (37).
Theories
Use of violence
Fanon rejected the concept of Negritude
"I have no wish to be the victim of the Fraud of
a black world.
My life should not be devoted to drawing up
the balance sheet of Negro values.
I am not a prisoner of history. I should not
seek there for the meaning of my destiny.
Terms
Anti-colonialism
The subaltern
Negritude
Other aspects
The black man has two dimensions. One with his
fellows, the other with the white man. A Negro
behaves differently with a white man and with
another Negro. That this self-division is a direct
result of colonialist subjugation is beyond
question...No one would dream of doubting that its
major artery is fed from the heart of those various
theories that have tried to prove that the Negro is a
stage in the slow evolution of monkey into man....
Consequences for the colonised
Every colonized people--in other words,
every people in whose soul an inferiority
complex has been created by the death and
burial of its local cultural originality--finds
itself face to face with the language of the
civilizing nation; that is, with the culture of
the mother country. The colonized is
elevated above his jungle status in
proportion to his adoption of the mother
country's cultural standards.
Literature
An EngIIsI cIIIdrens sLory enLILIed Althouh
He Wcs lccl.
wunL you eucI Lo undersLund LIuL Sumbo Is
Lo be kIndIy LreuLed, uILIougI never uIIowed
Lo Luke IIberLIes; LIe negro Is IuILIIuI Lo deuLI
II properIy IundIed. You wIII IInd IIm mosL
umusIng, some oI IIs wuys, und uIso IIs IIngo
Is quuInLness ILseII. OI course, LIe IuLLer wIII
Improve In LIme.
Sambos Language
MIgIL dIs dIrLy oIe nIgger sLop up In de
uLLIc sLeud oI Mussu HugI? m euL up
uII de breud und drInk de wuLer. uws,
dIs cIIIe Iub dry breud, someLImes Im
IIve on IL Ior duys In de oIe LImes, und
peurs IIke jes de rIgIL IIng Ior Im Lo be
up In de uLLIc.
Influences on Fanon
Treated with disdain
Personal experiences of rejection
uII-pervusIve nuLure oI rencI rucIsm:
sensILIzed uguInsL rencI coIonIuIIsm In
AIgerIu
Critiques of Fanon
Fanon as being unrealistic
Fanon knew that violence could not work yet
advocated its use
The Wretched oj the Ecrth, enLILIed CoIonIuI
Wur und MenLuI DIsorders, Ie provIded
muny sLurLIIng und InLeresLIng cuse IIsLorIes,
In none oI wIIcI does vIoIence pIuy unyLIIng
oLIer LIun u desLrucLIve roIe.
unons poIILIcuI judgmenL wus nuve
Born wILI u LuIenL Lo IuLe
Algeria
Independence in 1962
Arab-Berber 99%, European less than 1%
note: almost all Algerians are Berber in origin, not
Arab; the minority who identify themselves as
Berber live mostly in the mountainous region of
Kabylie east of Algeirs; the Berbers are also
Muslim but identify with their Berber rather than
Arab cultural heritage; Berbers have long agitated,
sometimes violently, for autonomy; the
government is unlikely to grant autonomy but has
offered to begin sponsoring teaching Berber
language in schools
French colonisation (1830-
1962)
Influence of the French Empire
demographically
Muslims viewed as an inferior underclass
officially French subjects they could not
become French citizens unless they
renounced Islam and converted to
Christianity.
After world war II attempts by French to
assimilate too late for Algerians.
Overview
A large country, more than four-
fifths of Algeria's territory is
covered by the Sahara desert. Oil
and gas reserves were discovered
here in the 1950s, but the main
population centres remain on the
northern coast. The country is one
of the main suppliers of natural
gas to Europe.
Statistics
Population: 32.3 million (UN,
2004)
Capital: Algiers
Area: 2.39m sq km (919,595 sq
miles)
Major languages: Arabic, French,
Berber
Major religion: Islam
Towards the African Revolution
political essays
Letters to a French man
Unperceived arab
Ignored arabs
Perpetuated by an ignorant silence
Teaching young arab children seen as the
less they understand the better off they are
Largely illiterated and depersonalised.
Some of Fanons observations
The negrowill be proportionately
whiterin direct ratio to his mastery of the
French language (Black Skin, White Mask)
A man who has a language possesses the
world expressed and implied by that
language.
Adopts the cultural baggage of mother
country due to strong identification of
superiority of that culture.
The French Empire
France had colonial possessions from the
beginning of the seventeenth century
four overseas departements- Caribbean islands of
Guadeloupe and Martiniques, Reunion in the
indian ocean and the and the small south american
mainland possession of french; 3 overseas
territories: French, French Southern and Antarctic
Lands, New Caledonia; and two territorial
collectivities: Mayotte in the Indian Ocean and St.
Pierre and Miquelon near Newfoundland.
History
First French Empire
Colonial conflict with Great Britain from
1744 1815
War of the Austrian Succession (17441748),
the Seven Years War (17561763), the War
of the American Revolution (17781783),
and the French Revolutionary (17931802
The second french colonial
empire
Beginnings in 1830 with the French
invasion of Algeria
The French made their last major colonial
gains after the First world, when they
gained mandates over the former Turkish
territories that make up what is now Syria
and the Lebanon, as well as most of the
former German colonies of Togo and
Cameroon.
Collapse of the empire
After the second world war II
War with Algeria in the 1950s
"For, remember this, France does not stand
alone. She is not isolated. Behind her stands
a vast Empire"
Charles de Gaulle, June 18, 1940
Conclusion
Frantz Fanon process of decolonisation
evaluated
French Empire
Algeria
Identity and Language