300 IN CONTEXT BRANCH Political philosophy APPROACH Existentialism BEFORE 4th centurysce Aristotle argues in the Nicomachean Ethics that slavery is a natural state. 19th century Africa is partitioned and colonized by European countries 1930s The French négritude movement calls for a unified black consciousness. AFTER 1977 Steve Biko, an anti- apartheid activist inspired by Fanon, dies in police custody in South Africa 1978 Edward Said, influenced by Fanon's work, writes Orientalism, a post-colonial study of Western perspectives on the Middle Bast in the 19th century. FOR THE BLACK MAN, THERE IS ONLY ONE DESTINY AND IT IS WHITE FRANTZ FANON (1925-1961) ;choanalytic colonialism and racism, White Masks, in 1952. In the b Fanon attempts to explore the ical and social legacy n among non-white around the world In saying that “for the bla man, there is only one destiny and this destiny is white, Fe ast two things, First, ‘the black man wants ike the white man’; that is, of many colonized nis tobe the aspiration: White colonial cultures equate “blackness” with inferiority, e only escape is to reject “blackness peoples have been formed by the dominant colonial culture, European colonial cultures tended to equate “blackn impurit view of tho: to colonial rule, so that they came see the colour of their skin as a sign of inferiority The only way out of this predicament seems to be an aspiration to achieve a “white existence’; but this will always f ause the fact of having dark skin will always mean that one fail to be accepted as white. For Colonized people v to escape from this “inferior” position Colonized people start to take on the assumed superiority of colonial culture For the black man there is only one destiny. And it is white.CONTEMPORARY PHILOSOPHY 301 See also: Aristotle 56-63 « Jean-Paul Sartre 268-71 = Maurice Merleau-Ponty 274-75 = Edward Said 321 66 There is a fact: white men consider themselves superior to black men. Frantz Fanon 99 ‘anon, this aspiration to achieve ‘a white existence” not only fails to address racism and inequality, but also masks or even condones these things by implying that there san “unarguable superiority” to ‘white existence. At the same time, Fanon is saying something more complex. might be thought that, given this ndency to aspire to a kind of white existence’, the solution would be to argue for an independent view hat it means to be black. Yet his, too, is subject to all kinds of roblems. Elsewhere in his book, Frantz Fanon Frantz Fanon was bom in 1925 in Martinique, a Caribbean island that was at that time a French colony. He left Martinique to fight with the Free French Forces in World War II, after which he studied both medicine and psychiatry in Lyon, France. He also attended lectures on literature and philosophy, including those given by the philosopher Merleau-Ponty, The young Fanon had thought of himself as French, and the racism he encountered on first Fanon writes that "the black man’s soul is a white man’s artefact’. In other words, the idea of what it means to be black is the creation of pattems of fundamentally racist European thought. Here Fanon is, in part, responding to what was known in France as the négritude (or "blackness") movement. This was a movement of French and French-speaking black writers from the 1930s who wanted to reject the racism and colonialism of mainstream French culture, and argued for an independent, shared black culture, But Fanon believes that this idea of négritude is one that fails to truly address the problems of racism that it seeks to ‘overcome, because the way that it thinks about “blackness” simply Tepeats the fantasies of mainstream white culture, Human rights In one sense, Fanon believes that the solution can only come when we move beyond racial thinking; that if we remain trapped within the idea of race we cannot ever entering France surprised him. It played a huge role in shaping his philosophy, and one year after qualifying as a psychiatrist in 1951, he published his book Black Skin, White Masks. In 1963 Fanon moved to Algeria ‘where he worked as a hospital psychiatrist. After two years spent listening to his patients’ tales of the torture they had endured during the 1954-62 Algerian War of Independence, he resigned his government-funded post, moved to Tunisia, and began working for the Algerian independence movement. In the late 1950s, he address these injustices. “Ifind myself in the world and I recognize that I have one right alone,” Fanon writes at the end of his book; “that of demanding human behaviour from the other.” Fanon's thought has been of widespread importance in anti-colonial and anti-racist movements, and has influenced social activists such as anti- apartheid campaigner Steve Biko and scholars such as Edward Said. = The inferiority associated with being black led many colonized people to adopt the "mother country’s cultural standards’, says Fanon, and even to aspire to a “white existence’ developed leukaemia. During his illness, he wrote his final book, The Wretched of the Earth, arguing for a different world. It ‘was published in the year of his death with a preface by Jean- Paul Sartre, a friend who had first influenced Fanon, then been influenced by him, Key works 1952 Black Skin, White Masks 1959 A Dying Colonialism 1961 The Wretched of the Earth 1969 Toward the African Revolution (collected short works)