FRANTZ FANON THOUGHTS ON POSTCOLONIALISM Table of Contents Outline: Content

PageAbstract……………………………………………………………………iIntroduction…………………………
… … … … … … … … … … … … … … . i L i t e r a t u r e
R e v i e w … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … i i F r a n t z
Fanon………………………………………………………………ii Introduction to Fanon’s
b o o k s … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … i i i B l a c k S k i n W h i t e
Mask…………………………………………………. iiiThe Wretched of the
E a r t h … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … . i v 3 . 1
Conclusion………………………………………………………………. v1.1 Abstract:This article gives a brief
analysis of post-colonialism and a detailed analysis of one of the major theorists of postcolonialism i.e., Frantz Fanon.
He explains how colonialism leads toward the exploitation of colonized people and their lands. This essay deals with a
critical analysis of Fanon’s major works which include “Black Skin, White Mask'' (1952) and “The Wretched of the
Earth” (1961) He explains how black people are marginalized and the effect of racism and colonialism on the
experiences, lives, minds and relationships of black people and people of color. Native develop a sense of “self”
which is defined by the “colonial master”. While the colonizer develops a sense of “superiority”. He defines the
psychoanalytic theory of post-colonialismKeywords: Exploitation, Marginalized, Superiority, Racism1.2
Introduction:“Post-colonial theory is literary that deals with literature produced in countries that were once or are now
colonies of other countries” ("Postcolonialism", 2021) “The critical part of a definition of “postcolonial” concerns the
prefix “post”, which signifies two different meanings in one compound word. Slemon (1995:101) argues that
colonialism comes into existence within the concept of imperialism, “a concept that is itself predicated within large
theories of global politics and which changes radically according to the specifics of those larger theories.” (Rukundwa
& Van Aarde, 2007) One of the important concepts related to post-colonialism is the concept of othering or otherness.
Othering means that Britishers consider themselves superior and consider natives as slaves. They never give
importance to natives. In the othering concept, there is another sub-concept that includes exotic othering and demonic
othering. “Exotic othering” is the concept in which Eastern countries are presented in a way that it’s a mysterious
place and everything is presented in a primitive and underdeveloped East. E.g. “A Passage to India” In this novel
Edward Morgan Forster talks about Britishers and how they colonized the subcontinent and considered natives as
inferior creatures. They even insult the places of the subcontinent as “dull” and “shabby” Another sub-concept of
othering is demonic othering which presents those Eastern countries are evil or negative e.g., in “Heart of Darkness”
by Joseph Conrad where he explains that Congo was colonized by white people and still, they consider that place and
people as evil, and “savage” Another concept in post-colonialism is the concept “Hybridity” It is defined as “mixing
of culture”. It also gives rise to the concept of double consciousness. Where individual consciousness is split into two
parts. Common themes of post-colonialism include independence, emigration, national identity, allegiance childhood,
etc.“Postcolonialism may overlap with studies of contemporary history, and may also draw examples from
anthropology, historiography, political science, philosophy, sociology, and human geography. The sub-discipline of
postcolonial studies examines the effects of colonial rule on the practice of feminism anarchism, literature, and
thoughts” (Raja & Raja, 2021)Literature Review:The research that was conducted previously talk about how Fanon’s
postcolonial perspectives affect the psyche of the people. However, this paper aims to explain how Fanon’s ideas
explain the white and black matters and how black people were marginalized in previous
centuries.Postcolonial literary theory re-examines colonial and postcolonial literature, especially concentrating on the
social discourse between the colonizer and the colonized that shaped and produced the literature. (Julia, 2010). Franz
Fanon, who was a black person, explains post-colonialism in the discourse of white and black matters. Chrisman
states that “Fanon's view of otherness came in the form of "criticism from within," as the "Black Frenchman,"12 who
was thought of as being highly assimilated, articulated the position of the colonizer and the colonized as racialized
subjects. At the same time, he shifted the discussion on colonialism from the realm of the economic to the
psychological. The importance of Fanon's work lies in the ways he prefigures current theoretical preoccupations with
issues such as subject formation, otherness, and identity politics, in addition to psychoanalytic and linguistic
paradigms for literary and cultural studies. To establish Fanon's legacy in today's postcolonial writings, it is necessary
to elaborate on his anti-colonial ideas and his conception of decolonization” (Chrisman, 2007) On the other hand
Pramod K Nayar states that “Fanon is directed at two specific goals. The first goal is the overthrow of the colonizer.
Fanon sees the violence of the natives as a consequence of the violence inherent in the colonial system itself. The
violence is embedded in the dialectic of master-slave, where the only means to attain selfhood, the dehumanized slave,
is violence because it is the only language of colonial relations. This is the violence of the anti-colonial struggle
during which the context for the second goal of this violence is also generated. This second goal is the colonizer’s
self-realization and the retrieval of subjectivity—a goal that Fanon sees as possible only through violence. This
retrieved subjectivity, dignity, and identity, for Fanon, quite possibly leads to death and annihilation” (Nayar, 2011).
Frantz Fanon talks about how colonization affects the people's psyche. “Posting an abstract colonized psyche, Fanon
assumes that the White functions as a Lacanian Other (the image of the mirror stage). The only way to overcome
psychic identification with an Other against whom one is devalued is through a transformation of political and
economic conditions” (Wehrs, 2003)2.1 Frantz Fanon (1925-1961)Frantz Fanon's full name was Frantz Omar Fanon.
He was born in 1925 on the island of Martinique which was under French colonial rule. He was one of the significant
authors of the Black Atlantic theory. He was a psychiatrist, activist, anti-colonial fighter, decorated war hero, and was
the first major post-colonial “theorist” of the 20th century. Frantz Fanon was a black man. During the French
Revolution Martinicans became free but they were still dominated in all aspects of social, political, and economic life
by the slave masters who were the head of the property of the island. “So, in Martinique black children were subjected
to French education, the result of which was to assimilate them into French culture, and to become Black Frenchman
through of subordinated status” ("(PDF) FRANTZ FANON IMPERIALISM AND THE SEARCH FOR
DECOLONIZATION IN AFRICA", 2021) He also fought with free French forces in World War II at the age of 18.
After the war, he stayed in France to study medicine and psychiatry at the University of Lyons. During their studies he
also wrote essays and plays that are based on the subject of politics, racism, psychology, etc.“The 1954 Algerian
revolt was met with a violent response involving torture, repression, physical abuse, and widespread killings of
Algerians by the colonizers. This served to radicalize Fanon and he supported the revolutionaries in secret for two
years before resigning from his job at the hospital in 1956 and joining the National Liberation Front. He moved to
Tunis, founded the Moudjahid (Freedom Fighter) magazine, and became a leading ideologue of the Algerian
revolution. He traveled widely in Africa to speak on his anti-colonial ideas and was ambassador to Ghana for a period.
Though Fanon was from the Antilles, following his experiences in Algeria he came to think of himself as Algerian. He
died of leukemia in Washington 1961” ("FANON, Frantz", 2021)2.2 Introduction to Fanon’s books:Fanon's major
works include “Black Skin, White Mask” and “The Wretched of the Earth” which made him a significant contributor
in the field of Postcolonialism. In “Wretched of the Earth”, he put forward his ideas on national culture and literature.
In this book, he explains the dehumanizing effect of colonization on the individual and the nation. He further explains
the effect of colonization on the psyche of natives. While in the book “Black Skin, White Mask” he specifically talks
about blacks and the effect of racism. The book was written in the style of autoethnography. “The violent overtones in
Fanon can be broken down into two categories: The violence of the colonizer through annihilation of body, psyche,
and culture, along with the demarcation of space. And secondly the violence of the colonized as an attempt to retrieve
dignity, sense of self, and history through anti-colonial struggle” ("Black Skin, White Masks - Wikipedia", 2021)2.3
Black Skin, White Mask:In the book “Black Skin, White Mask” one of Fanon's key points refers to the process of
cultural assimilation, a process that occurs when the native culture of a colonized people is replaced by the culture of
the colonial power. It destroys colonized people collectively. In his book “Black Skin, White Mask,” he says:“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. He becomes whiter as he renounces his blackness, his jungle.” (Fanon,
Black Skin, White Mask, pg. 12)First, the culture of colonialism prevents the colonized from developing an
independent sense of identity, which in turn hurts their psychology. Secondly, because Western popular culture
equates whiteness with purity and goodness and blackness with impurity and evil, the colonized people learn to equate
blackness with evil. As Fanon says that:“At the risk of arousing the resentment of my colored brothers, I will say that
the black is not a man” (Fanon, Black Skin, White Mask, pg.1)Sooner or later, Fanon argues, black colonial subjects
realize that they have no viable identity. Having learned from an early age that to be black is to be subhuman, they
can’t identify as black. For Fanon, the colonized are caught in an impossible bind. They are both unable to celebrate
their native culture and unable to achieve equality within the colonial culture. He argued that this deeply embedded
message pushes the colonized into an agonizing psychological position. If a human is to be white, but they are not
white, they are forced to see themselves as subhuman. As he states: “The Negro’s behavior makes him akin to an
obsessive neurotic type, or, if one prefers, he puts himself into a complete situational neurosis. In the man of color
there is a constant effort to run away from his individuality, to annihilate his presence, The attitude of the Black man
toward the white, or his race, often duplicates almost completely a constellation of delirium, frequently bordering on
the region of the pathological. (Fanon, Black Skin, White Mask, pg. 43)In this book, Fanon shows how the literature
of black writers articulates the displaced identity of colonized people. Existentialism argues that individuals develop
by exercising their own free will. Seen in this light, colonialism, which stifles the free will of the colonized, is shown
to be inherently dehumanizing. As he states:“The feeling of inferiority of the colonized is the correlative to the
European’s feeling of superiority. Let us have the courage to say it outright: It is the racist who creates his
inferiority.”(Fanon, Black Skin, White Masks, p. 69) “In this quote, Fanon echoes his interlocutor Jean-Paul Sartre,
who said in a different context that the anti-Semite creates the Jew—for Fanon, saying that racism creates inferiority
means that Black people don’t naturally feel inferior to white people. White people, instead, create this inferiority by
claiming that the difference between white and Black matters and that white is better than Black. Racism creates the
hierarchy, which imposes inferiority on Black people that over time Black people internalize”. ("Black Skin, White
Masks Quotes, and Analysis", 2021)He wants people to focus on the present instead of focusing on the past so that no
one will become a slave again. He concludes his book by saying that he will always be a “man who questions”2.4 The
Wretched of the Earth:In his last book “The Wretched of the Earth '', he talks about the psychological effect of
colonization. The process of colonization gets into the psychology of the people and it’s impacted a person in a long-
lasting manner. There is social as well as economic effects. As Fanonstates: “At the individual level, violence is a
cleansing force. It rids the colonization of their inferiority complex, of their passive and despairing attitude.” (Fanon,
The Wretched of the Earth, pg. 51)The preface of this book was written by Jean-Paul Sartre. This book was published
after his death. He talked about lifelong observations and experiences of the psychological effect of systematic racism
on black people. Colonized masters represent natives as non-humans, animals, savage, beast, demonic, as primitive.
Native people experience schizophrenic conditions that result from the duality. Colonization is affecting the psyche of
native people. As he states:“Total liberation involves every facet of the personality” (Fanon, The Wretched of the
Earth, pg. 233) Colonizer sets a policy that keeps the colonized oppressed and colonized portraying these policies as
true, and perfect. Fanon analyzes the official language of the colonizer that allows systematic inequality to continue.
The forced use of the colonizer language in English always puts colonization at a disadvantage. This instills in them a
fundamental insecurity. The difference between the English spoken by Indians and that inequality seeped deep inside
their brain. The middle-class people educated during the colonial period should acquire power and should fight against
unjust conditions. Only colonizers understand language is the language of violence. The oppressed must use violence
as the language and throw away the colonizers from the country because colonizers not only looked away wealth, they
took away harmony but they even affected the psyche of the native people.In “The Wretched of the Earth”, Fanon
propounded the idea of national literature and national culture, they are recognizing the significance of cultural
nationalism, leading to national consciousness. He attempted to plead for a greater, pan-African cause, as the blacks
had to create their histories and rewrite their stories. Fanon believed that such a national culture must take recourse to
the African myths and cultural practices. He formulated the three stages in which a national culture is formed: 1) The
native, under the influence of the colonizer’s culture, seeks to emulate and assimilate it by discarding his own culture
(what Homi K Bhabha later calls mimicry). 2) the native acknowledges the wide disparity and discovers that he can
never be truly white or white enough for the colonizer to treat him as equal, and returns to study his own culture, in a
romantic and celebratory mode. 3) However, in the third stage, the native is truly anti-colonial, accompanied by a
critical analysis of his own culture” (Mambrol, 2021)He also draws a parallel between female and working class
because he thinks that the condition of female and working class is the same. Colonial masters and the elite people
(High class) of post-colonial nations are the same because both of them exploit the working class. As he states:“In the
colonies, the economic infrastructure is also a superstructure. The cause is the effect: You are rich because you are
white, you are white because you are rich. This is why Marxist analysis should always be slightly stretched when it
comes to addressing the colonial issue” (Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth, pg. 5)In this book “The Wretched of the
Earth” Fanon departed from the non-violent tone of “Black Skin, White Mask” and argued that the colonized have the
right to commit violence to gain independence.3.1 Conclusion:To sum up, we can say that Frantz Fanon, a man from
Martinique, whose French culture turned him into Algerian revolutionary. He will remain a living example of what
active universalism and a high level of humanism is. Fanon asserted that colonialism was destructive, preventing
colonized individuals from developing a sense of self. And it affects the psychology of the native
people.References:Postcolonialism. (2021). Retrieved 2 June 2021, from https://worldarchitecture.org/architecture-
news/pgmgz/postcolonialism.html (end refenece)Rukundwa, L., & Van Aarde, A. (2007). The formation of
postcolonial theory. HTS Teologiese Studies / Theological Studies, 63(3). doi: 10.4102/hts. v63i3.237Raja, M., &
Raja, M. (2021). What is Postcolonial Studies? - Postcolonial Space. Retrieved 2 June 2021, from
https://postcolonial.net/2019/04/what-is-postcolonial-studies/Postcolonial literature - Wikipedia. (2021). Retrieved 6
June 2021, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postcolonial_literature#cite_ref-:22_6-1Chrisman, L. (2007).
Historicising African and Caribbean literatures. Postcolonial Studies, 10(3), 321-325. doi:
10.1080/13688790701488205Nayar, P.K (2016). Frantz Fanon: toward a post-colonial humanism. Journal Of
Postcolonial Writing, 54(1), 130-131. doi: 10.1080/17449855.2016.1180016Wehrs, D. (2003). Sartre's Legacy in
Postcolonial Theory; or, Who's Afraid of Non-Western Historiography and Cultural Studies? New Literary
History, 34(4), 761-789. doi: 10.1353/nlh.2004.0012(PDF) FRANTZ FANON IMPERIALISM AND THE SEARCH
FOR DECOLONIZATION IN AFRICA. (2021). Retrieved 2 June 2021, from
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/339003943_FRANTZ_FANON_IMPERIALISM_AND_THE_SEARCH_F
OR_DECOLONIZATION_IN_AFRICAFANON, Frantz. (2021). Retrieved 3 June 2021, from
https://globalsocialtheory.org/thinkers/franz-fanon/Black Skin, White Masks - Wikipedia. (2021). Retrieved 2 June
2021, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Skin,_White_MasksBlack Skin, White Masks Quotes and Analysis.
(2021). Retrieved 3 June 2021, from https://www.gradesaver.com/black-skin-white-masks/study-guide/quotesThe
Wretched of the Earth Quotes and Analysis. (2021). Retrieved 3 June 2021, from https://www.gradesaver.com/the-
wretched-of-the-earth/study-guide/quotesMambrol, N. (2021). Frantz Fanon ‘s Contribution to Postcolonial Criticism.
Retrieved 3 June 2021, from https://literariness.org/2016/04/07/frantz-fanon-s-contribution-to-postcolonial-
criticism/#:~:text=Fanon%20thus%20develops%20a%20psychoanalytical,encounter%20with%20the%20%E2%80%9
COther.%E2%80%9D&text=Fanon%20believed%20that%20such%20a,African%20myths%20and%20cultural%20pr
actice