“The Wretched of the Earth” by Frantz Fanon

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The most valuable and advanced knowledge is often produced on the border of several studies. Frantz Fanon, an author of The Wretched of the Earth, has carried out a deep research on colonization, where he does not limit himself with the historic approach only. Instead, he has touched the issues of sociology and psychology, having defined the logic of colonial violence.

The author considers colonial violence to be a logical and grounded stage of a colonized community’s development. In his reasoning, he builds a logical sequence, which causes a chain reaction of violence: experiencing violence from the side of the colonizer, the colonized are forced to show counter-violence.

Two causes of confrontation contained within the nature of colonization and anti-colonization struggle can be defined after reading Fanon’s work. Firstly, colonization is a collision of two separate worlds, which do not understand the peculiarities of each other.

Besides the collision of peculiarities, confrontation of interests is even more crucial in bearing colonial violence. A settler’s interest does not consider the well-being of a native at all, or, at least, it is of interest for him as long as it can produce his own prosperity. At the same time, a native’s interest is, correspondingly, is his well-being and prosperity of his community. This confrontation is a source of violent struggle between a settler and a native.

The author also makes an important psychological assumption about a native’s envy of the settler. A colony place is usually divided into two separate worlds, where the settlers live in a tidy lit town, with comfortable dwellings, and the natives stay in poverty and misery. The natives dream all the time about putting themselves in the place of the settlers.

Secondly, decolonization is always about dramatic, crucial changes, which can not be fulfilled without resistance. When two worlds collide, trying to defend their interests, it cannot take a peaceful way.

Violence has an important role in terms of struggling against the colonizers. At the level of the whole community, it unites people. Colonial systems always tends to disunite people, which makes them weaker; what violence does is the opposite. At the level of an individual, violence works as a mobilization force and removes the inferiority complex.

One of the book’s chapters is called “Trials and Tribulations of National Consciousness”. In fact, it says that the struggle for liberation was not the end, but the only the beginning of the challenges the community faces. When a community has got what it wanted, the time comes to act independently and to bear responsibility for the actions done.

In the underdeveloped country, there are no such strata as political and intellectual elite, bourgeoisies (in the common understanding of these terms). Thus, the end of the colonial period implies forming of groups of people who can temporarily substitute these lacking forces.

For Fanon, availability of “real bourgeoisie” is a criterion of a nation’s development. The new national bourgeoisie in the underdeveloped countries is not similar to that in traditional understanding. It has neither material and intellectual resources, nor experience in power. As a rule, the actions of bourgeoisie in the postcolonial society are aimed at conquering resources and wealth for themselves. Although it manages to amass some fortune, it is incapable of bearing responsibility of developing the infrastructure of the society, building the fundament of the social guarantees and fulfilling other processes which mean the evolution of society. The author defines its role as follows: “All its energy is channeled into intermediary activities” (Fanon 98).

That is why other poles begin to form in the underdeveloped country. Another stratum which is formed in the young society is the leadership. The role of the leadership is to “awaken” the masses, to mobilize men and women and to make each of them feel as a part of a nation. The most important task is to strengthen the consciousness of the young generation, as their mind is more flexible, and, besides, the future depends on them much. The role of the masses grows very slowly, as it requires education, changing of the living standards, and further evolution of the social structure.

Fanon devotes a whole chapter to describing how colonization and post-colonization periods influenced people’s culture and mental state. First of all, culture artifacts and art works changed, as they were devoted to revolutionary topics. But the most significant influence was in terms of the human psychics. The author provides amazing data about numerous cases of mental diseases among the natives, bringing Algeria as an example. It happened when the sum of harmful stimulants exceeded a certain level, and the mental tension was overpowering.

The disorders were often classified as “psychotic reactions”, triggered by bloody, aggressive atmosphere; however, the diagnoses varied in different cases. The disorders caused numerous cases of violence, aggression and crimes, which affected the patients’ compatriots.

Thus, Frantz Fanon has managed to break the stereotypes over the processes which took place in colonies and post-colonial societies, providing many-sided, logical grounding for the issues which may seem not clear. The work is extremely useful for those interested in history, sociology and culture studies.

Bibliography

Fanon, F. The Wretched of the Earth. Trans. Richard Philcox. New York: Grove Press, 2004. Print.

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“The Wretched of the Earth” by Frantz Fanon

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