Fanon’s Ideas Seen in “The Battle of Algiers” and “An Algerian Childhood”

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The topic of war has always been one of the most interesting and widely-spread in literature. The books related to this topic attract the readers’ attention and make them think over this problem and evaluate all that sorrow and disgrace which people underwent. Needless to say that all those people who came through the war will remember this period of their life with wormwood and tears. They describe people who fought, those who dreamt about home and their families and friends; those who came back from war and bravely died, fighting for peace and independence. Moreover, they describe the problems of social and cultural differences and solidarity of people who were united by common fatality.

Great number of such books deal with the aftermaths of war, looking for understanding among the readers. The Wretched of the Earth by Franz Fanon is the brightest example of such books. It provides the reasons for better understanding of Algerian struggle and its reasons and results, which effected all world publicity. Moreover, the ideas of Fanon find their reflection in such films as The Battle of Algeries and series of novels An Algerian Childhood. The book contains some theories that Fanon used to show his opinion of the struggle in Algeria.

So, The Wretched of the Earth is one of the most famous Fanon’s works. Being an Algerian political logician who devotes the greatest part of his life to the analysis of the nature of colonialism and racism and works out the theory of aggressive anticolonist resistance. The theme of this book connected with the topic of invasion. Moreover, the book focuses on the on the dishonest and unfair behavior given by the European invaders, that is why anyone concerned about slavery should be excited by this book. .

The Africans in the territory of this country are treated according to the identical rules as slaves in America, just another soil. The Wretched of the Earth considers the occupied world from the point of view of the occupied people. Fanon asks the reader right through the book. For example, one of his main questions and ideas expressed is whether the occupied world has to duplicate the west or build up a completely new set of principles and ideas. One of the ideas of Fanon expressed in the book is that violence is an essential pre-condition for the set of problems, which people faced:

Violence can thus be understood to be the perfect mediation. The colonized man

liberates himself in and through the violence. The praxis enlightens the militant

because it shows him the means and the end. Knowing that we now know about the

double destiny of violence, must we not ask: Is violence ever a perfect mediation? Is

it not simply rhetorical bravura to assert that any form of secular material mediation

can provide a transparency of political action (or ethical judgment that reveals the

means and the end. Is the clear mirror of violence not something of a mirage in which

the dispossessed see their reflections but from which they can not slake their thirst?

(Fanon 8).

To my mind this very idea is clearly expressed in the Battle of Algiers, one of the most famous films devoted to the struggle in Algeria. Actually, this film is not a complete reflection of the book, but watching it one can clearly see the ideas expressed in The Wretched of the Earth. It is one of the most powerful political films in modern history that brightly re-creates the main year in the turbulent Algerian fight for freedom from the engaged French in the 1950s.

As aggression appears on both sides, children killed soldiers at close range, women put bombs in the cafés. The movies demonstrates the way the French soldiers remedy to torment to split the force of the insurgents. The film was shot in Algerian streets in documentary manner, it is a case learning in contemporary warfare, with the attacks of terrorists and violent methods used to fight them. The Battle of Algiers is deeply sensitive to the situation in Algeria, and is prepared to make the audience compassionate the subjugated victims of regal domination previous to the first act of aggression is perpetrated.

In my opinion the main aim of the film is both, demonstrate those awful conditions of the war and show that violence causes violence. It is one of Fanon’s ideas expressed in this film, as he thought that violence was the sort of mediation used by the politicians (Pontecorvo and Solinas 35).

He supposes it to be the step of French politicians to conquer new territories of Algeria. Nevertheless The Battle of Algiers residues the foundation of Pontecorvo’s notoriety – a model of the way, without prejudice or concession, a film-maker is able to enlighten history and Fanon’s idea and demonstrate how people can make the same mistakes and what result these mistakes can lead to. In fact, the book by Fanon and this film are about it in fact. The Algerian revolutionary movement in opposition to the French colonialists is not just a simple book or cinema. It is a real warning to those who try to find by power to compress independence movements.

To my mind another theory that is clearly seen in The Wretched of the Earth is that colonial racism, prejudice and cultural inequality are the inevitable parts of the decolonization process. “Fanon’s most influential text evokes the concrete and contrasting words of colonial racism as experienced in metropolitan France in the 1950-s and during the ant colonial Algerian war of liberation a decade later” (Fanon 9). So, Fanon does no see anything unusual or strange in the fact that Algerian people suffer from the colonial racism, Social and cultural differences as he considers it to be normal part of rebellion process.

This is one of the ideas demonstrated in the novel An Algerian Childhood. This series of novels shows the effect of the Algerian- French struggle and demonstrates how racism and prejudiced attitude to people can effect their lives. Algerian society’s international, multireligious excellence is clearly in confirmation in the variety of the authors of this collection. An Algerian Childhood comprises the works of Arab, Jewish, Kabyle, and French authors who share their reflections and point of view about their childhoods which coincided with the pre-independence period in Algeria.

Several generations of writers are united in this collection of books in order to write the novels on the childhood theme. Every novel from this collection provides with the glimpses into extremely individualized understanding what makes this collection consistent is an general preoccupation with the chronological and some political conditions of the time every came of age. For the greatest part of these writers this meant the deceitful and baffling years before Algeria’s release from French colonialism.

Practically all these novels are written in a lyrical tone juxtaposing often aggressive or strong descriptions with the language of infancy memory as reconstructed by mature adult wish and dream. If one reads this collection after The Wretched of the Earth by Fanon, he may find some ideas of this writes in the novels.

Class and pious diversities play rather significant role in this collection of stories that are the so-called recollections of the authors. The Lost Child by Albert Bensoussan is the story about Jewish boy and one Muslim girl, who became friends. This story depicts true and sincere friendship of two children, who do not care about their religious and social positions. But their friendship was broken because of the racial and religious differences which became the final results of French- Algerian struggle. “Perceived by racial differences and cultural disparities in general, the specific trajectory of tragic journey into isolation and madness…” (Sebbar 309).

One more novel that touches upon the same problem and depicts Fanon’s idea is Bare Feet by Helen Cixous. This story tells the readers about a girl who was brought up in the colonial society and was the witness of the class differences of this society. “One day I will also tell about water need thirst the verb to quench the country that was the source of sources and was not called Algeria.” (Sebbar 256). According to the words of Helen , her Bare Feet is a sour yet nostalgic story of the realization of the destiny and all the class differences by a young girl: “Powerful feelings can be smelled: love, hate, the urgency to murder; first you receive them in the face, they strike, you open a door, you go in, and the bodies in the room emit their olfactory messages” (Sebbar 303).

From the point of view of presentation these novels are extremely interesting, as they are connected with the certain period of history, moreover they the events of the novels are seen through the eyes of children, that is why they are even more sensitive than one can expect. The novels are the so-called manifestation of Fanon’s ideas, as they show the events of the Algerian struggle for liberation. They demonstrate the results of these struggle and may serve as evidences of Fanon’s ideas of the inevitability of violence and its effect on population before and after the struggle period.

The period of the Algerian struggle is very important for the literature and cinema, as it gives the ground for many films and novels. The Wretched of the Earth by Fanon and The Battle of Algiers, presenting the same ideas are the brightest examples of this period. The narratives from the An Algerian Childhood, discussed in the paper serve to prove some Fanon’s ideas which are expressed in his book.

Works Cited

Fanon, Frantz. The Wretched of the Earth. USA: Grove Press, 2004.

Pontecorvo, Gillo, Franco Solinas. Gillo Pontecorvo’s The Battle of Algiers. USA: University of Michigan, 2006.

Sebbar, Leila. An algerian childhood: a collection of autobiographical narratives. Boston: Ruminator Books, 2001.

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Fanon’s Ideas Seen in “The Battle of Algiers” and “An Algerian Childhood”

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