12/9/2023 0 Comments On violence franz fanon summaryTherefore violence is used by the colonisers because of their understanding of the Algerian mind. In other words, there is a constellation of postulates, a series of propositions that slowly and subtly…work their way into one’s mind and shape one’s view of the world of the group to which one belongs…that view of the world is white because no black voice exists (1952: 152). Ith the exception of a few misfits within the closed environment, we can say that every neurosis, every abnormal manifestation, every affective erethism … is the product of his cultural situation. For Fanon, colonialism is marked by the way that the cultural context of ‘blackness’ comes to dominate every aspect of the colonised person’s life, he explains that: Drawing upon colonial views of the evil, backward and tribalistic nature of the Algerian, the coloniser feels that their only option to maintain control and order is through violence (Fanon, 1952: chapters 5 and 6). The colonial subject is ‘dehumanized’ by colonialism to such an extent, that ‘it turns him into an animal’ (Fanon, 1963: 42). Put differently, the colonial subject is incapable of rational logic and comprehension, so must be dominated through the only means available: violence. The French see them as ‘the enemy of values, and in this sense he is absolute evil’ (Fanon, 1963: 41). He believes that the French have racialised views about the colonised subjects. Fanon engages heavily with the question of why the use of violence is necessary. Violence is the tool that the colonising power uses to maintain their domination over the colonial subject. He also maps out what will assist a revolution in succeeding, and some of the pitfalls that would prevent its success.įanon considers the whole colonial project to be one which is dominated by violence. Fanon’s political theory outlines the necessity of violence for removing colonialism from a state. After being dissatisfied with the political situation in Algeria, he joined the revolution against the French. He later studied psychiatry in France, before practising in Algeria. Fanon was born in Martinique, a French colony. That affirmed intention to place the last at the head of things, and to make them climb at a pace (too quickly, some say) the well-known steps which characterize an organized society, can only triumph if we use all means to turn the scale, including, of course, that of violence (Fanon, 1963: 37).įrantz Fanon used his lived experience as a revolutionary in Algeria to develop a theory of revolution. For if the last shall be first, this will only come to pass after a murderous and decisive struggle between the two protagonists. The naked truth of decolonisation evokes for us the searing bullets and bloodstained knives which emanate from it. Brahim Haggiag (center, with arm outstretched) as revolutionary leader Ali La Pointe in a scene from Gillo Pontecorvo’s THE BATTLE OF ALGIERS (1965).
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