Works of Frantz Fanon

By Manini Manushi Gangal

Fanon provided authenticity and meaning to activists throughout his life, cementing his position as one of the anti-colonial thinkers. His work addresses the physical decolonisation of people, as well as the decolonisation of the mind and the importance of self-determination for oppressed individuals to break free of their oppressors.

Fanon’s influences included Aimé Césaire, Jean-Paul Sartre and Karl Marx. Césaire was a prominent leader of the Négritude movement, which was a theoretical framework developed by the French-speaking African diaspora during the 1930s to cultivate ‘black consciousness’ by rejecting colonialism and Eurocentrism. As Césaire’s mentee, Fanon drew inspiration from the Négritude movement, and relied on Césaire’s work heavily, especially for Black Skin White Masks, Fanon’s first published work.

In Black Skin, White Masks, Fanon discusses how Black people are forced to assimilate to white social norms by wearing a “white mask” as an act of survival for those who have been racialised as “colonised others” within Western society. The white mask, whilst a means of achieving acceptance within white cultural norms, further subjugates the Black individual by alienating them from their own culture, and forcing them to participate in their own erasure. Throughout the book, Fanon uses phrases such as “I gave myself up as an object” to demonstrate the part he played in his own fragmentation. Fanon, however, does not accept that racial minorities are entirely powerless in the face of the dominant social structure; he vehemently argues for the oppressed to acknowledge and equip their ability to resist their subjectivity. An important socio-political consideration in anti-colonial thought from the text is Fanon’s insistence that oppressed individuals retain some form of agency, no matter how small or constrained, which can be used to subvert their subjugation.

Fanon echoes Césaire’s stipulation that “change” needs to be achieved in several stages of action. Therefore, the process of decolonisation needed to be approached differently depending on the political landscape at the time. It has been argued that Fanon promoted a “reactionary racialised essentialism,” but scholars like Spivak and Nielsen appreciate that Fanon remains cognizant to the varying resistance strategies appropriate to different historical moments. Fanon’s work has been often misunderstood – in part due to mistranslations – as advocating for violence, however nuanced approaches show Fanon’s advocacy for the Black community’s active resistance to oppression, championing action over inaction.

Fanon was eager to participate in the Allied war effort against the Nazis, but the racism he experienced in the French army disillusioned him, and, on returning home after the war, he uncovered the role of culture in psychopathology, studying under the radical psychiatrist Tosquelles. Black Skin, White Masks was written during his residency, starting as an analysis of the negative psychological effects of colonisation on Black people. While practicing in Algeria, he struggled to reconcile with his own passivity in the Algerian struggle against the colonialist French regime. Fanon’s 1956 letter of resignation from his position at his hospital in Algeria is itself an influential text amongst anti-colonialist scholars, famously stating: “There comes a time when silence becomes dishonesty.” The letter condemned the systematised dehumanisation of the Algerians and vocalised Fanon’s realisation that he could no longer be complicit in imperialist conquest, and that no form of integration is possible within colonial societies.

In A Dying Colonialism, Fanon demonstrates that the aim of revolution is to abolish the system of colonialism from the very core, liberating both the colonised and the coloniser. His observation of the physical violence inherent within colonial-racism in Algeria led Fanon to conclude that true liberation must involve the radical destruction of the internalised alienation that arises as a consequence of systematic colonial subjugation. He praises the techniques used by the Algerian people, such as embracing ancient cultural practices deemed ‘primitive’ by the French, as pivotal in reclaiming their land and destroying the coloniser’s influence.

The Wretched of the Earth was written after Fanon was diagnosed with leukaemia; it was published shortly before his death in 1961, aged just 36. In this work, he defends the right of colonised communities to use violence to gain independence, arguing that those whose basic humanity is not respected should not be restricted by standards of ‘humanity’. From his work with the Front de Libération Nationale (the principle nationalist movement in Algeria during the Algerian War), Fanon observes that the only possible opposition for the Algerian people to the sheer might of the French colonial forces was violent resistance - the only ‘language’ the coloniser understood. The Wretched of the Earth warned of the dangers that decolonisation and globalisation posed to minoritised peoples. He highlighted the entangled nature of postcolonial identities, and the forceful confusion of culture and identity at the core of the colonial effort.

The Wretched of the Earth directly influenced Malcolm X’s activism in the USA, and Ernesto “Che” Guevara’s in Cuba, particularly Fanon’s theories on violent decolonisation and liberation. Steve Biko, in South Africa, equipped Fanon’s work on black consciousness alongside the American Black Power movement to spearhead the anti-apartheid ‘Black Consciousness Movement’ and condemn “white liberal” values. This encouraged a cohesive solidarity amongst black liberation groups at the forefront of the anti-apartheid struggle in South Africa. In this way, we can see Fanon’s lasting impact through the combined understanding of the psychological need for self-determination and the practical struggle of decolonisation.

Today, Fanon provides activists with proof that the struggle for racial equity and liberation from colonialist thought requires decolonising oneself too – he demonstrates that the aims of colonialism are furthered by the unresolved internalisation of Western social norms within oppressed individuals.

Fanon’s impact will continue to last, not least because of his incisive and lucid style of writing but, because of his focus on the struggle of opposition, and the spirit of oppressed people to subvert their subjugation. His work encompasses both the militant and ‘everyday’ heroisms in the movement of liberation, and he continues to inspire action and activism across the globe.

Bibliography:

M. Azar, In the Name of Algeria: Frantz Fanon and the Algerian Revolution (2000) Eurozine <https://www.eurozine.com/in-the-name-of-algeria/> [accessed 21 October 2024].

H. Guesmi, Remembering Frantz Fanon (2023) Tribune Magazine <https://tribunemag.co.uk/2023/07/remembering-frantz-fanon-2> [accessed 22 October 2024].

J. McGinn, Can Violence be Moral? Revisiting Fanon on Violence in The Wretched of the Earth (2018) LSE Blogs <https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/mec/2018/01/08/can-violence-be-moral-revisiting-fanon-on-violence-in-the-wretched-of-the-earth/#:~:text=In%20the%20context%20of%20the,resume%20a%20self%2Ddetermining%20existence> [accessed 21 October 2024].

C. R. Neilsen, ‘Frantz Fanon and the Négritude Movement: How Strategic Essentialism Subverts Manichean Binaries’ Callaloo 36(2) (2013), 342-352.

G. C. Spivak, In Other Worlds: Essays in Cultural Politics (Routledge 2006).