E3W Literature | University of Texas

Frantz Fanon
The Wretched of the Earth
Grove Press, 2004
251 Pages
$14.00

Reviewed by Trevor L. Hoag

As globalization increases its scope and force throughout the world and the United States engages in an unpopular and bloody colonial occupation, academics (and, one hopes, politicians as well) listen for guiding voices in the darkness. One such voice up for consideration is that of Frantz Fanon, especially as it is expressed in his seminal work The Wretched of the Earth. Although some might consult Fanon with trepidation, it is undeniable that his text provides important insights into the inner workings of imperialist conquest and colonial strife. And there are other reasons to consult (or re-read) Fanon today as well. One, for example, is his text’s historical significance, for it provides a unique theoretical analysis of (de)colonialization from a man who was caught up in the middle of things, a man who not only trained village militia members to resist torture but to cope with the anxiety of carrying out assassination attempts. Moreover, Fanon’s work influenced the Black Power movement in the United States, and even members of the IRA point to it as a source of inspiration. As a testament to the force of Fanon’s message, on the day of his death in 1961 French police stormed bookstores to seize copies of Wretched after it was deemed a danger to French society and culture. One cannot overstate the power of Fanon’s influence and the importance of understanding his work.

Why, though, was the influence of The Wretched of the Earth considered so dangerous and why was it suppressed? The reason is that at the heart of Fanon’s work lies a “meditation” on violence, a meditation born from absolute rage at the colonial situation as well as from a political frustration that led him to claim that “for the colonized, life can only materialize from the rotting cadaver of the colonist.” Indeed, Fanon goes so far as to posit throughout his text an “inevitable emergence” of violence that became emphasized (and exaggerated) through the influential commentary of philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre. This advocacy of violence, however, Fanon’s “agenda for total disorder,” was by no means universally championed. Philosopher and political theorist Hannah Arendt, for one, was compelled to critique the work in the late ‘60s as its message spread across college campuses. Regardless, over the past four and a half decades Fanon’s message has lost little of its sting, but (like Arendt) some readers cannot help feel that there must be a better way to resolve conflicts between colonizing forces and the colonized. Fanon’s voice remains haunting on the necessity of violence, however, forcing one to question whether it is naïve to hold out the hope for non-violent resolutions. As Homi Bhabha writes, though, it is difficult to dispel the worry that Fanon “fail[ed] to consider the possibility that a state built on the revolutionary violence of the FLN could slide more easily into state terror and religious fanaticism.”

Another way of evaluating the viability/applicability of Fanon’s work today is to put his text into conversation with contemporary theoretical modes of analysis. The Wretched of the Earth is bolstered by a mixture of psychoanalytic, Marxist, and humanist frameworks, and with them, certain universalizing tendencies to refer to “the colonized masses” as such. Although Fanon’s call for a Marxist redistribution of wealth and his rejection of the dehumanizing tendencies of colonization are in many ways laudable, there are those who would argue that theoretical insights after Fanon’s death have problematized his theoretical project. For example, Foucauldian arguments about the fabrication of the subject by power (which lead to an unsettling of “liberatory” political projects) may cause many contemporary readers to take lines such as “deep down the colonized subject knows no authority…He is dominated but not domesticated” and “the colonized man liberates himself in and through violence” with a tinge of skepticism. Moreover, post-humanist Derridian and Deleuzian insights that attempt to deconstruct the Enlightenment conception of “Man” may persuade some readers to wonder whether Fanon’s view that “man is the most precious asset” merely reinforces certain classical categories and oppositions. Despite these theoretical innovations, arguments concerning the viability of liberatory politics, Marxism, and Enlightenment humanism are far from settled, and re-reading Fanon on these issues today certainly contributes to the overall discussion.

Of course, even if one is hesitant to turn to Fanon given his advocacy of violence or because one contends that his theoretical project is outmoded, this is not to say that he has nothing left to teach us—on the contrary. When considering the current political and military situation surrounding Iraq, for instance, many of Fanon’s insights are rather pertinent. Indeed, while analyzing the language of the current Federal administration of the US, especially the speeches of President George W. Bush, one repeatedly hears the argument that those who align themselves against the US simply “hate freedom,” that their actions are practically unmotivated, basically irrational, and moreover, are being directed at an entirely innocent target. Fanon reminds his readers that insurgent groups have reasons to feel rage, and that they are motivated by a preexisting violence against them. Unfortunately, Fanon’s point here is tainted by a Manichaeanism that recalls those who argue that a “clash of civilizations” is currently taking place between the Western and Middle Eastern “worlds.” Another relevant Fanonian insight along these lines concerns sectarian strife. He writes, “the colonist keeps the colonized in a state of rage…[and this rage] periodically erupts into bloody fighting between tribes, clans, and individuals,” i.e., between sectarian groups that the colonizer “reinforces and differentiates.” Thus, Fanon reminds us that divisions between Shiite, Sunni, and Kurdish groups, as well as the violence raging between them, are likely reinforced by our country’s administration for political gain.

In closing, a final meditation that Fanon presents that is relevant to the current historical situation concerns awareness of the horrors of colonization. In one of the book’s most controversial passages, Fanon writes that the colonizer can “never manage to mask the human reality” of colonialism. As I watch my television at night, which is (for the most part) lacking images of both dead US soldiers and dead Iraqis, I wonder whether this statement holds. Indeed, when cameras are made blind and reporting voices silenced, I wonder whether the colonizer has not won the day and been left to construct whatever reality “it” chooses. But in a final moment of possibly naïve hope, I think about Fanon’s text, the awareness that it raises concerning the colonial situation, and how this awareness becomes increasingly relevant in today’s globalization-induced conquest of nations. I wonder if this is not the text’s greatest legacy. For regardless of Fanon’s own answer to the question of colonial strife, the awareness that he raised (and continues to raise with each re-reading) makes it harder for those in power to “mask the human reality,” the injustice, of enduring colonial oppression and global domination.