Frantz Fanon worked for the French during the French colonial
occupation in Algeria. He first worked
for the French and then joined with the freedom fighters, and thus very well
knew the different perspectives of both the colonizer and the colonized. His important works are The
Wretched of the Earth (1963) and Black
Skin, White Masks (1967).
Ø According to Frantz Fanon the colonizer
destroyed the very soul of the repressed and suffering native. The psychology of colonialism is that when
the colonial paints the native as evil, pagan and primitive, over a period of
time the native begins to accept this prejudiced and radicalized view as true.
Ø The native comes to see himself as
evil, pagan and primitive. The black man
loses his sense of self and identity because he can see only through the eyes of
the white man. For the native, man means white man
because he doesn’t see himself as a man at all.
The term ‘culture’ for the native becomes the ‘culture’ of the white
man.
Ø For the white man, the native is
always a NEGATIVE,
PRIMITIVE OTHER; the very opposite to what he (white man) and his
culture stands for. Fanon here develops
a psychoanalytical theory of Colonialism.
Fanon suggests that the European self develops in its relation and encounter with the ‘Other’
(the native). Thus the Colonialism
engages the white and the native in an ‘encounter/relation’ where one develops
only in its contrast with the other.
Ø For the native the only way of
dealing with this psychological inadequacy is by trying to be as ‘white’ as
possible. The native takes on the
western values, religion, language and practices of the white colonial and
rejects his own conditions. HERE HE PUTS
ON ‘WHITE MASKS’.
Ø However this ‘mask’ over the black
skin is not a perfect solution or fit. Fanon
argues that the native experiences a schizophrenic condition as a result of
this duality. The buildup of this sense of
inadequacy and inferiority in the colonized’s psyche, argues Fanon, results in violence.
Ø Violence is a form of
self-assertion. When the native
discovers that he cannot hope to become truly ‘white’ or expel the whites, his
violence erupts against his own people. Thus,
tribal wars, for Fanon, are an instance of this; the violence generated through
the colonial system where the ‘wretched’ turn upon each other, haunted by a
failure to turn against the colonial master.
Ø Fanon recognized the significance of Cultural
Nationalism when he propounded the idea of a national literature (in
Wretched of the Earth) leading to a national consciousness. His deployment of the term national culture
was an attempt to plead for a greater pan-African cause. The blacks had to create their own history,
and write their own stories. And it is
through this CONTROL OVER REPRESENTATION that the native can break free of the
colonial shackles.
Ø Such a national culture believed
Fanon, must Return to African Myths and cultural practices.
Ø It is within these mythic, cultural
and even mystic traditions that black identity can be resurrected.
A NATIONAL CULTURE IS FRAMED IN THREE
STAGES
1.
The native
intellect is under the influence of the colonizer’s culture, and seeks to
emulate and assimilate it by abandoning his own. He tries to be as white as possible.
2.
The native
discovers that he can never become truly white, or white enough for the
colonial masters to treat him as equal. Now
he returns to study his own culture, and might even romanticize his traditions
and past. Here there is no critical
engagement with the native culture, just a celebratory tone.
3.
In the 3rd
stage the native is truly anti-colonial.
He joins the ranks of his people and battles colonial domination. He carefully analyses his own culture. Such analyses help him to abandon these
elements of native culture that are dated or even oppressive. So that a new future is possible.
WHAT HAPPENS IN A POSTCOLONIAL STATE [AFTER GETTING FREEDOM FROM THE COLONISER]
OR NEO-COLONIALISM
Fanon drew unfavourable parallels between the
colonial masters and the elite of the postcolonial nations. He argued that the power struggles between
the colonial master and the native subject ends with political
independence. However, ironically this
soon emerges in a different form: the battle for power between the elites and
the rest in the postcolonial state.
Native elites occupy the spaces of power once
occupied by the white masters, and the corruption, oppression and exploitation
of the working classes continue this time at the hands of fellow natives. This, in effect, is NEO-COLONIALISM. The middle classes and the intellectual
classes that were educated in the colonial system now acquire power and
duplicate the unjust and exploitative colonial system even after political
independence.
