The Wretched of the Earth

I read Frantz Fanon's "The Wretched of the Earth" in college in the early 1960s. It was an assigned reading in my only sociology class so I can't claim any credit for discovering the book on my own. Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, and into more recent times, "The Wretched of the Earth" has been high on the reading lists of every Social Science and History department of every significant university in the USA, in the rest of the Western Hemisphere nations except when the universities have been closed by military dictatorships, in Europe, and of course in the post-colonial nations of Africa and Asia. Che Guevara read Fanon. Ali Shariati read Fanon. Malcolm X read Fanon. But so did Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu. Barry Goldwater read Fanon. So did Bill Clinton and George Herbert Bush, I suspect that George W Bush was assigned to read Fanon but chose the 'classic comic' version instead. In short, "everybody" read Fanon, usually "The Wretched of the Earth", and the mere reading of Fanon has never been sufficient to justify labeling the reader as an advocate of violent revolution. If you've never read Fanon, by the way, it's not too late; his writings have never gone out of print, however much they may seem 'dated' in content.

Fanon was born in Martinique in 1925, of a middle-class 'mixed race' family prosperous enough to send him to the most prestigious high school in the former slave-owning colony. When the pro-Nazi Vichy French government began its campaign of racial abuse in Martinique, Fanon escaped and joined the Free French Forces. Later he enlisted in the Gaullist French army, joining Allied forces in Casablanca, and eventually seeing combat in in Alsace. After the War, Fanon studied medicine and psychiatry in Lyons and Saint-Alban. In 1953, Fanon was appointed 'chef de service' at a psychiatric hospital in Algeria, where he practiced until the French colonial authorities ordered his deportation back to France in 1957. During his years as a psychiatrist in Algeria, Fanon focused his practice and research on socio-therapies which too account of his patients' cultural backgrounds, a radical concept then but standard among psychotherapists in hospitals and clinics of the USA today. In 1954, Fanon also aligned himself with the FLN, the anti-colonial liberation front. The vast majority of Fanon's writings deal with Algeria's struggle for independence, but the common impression that they are all manifestos of violent revolution is false. Chiefly they are sociological analyses of the mentality of people, specifically the Algerians, after decades of colonial oppression. Fanon was not a methodological academic sociologist or anthropologist. His writings are intuitive, founded principally on his own experiences as a person of color and a scion of colonialism.

The Wretched of the Earth has always been Frantz Fanon's most famous work. It was written during and regarding the Algerian struggle for independence from colonial rule. Fanon explored the psychological effect of colonization on the culture of a 'subject' people, and the implications of that mindset both for building a movement for independence and for establishing a polity after independence. A controversial introduction to the text by Jean-Paul Sartre presented Fanon's work as an advocacy of violence. This focus derived from the book's opening chapter `Concerning Violence' which is a caustic indictment of colonialism and its legacy. Defenders of Fanon's legacy argue that Sartre's comments have led to a limited approach to the text that focuses on the promotion of violence. Further reading reveals a thorough critique of nationalism and imperialism which also covers areas such as mental health and the role of intellectuals in revolutionary situations. Also important is Fanon's view of the role of language and how it molds the position of "natives", or those victimized by colonization. Fanon's The Wretched of the Earth has become a handbook for political leaders faced with decolonization. It is still read in the Pentagon today as advice on dealing with the conflict in Iraq.

I'm reviewing this book, which I read so many years ago, as a small response to the current book by Dinesh D'Souza -- The Roots of Obama's Rage -- which attempts to "tar" Obama as a disciple of Fanon and thus filled with obdurate hatred for the colonial powers, including the USA. Obama certainly has read Fanon, and refers to him once in his book "Dreams from My Father." But, as I said before, "everybody" has read Fanon. I would hope that a substantial number of Republican Senators and Representatives have read Fanon; if not, our Congress is more woefully undereducated than I assumed. Even Philip Roth has read Fanon, and refers to him in his novel "American Pastoral".

Dinesh D'Souza offers an intriguing example, in himself, of post-colonial mentality. He was born in Mumbai in 1961 -- the very year that Fanon died of leukemia -- but his parents were from Goa, the ancient Portuguese colony on the west of India. D'Souza was raised as a Roman Catholic but came to Dartmouth, where he was prominent in ultra-conservative activities. He began his career as a writer, so to speak, by publishing the names of "gay' Dartmouth students, without their consent, in the "Dartmouth Review", a publication subsidized by rightwing organizations not affiliated with Dartmouth. He was also a vociferous critic at Dartmouth of affirmative action. He has gone on to be closely associated with the Heritage Foundation and the Hoover Institute, prominent reactionary think-tanks funded by ultra-conservative business tycoons. He now professes to be an "evangelical Christian" after having denounced th American catholic Church for 'pacifist' stances. His vociferously expressed opinions include anti-feminist diatribes, rejection of Darwinism, the assertion that 'some cultures/races are innately superior to others as demonstrated by their historical accomplishments, and the notion that secularism and secular morality have led to the unfair suppression of "conservative" thought at American universities. Considering that D'Souza is patently a 'product' of colonialism and post-colonial reaction, one might suspect that his vehemence is partly fueled by defensiveness, and his ideological rigidity by over-compensation.

Certainly if one merely observed empirically the thrust of revolutionary activity in the post-World War II period one would have seen vast national liberation struggles of colonial subjects from Algeria (Fanon's revolution) to Cuba to Vietnam and everywhere in between to become free from the fetters of empire. And see, see in general, the relative decline of revolutionary activity by the Western working classes. Thus Marxism, or the parody of Marxism, was turned on itself to proclaim that new third world forces would create a new type of socialism (one based not on plenty since not frontal assault on the imperial centers after liberation was contemplated for the most part, but rather some ancient forms of societal existence, if any) led by new types of revolutionary organizations not tainted with the smell of sell-out Western and urban-centered communist and socialist parties or their colonial adherents, and creating a "new man" culture. But first the liberation, and the ethos of liberation.

Obviously such theories, based as they were on dismissal of the historic Marxist centrality of the working classes take state power and creating working class forms of economic and social life, could only work as theories of some military defeat of the imperial centers by revolutionary declassed intellectuals and lumpenproletariat elements freed from the land in third world countries. In short the creation of rural (or urban in some cases) guerilla armies guided by an ethos of revolutionary violence as cleansing its supporters in the process of knocking out the old order. In short, as well, a variant of the old Narodnik theories in the old time 19th century Russian Empire that revolutionaries like Lenin and Trotsky had to fight against in their time.

The real problem with such lumpen-dependent strategies, borne out over time, and now in re-reading The Wretched Of The Earth, painfully borne out, is that the masses play no, or a passive role, in their liberation with all the distortions that a strategy based on a central military strategy creates. Revolutionary violence is probably, very probably, necessary to overturn imperial power but the cult of the gun, the cult of the purifying gun is not, and has not, worked in the struggle for a new socialist culture. The most dramatic example from the American left scene was the fate of the Black Panthers whose best elements (George and Jonathan Jackson, Fred Hampton, Eldridge Cleaver, etc.) bought into the Fanon substitutionist revolutionary thesis (the internal black nation theory they got elsewhere including early American Communist party doctrine on black self-determination as advocated by Harry Haywood and his fellows). And some very good Panthers wound up dead, wound up in jail (and some still in jail) and wound up cynical for their efforts. Let that example set in as you read Fanon's very intriguing book, a book like I said earlier that was very influential in my own early left-wing thinking, and that of the generation of '68.

Note: I would be incomplete in this review if I did not mention that Fanon, as a well-trained and extremely competent psychiatrist, spent a good portion of the book (the end section) describing the various traumas and pathologies
attributed to both the oppressed and the oppressor in Algeria during the national liberation struggle as a result of the colonial experience. He makes a very strong prima facie case for the proposition that oppression oppresses everyone and we had best get rid of this malignancy and take it off the human agenda as quickly as possible. To that I can say amen, brother.

Manifestos should probably be short, and this one is a long, slogging bore, as leaden as prose is likely to get. I’m totally sympathetic to anti-colonial thought, but I, a born finisher, glazed over and gave up after 60 pages.

The preface, by Jean-Paul Sartre, is more engaging than the text, reminding us among other things that “colonial administrators are not paid to read Hegel.”

...which should certainly be viewed as an appropriate response. Frantz Fanon was a Black psychiatrist who was born on the French island of Martinique. During the Algerian War of Independence (1954-62) he worked in Algerian hospitals, and developed a strong sympathy for the struggle of the native Algerians (who were not of European origins!). Fanon died in 1961, far too young, at 36, stricken by leukemia. Alistair Horne wrote the classic, dispassionate account of the Algerian War, entitled A Savage War of Peace: Algeria 1954-1962 (New York Review Books Classics). Fanon wrote his own classic masterpiece, a cri de coeur, literally on his death bed. This book would be an essential inspirational text for those who fought in the remaining anti-colonial wars as well as the Black civil rights movement in the United States. The book also contains an introduction from Jean-Paul Sartre.

In the introduction, Sartre says in his indubitable style: "The European elite undertook to manufacture a native elite. They picked out promising adolescents; they branded them, as with a red-hot iron, with the principles of Western culture; they stuffed their mouths full with high-sounding phrases, grand glutinous words that stuck to the teeth. After a short stay in the mother country they were sent home, whitewashed. These walking lies had nothing left to say to their brothers; they only echoed." Sartre is utterly oblivious. Willfully oblivious? How many of those "natives" who were educated in European "rights of man" values went back to lead the revolts against their colonial masters? A minority, for sure, but surely a majority of those who actually revolted, from Ho Chi Minh to Pol Pot. And is Frantz Fanon himself a "walking lie"? Clearly he was one of the natives who benefited from a European education, and could see the hypocrisy in the proclamations of universal rights and then hear the clearing of the throat, the er.. ah.., of course I mean for whites, even leaving the distaff side "in their place." Fanon himself does not address his somewhat ironic situation of utilizing his European education to denounce the European "world order." Perhaps if Fanon had lived longer, he would have addressed this matter.

But STILL, this is an excellent book, because that is not really the issue. Fanon is simply scathing in his denunciation of the injustices and hypocrisy of colonial rule. For example, in speaking of the colonialist: "...he shows them up and puts them into practice with the clear conscience of an upholder of the peace; yet he is the bringer of violence into the home and into the mind of the native." Or: "The Church in the colonies is the white people's Church..." Or: "Leave this Europe where they are never done talking of Man, yet murder men everywhere they find them, at the corner of every one of their own streets, in all corners of the globe. For centuries they have stifled almost the whole of humanity in the name of a so-called spiritual experience."

Fanon also does denounce his fellow natives who have been educated, and are Sartre's "walking lies": "It (the native bourgeoisie) follows the Western bourgeoisie along its path of negation and decadence without ever having emulated it in its first stage of exploration and invention..." The word "bourgeoisie" is one of those flags that confirms a "Marxist analysis" which is obviously quite dated today, aside from connoting prose that drifts into the opaque.

But again, STILL, even with that `dated' flaw, it does not diminish insights such as: "Those literally astronomical sums of money which are invested in military research, those engineers who are transformed into technicians of nuclear war, could in the space of fifteen years raise the standard of living of underdeveloped countries by 60 per cent." Even more dramatically (and only partially correct): "The people come to understand that wealth is not the fruit of labor but the result of organized, protected robbery."

Despite the heavy prose, and the lack of ironic introspection, this is a classic critique of the essential injustice of the colonial "world order"; it is a book which has inspired many. Ah, if he were only alive today to render such a critique of "globalization." 5-stars.

The basic premise that decolonization is a violent phenomenon still seems pretty revolutionary to me, as do his attempts to analyze the effects of colonization on the psychology of the native. I'm not sure if I buy his 3-step method by which colonized people develop their own culture, the clinical way he describes the native turning first to then from the colonizers culture, ultimately arriving at this almost Hegelian synthesis just feels too simplistic, too much like generic agitprop. His conclusion, that the third world has to rise to the task of protecting and taking back liberal humanism from European hypocrisy, (and that they have to do it on their own terms) might be overly idealistic, but its a kind of idealism which is very hard not to agree with by the time he's done making his case. It's easy to see how this became a big influence for people like Malcolm X and Edward Said.

Fannon's Wretched of the Earth is an interesting look at the relationship between a colonized country and it's colonizer. He also discusses the inevitablity of the overthrowing of the colonizing government by the people it rules. He states that this uprising must inevitabley be violent, For while the colonist is profiting from it's oppression of the colony, it will not willingly give the ruled country up. Fannon approaches his subject matter from a neo-marxist perspective. That is to say, the colonizer (in this case France) holds all of the means of production, and seeks to maintain it's power over the Colonized (in this case the Algierians). However, according to Fannon, the Algierians will eventually become aware (or, since this was written some time ago, did become aware) of their oppression, and will rise up against their oppressors.
Fannon also discusses the difficulties, and inherent problems in replacing the deposed government. He discusses the struggle for power that follows (different groups scrambling to gain the means of production). He also, describes the proper course that the country should take in order to rule itself properly. In doing this, Fannon seems to have a fairly realistic view of government struggle. He points out that the transition is going to be difficult. But he has high hopes for Algieria taking it's place on the world stage.
It's also interesting that Fannon is writing for Algierians. This isn't some manifesto aimed at France, or Europe in general (although he does criticize Europe). So, perhaps this book might be looked at as a handbook for many of the countries that threw off the shackles of colonialism around this time (perhaps even today). So,in some sense, it might be looked at as an attempt at Praxis.
The latter portion of the book consists of a series of case studies concerning the effects that the end of Colonialism had on the people within the country (both French and Algierian people). Basically, this section is an example of the human reaction to the atrocities commited both by the colonial regime, and by the revolutionaries.
In all, I would recomend this to anyone interested in seeing Marx's ideas in a more contemporary context. I'd also recomend this to anyone with an interest in revolution and political violence.

Almost all prominent black revolutionaries of the 1960s, from Malcolm X, Huey Newton, Nelson Mandela carried heavy influences from Fanon's writings in their struggles from social change and racial equality. However, Fanon's "wretched of the Earth" could arguably be the ultimate manifesto, or bible of Third World liberation. Fanon was no Gandhi, though. ; he makes his strongest point to suggest that all solutions to decolonization lay on violent revolution by using the Frech-colonized Algeria as a model and his Manichean (Good Vs. Evil), or bipolar portrayal of the endless antagonism that naturally arises between the colonized and the settler.

Fanon describes the conditions that emerge to allow for a war of liberation to take a foothold, the wave of repression unleashed

by the occupying army to put down the rebellions, and most interestingly - because it is what has taken place ever since - the prospects of continued exploitation by the established relationship between the new "revolutionary" bourgeoisie and the former colonizer country after the nationalist struggle and pressure at home had forced its withdrawal.

Fanon gives psychologycal analyses to testimonies given by his Algerians and French patients during the war period, and who had been affected directly or otherwise by the war. Cases involving French soldiers and police's torture, selective asassinations, surviving a mass killing, and gang rapes of rebels' wives by the French are some of which Fanon describes with chilling detail in the appendix.

"The Wretched of the Earth" remains an invaluable document that testify to the often overlooked argument made by numerous armed movements of the 1960s as revolutions broke out throughout the ex-colonized World.

Fanon is among the few thinkers who successfully wrote about emerging post-colonial nation-states. Many prefer to delve into the psychological implications of his work but I would rather view it as a warning againt the new tyranny that has its roots in the national struggle. Indeed, many nationalist movements became the new proxy for the departing colonial power thus ignoring the fact that fighters do not by default make good politicans. The dicourse of national struggle became the harbinger of the national dictatorship despite the evidence pointing to the outskirts and villages as being the impetus behind the drive for independence and not the educated classes as many claimed. I am not claiming that national struggle is bad but it has to be viewd objectively and its role must therefore end with independence to allow for genuine restructuring or else a political neo-imperialism emerges to replace direct military colonization. In both cases the winner is the colonizer who has returned in the form of the new nationl government mainly those who were educated in the West during colonization.

Reviews and descriptions of this incredible text exist in abundance, in all sorts of interpretations. Personally, if anything it has inspired for me an openness to bubbling feelings of anger and rebellion, but also has stimulated extensive streams of analysis on my life and global affairs. Whenever I come back to this text I find my thought completely transformed, and that alone is reason enough to own it. Prominent individuals it has inspired include the founding members of the Black Panther Party, and nearly all schools of thought relating to race and colonialism inevitably grapple with and interpret this text - another reason to have read it yourself.

Disclaimer: do not read Sartre's or Bhabha's accompaniments to the text until you have actually read at least a good portion of it. Both of their readings are incredibly reductive, and are more important to understand existential and postcolonial thought and their respective set of appropriations of Fanon, each of which having glaring complicities in capitalist structures.

Frantz Fanon was an extraordinary man. Passionate, charismatic, brave, deeply moral, profoundly intelligent and exceptionally perceptive and sensative. Those qualities infuse all of his books and its no surprise that all over the world so many good people refer to Fanon's work as "my bible" or "our bible." Everybody should read The Wretched of the Earth. The world has changed since the book was written. The wretched have far less hope now. But Fanon's insights into the nature of oppression and resistance and especially the promises and dangers of nationalism are as fresh and enlightening as they have always been, Most of the 'great' European philosophers thought that it was appropriate to use violence to resist certain types of oppression. Yet John Locke or Karl Marx are not routinely referred to 'apostles of violence' and their work is never reduced to their support for armed resistance to certain types of oppression. It's clear that a lot of people are still horrified at the idea of a black man with a gun - even if he's resisting oppression. Fanon's reception in the West tells us a lot about his continued relevance. This is one of the most important books of the last century. Everybody should read it. Everybody should learn from it.

Frantz Fanon is a great Pan-African writer and theorist. He was a psychiatrist who was born in Martinique in the West Indies in 1925. He is one of the foremost writers and intellectuals on black liberation from racial oppression and revolutionary armed struggle. Fanon was not just an armchair theorist with an incisive mind but a practical man who elected to get involved in the fight for freedom in the Algerian war of independence. He participated in the Algerian Liberation movement, the FLN, in the Algerian war of independence against the French in the 1950s.

Fanon's thinking was influenced by his analysis of testimonies that he got from Algerian and French patients that he treated during the Algerian war that had been traumatized by the war. The testimonies included the French troops and police torturing innocent civilians, mass killings and assassinations and rapes of defenseless men, women and children.

The Wretched of the Earth is a classic book written in the Communist framework that analyses the psychology of colonized people and eloquently explains their anger and frustration. He explains the techniques that imperialists use to subjugate the colonized peoples. Fanon discusses the social and economic basis of colonialism. He highlights the willingness of colonial powers to use violence, their attack on African culture and way of life, among other things. He concluded that violence was the only way to free the oppressed people. His views are in direct contrast to those of another great historical icon, Gandhi, who preached non-violent means to end oppression. The "Wretched of the Earth" has been very influential to all the subsequent liberation wars on the African continent, the civil rights movement and black consciousness movements worldwide.

Fanon was very prophetic as he attached post independence disenfranchisement of the masses by the ruling elites as well as tribal or religious clashes. Leaders of the newly liberated nations would have done well to heed in advice and avoid corruption and violence against their own peoples. He saw the need for a liberated country to have a national culture and national identity to ensure that there is unity that welds the nation together against various forces bend on its destruction.

Although Marxism has largely collapsed worldwide, this book is recommended reading for anyone wishing to learn about colonialism and its impact in Africa. The book now has an important historical value in the current largely decolonized world. The book will help the reader understand how revolutionary movements worldwide have justified the use of violence to achieve their ends. Readers from countries where the people are oppressed and wish to put an end to their plight may find this book to be still very relevant and enlightening.

Approximately one hundred and fifty years after the Gaul- tites wreaked havoc on the island of Hispanola, they've unleashed themselves again, this time behaving badly in Algeria. Using colonialism as the weapon of mass destruction the author gives a first hand analysis of the psychological and physical warfare during a time when he was assigned as a physician by the colonizing country to this geographic location. He leaves no stone unturned, including his depiction of the petty indigenous elite some of whom are highly educated, but are unqualified, unable to run the government and lead the people without going to their daddy, the colonist, for answers. And though the piece is somewhat over analyzed and redundant in some cases, this work is essential for gaining a clear understanding of colonialisms collateral damage, its affects on the colonized and the psychology behind detestable invaders. The long term destruction , as seen first hand by the author, undeniably can be seen openly now .

Le Duc Tho supposedly remarked (during Vietnam War negotiations with Henry Kissinger) that it was too early to gauge the impact of the French Revolution. So, how has the passage of nearly half a century been weathered by the judgements of Frantz Fanon? With the recent barrage of self-indulgent, hypocritical and overblown rhetoric from the Obama administration on our adventures in Central Asia and the Middle East, combined with the apparently never-ending internecine warfare in the "Third World's Third World" (Aftrica, in general; Mali and The Congo, in specific) and given the pending release of former Black Panther Marshall "Eddie" Conway as catalysts, what better time to comment on this classic incendiary indictment of colonialism?

Fanon has been both extolled and reviled for espousing the concept of "redemptive violence". This notion is, of course, a centrality of the fiction of the American West and was a key point in many classic novels (see, for instance, Cormac McCarthy's superb, "Blood Meridian"). It played another large role in the triumphalism of the unfotunate "Mission Accomplished" gaff uttered by President G.W. Bush when the Iraq war was prematurely declared "over" and yet again when spontaneous crowds gathered to celebrate (literally) the demise of Osama bin Laden. Yet, when trumpeted by Fanon, "responsible" Westerners were dismissive or condemnatory whilst Tom Wolfe-style American East Coast pseudo-leftists (and their European counterparts such as Sartre) found much to admire.

Reading the book again and considering Fanon's many contemporaneous observations, one finds much more than a simple "call to arms" against a phenomenon, colonialism; a policy that has receded into history (at least in its more overt manifestations, if not in fact). His trenchant analysis of the African hanger-on class (he refers to them as "bourgeoise") and the lure of nationalism by self-aggrandizing leaders of the one-party state are still both obvious and valid. His comments on the peasantry (sometimes seen as the classically Marxist reactionary class and sometimes as a Maoist vanguard are occasionally contradictory. His views on nation as race and state as tribe are both astute and (unfortunately) quite accurate as are his observations on resurrection of the past (historical ) glories of the now defiled (by colonialism) civilizations of the Third World. The concluding chapter on the psychological effects of Western colonialist policies are quaint and antiquated from a modern perspective.

So, is this work of historical interest only, or does it have contemporary relevance? The general trends Fanon discovered and elucidated persist and they permit serious insight into ongoing problems in Africa and elsewhere (the late and not really lamented Hugo Chavez is a fine illustration of what Fanon describes). The baleful influences of some Western policies (drones, targeted killings) and the persistent and nearly stereotypical reactions to them "overseas" remain germane. Perhaps the "take away" lesson from all of this is something along the lines of a remark attributed to Voltaire to the effect that, "history never repeats itself; people do." Or, maybe Fanon's lessons are somewhat analogous to Orwell's "Animal Farm" where "All animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others", here at home and elsewhere, too.

Frantz Fanon's political commentary on colonization is the perfect example of revolutionary literature with a pulse.

It explores the entire ordeal of colonization: from the early pangs of colonized animosity, to armed rebellion, to the destruction of the colonial bourgeoisie, all the way up to the psychological effects of colonial warfare. Fanon asserts that for the colonized: "To live simply means not to die. To exist means staying alive." Thus, it can be inferred that Fanon's portrayal of the Algerian Revolution is one that deals with individuals stripped of the human faculties of identity and forced simply as human beings to exist in the sense of breathing: a morbid assertion at best.

The entire book thrives on the notion that, in order to harness a sense of social identity among the "wretched of the earth," or the colonized masses, it is imperative that violence, or any other possible means, be used to destroy the colonialist foreignors (specifically, in Fanon's case, the French colonists in Algeria). Jean Paul Sartre, who wrote the controversial preface to the Wretched of the Earth, asserts that the only thing keeping the predominantly dehumanized wretch humanized is his desire to kill the colonist, to take his place (an idea also asserted by Fanon himself). Fanon does an excellent job merging the different ideals espoused by the respective sections of the colonized movement, including the urban proletariat, the lumpenproletariat, the tribal leaders, and the colonized intellectual, who Fanon holds in contempt for submission to Western thought (though he later asserts that the intellectual can regain his bearing in the liberation movement if he/she integrates with his/her brethren in the mountains and villages).

The work extensively examines the economic portion of decolonization, and demonstrares Fanon's vehement support for a redistribution of wealth and a unification of resources in order to distribute among the people seeming trivialities, such as grapes and other commodities previously witheld by the colonizer. The memorable conclusion demonstrates Fanon's ideals in his call for the Third World to create a distinct delineation between itself and Europe in order "to create a new man."

Overall, the Wretched of the Earth is one man's cry for a Third World reawakening delivered in miltantly abrasive prose that still resonates to this day.

Fanon lays bare the day to day interactions of the oppressed and the oppressor,
reveiling the tragic symptoms and by-products of colonialism, such as the
belief that violence must be met with violence to liberate a nation. The
mindset of the oppressed and the culture of an oppressed people is written very
plain, universal language (thanks in some part, no doubt, to the translator)
and there are themes and ideas in this book that ring true today because of
this style of writing.
Fanon writes about the need for having a "national culture" and the promotion
of national identity in order to provide a cohesion to people exiting
colonialism into the more covertly cruel world of free markets, total
independence and possibly neo-colonialism (such as what goes on in a lot of the
poorer Asian, African and South American countries today with sweatshops,
plantations and diamond mining). This idea that a national unity and recognized
common interest is not an option, it's totally necessary, if a group of people
wants to truly take power for themselves can be applied to all types of groups
today: gay people, the impoverished, the political Left, those in occupied
countries, religious minorities worldwide, etc.
So why would I only give the book 3 stars? I feel that while a lot of the
philosophy in the book is timeless, it takes lot of wading through dated
accounts of 1960s African politics, Fanon's psychiatric conclusions (one-fifth
of the book is devoted to this) and some mediocre round-about philosophizing.
The back of the edition I read claimed that "The Wretched of the Earth" had
surpassed other books of the era about colonialism and become more than just a
historically interesting artifact. By the last page however, I got the same
feeling I did when I finished "The Rights of Man" by Paine a year earlier for a
university assignment; there's simply no need to go through so much irrelevant
text to get to the core of the argument, which could be found in some of the
author's essay complilations
instead.

Fanon's Wretched of the Earth seems like one rambling assertion after another. Ostensibly Fanon is speaking from his professional experience as a psychiatrist on the psychological effects of colonialism. That is apparent in the final section of the book, where he discusses actual case studies. But for the majority of the book that covers the logic of colonialism and anticolonial revolution, there is little in the way of argument. It's also difficult to tell when he's engaging in prescription versus mere description.

Fanon is especially disappointing in how much he essentializes the colonial subject. For the most part he ignores the possibility of dissident views within the colonial community. There is no discussion of how women, for example, might have specific concerns about revolution. Likewise for ethnic minorities, who may face very different sets of trade-offs concerning revolution against a colonial power, and who may have reason to fear the kind of nationalism that Fanon espouses.

A counterexample of dissident views is of course the bourgeois, whom Fanon discusses at length, but only to argue that they should be crushed. Indeed Fanon's facility with violence is rightly the most famous element of this work. The rejoinder, that the colonial powers have always been free and loose with violence themselves, rings true. And yet Fanon expends no concern that revolutionary violence can sometimes lead to outcomes even worse than the status quo.

Fanon's book is a brillant invaluable book which can be considered a manifesto of the Third World liberation. Fanon documents and explains the struggles of liberation in the sixites. Many of these struggles are still taking place may be different. The book is worth reading.

This extraordinary book, first published in 1961, must be read now in 2009. Fanon's African "settlers" could refer to Israeli occupiers, or to US military occupiers in Iraq and Afghanistan; the 'natives' would now be the Palestinian, Iraqi and Afghan people.

The phrases 'colonial' could refer to today's corporate fascists. "In spite of the huge sums swallowed up by military budgets,international capitalism is in desperate straits." Economically, "the mass of people strugggle against the same poverty, flounder about making the same gestures and with their shrunken bellies outline what has been called the geography of hunger.... What counts today, the question which is looming on the horizon, is the need for a redistribution of wealth. Humanity must reply to this question, or be shaken to pieces by it." Read it?!

I started this book in February I just finished it last night. I found some of the language to be daunting and inaccessible and I'm saying this as someone who has University experience. I found it to be dense and frustrating to the point where I wonder how this text could be useful to the people that it is talking about. Fanon's conclusion and Philcox's essay did provide some clarity for me and there were bits and pieces I could relate to contemporary events but I will have to read it again to truly grasp it and tell you coherently what I read.

This is a very useful book to anybody interested in understanding colonialism and its effects in Africa. Colonialism was a military project, and Fanon explained that clearly. Fanon does not shy away from suggesting the use of force, if necessary, to achieved freedom. But this book is not about the use of force/violence to achieve freedom, and should not be regarded as such. It is a book that explains western attitudes towards the colonized world, their willingness to use violence, their assault on African culture, and the curruption of African leaders after independence. Do not forget that independence came to Africa, after the French, the British and Belgians were given a clear warning about the fate that was awaiting them in other parts of Africa by the FLN (in Algeria), the MAU MAU movement (in Kenya), and the very aggressive movement for indepence in the Congo and Ghana. Europe was distoryed after World War II, and their armies could no longer sustain their military projects in Africa. This vulnerability was exploited by African leaders. That is why they failed in maintaining direct colonial control of their former colonies. When you ready this excellent material, you will appreciate Fanon's foresight:-his warning to Africans(and every colonized country)to take their destiny into their own hands: saying that every generation must out of relative obscurity, find its mission, fulfill it or betray it. A warning that most Africans ignored after independence. To anybody interested in the works of people like Dr. Walter Rodney, Aime Cesaire, Chinua Achebe, Wole Soyinka, and Basil Davidson, this book is a "Must Read". Please read other Fanon material: Toward African Revolution, Dying Colonism, Black Skin White Masks. Interesting reading! Every African must read Fanon's books!

Native Americans, Indians, that is, should be required to know this book. Modern post-colonial Africa is not a desirable goal, but it was shaped partly by Fanon. I'm sure that modern Africa was not part of his vision. His vision was sublime. He knew that violence would be necessary, but he had more faith in the masses.

Native Americans still need liberation, and Fanon's language is inspiring. The world wide bar-code, parking lot economy enslaves by diabetes and such. Liberation must start inside the cultural consciousness. Fanon was a Psychiatrist. His words are inspiring to this day, and will be into the future.

The corrupted and disintegrated society of the West dies out depleted once again verifying the laws of human history. In the midst of that historical event a voice, a prophet foresees and foretells what is going to be the nemesis of this dying era that will deliver the coup de grace...

This book should be required reading in schools worldwide. It explains and reveals the true condition of colonialism, which is just a euphemism for conquering. All of the European conqueror nations used the same pattern of heinous and inhuman tactics on millions of people all over the world. This book is life-saving for those who inherited the "conquered/colonial condition".

Theorists of revolutionary violence - that side of Marxist "evolution" purely miltary and strategic - always managed to betray chilling detachment from the underclass they claimed to champion. In their discussion of "decisive moments" and "critical acts", loss of life is never as important as conjectural impact of violence, or academic theory surrounding its value. Destruction and death are abstract, mere ingredients within larger strategem. I suppose they are as long as I'm not the one suffering the horror, and my loved ones escape the bloodbath, as well. Leftist revolution never lost its university coffee-house underpinnings - that passion, educated perspective, and utter lack of empathy for designated victims. As the 20th century recedes, it telescopes; its passage is compressed and sometimes events become clearer, sometimes blur. Fanon's theories now seem product of a time when Marxism's pseudo-religion still seemed viable. As it was put into practice on wider scale, its impossible flaws became apparent. With exception of North Korea, there are no Marxist regimes today, only mislabeled husks of them.

It was only after reading a biography of Frantz Fanon that I realised I hadn't read one of the more important books of this century. It enables the reader to get into the skin of a person who is totally marginalised and is counted as among the wretched of the Earth.

I wasn't enthusiastic about this book to begin with. Maybe that made me less receptive to Fanon's ideas. I can see why disconsolate university types would get into Fanon, he can dish out the bitter slogans with ease. He does not, however, illustrate that the ends he wishes to achieve with the clarity that could justify his violent means. Thus I see this book as philosophically suspect.
Romanticizing the rural mass and then marginalizing their ability to coherently rule themselves, Fanon justifies propagandistic manipulation, nationalized education and infrastructure, marginalization of ethnicity and cultural diversity; essentialy what he advocates is the construction of a technocracy that garbs itself in "revolutionary" euphemisms and uses the rural quantity as a check on the independence and economic and educational flexibility of urbanized elites. My professor saw my perspective as skewed, and perhaps it is.
At any rate, given my suspicions about the ends Fanon sees as his structure, I consequently have contempt for his reasoning enunciating violence. First, he eloquently and passionately illustrates the techniques of imperialism in subjugating the colonized. This is his book's greatest strength; however, many readers enamored of this aspect seem incapable of critiquing the rest of the book.
From his economic and social analysis of colonialism, Fanon is able to racialize a state of conflict between the oppressed and oppressor. This constructs social identity in a way that is useful for his arguments for violence. What would be called indiscriminate terrorism in many contexts becomes logically justified by Fanon's racial construct. It is the artifice of identity based on race that allows the justification of violence perpetrated on the basis of being black or white.
Some would argue that despite Fanon's racialization of the conflict, Fanon always sees it as an economic relationship. Thus, his justification of attack on the urban black and the acceptance of the sympathetic white makes sense. Others would argue that this is just a bone thrown to the theorists that ultimately means nothing to the application of violence. I, however, see it as a verbose argument for terrorism committed on black people without removing the racism from his theory. In essence it is a smokescreen for calling the urban black pursuing economic security as an "oreo." Thus terrorism committed on the independent shopkeeper is an attack on the proxy of the white man; while the white sympathizer is a propaganda tool.
In essence, Fanon's theory is a justification for violence based on race; and for the control of people through propaganda and terror while spouting democratic themes. In practice we see this sort of technique used by regimes that prey on their own people and finance their repression with drug smuggling and corruption (re: Myanmar, FARC, the Taleban).
If you read Fanon and find this sort of thing making sense, take a good long look in the mirror. It is important to at least be honest with yourself before becoming enmired in hypocrisy. Fanon clearly despised himself; unfortunately he transferred that emotion onto an entire society.

Most powerful and relevant book on the earth - read it, re read it and recommend it. It will change your outlook on the African continent or help you to see something not studied before about colonialism.

There are 40 pages describing the psychiatric work of Dr. Frantz Fanon. This is an excellent book for those working with people from other countries; for those conducting community and doing family therapy with the urban poor families. Fanon was the first structural psychiatrist.

I find that most reviewers have based their evaluation on their agreement or disagreement with the ideas of the author. Although I liked many of his ideas, this book was very poorly written and contained very little new thinking, so I give it the rating it deserves.

Fanon doesn't state his idea and then support it, he just rambles on and beats around the bush and it's up to the reader to figure out what he's trying to say exactly. The result is that he uses a great many words to say very little. This makes for a very frustrating read.

The ideas he presents are not original either. Most of them can be found in Gandhi's "Hind Swaraj" (it's easy to download free English translations of this work off the internet and I stronlgy recommend reading it; plus it's much shorter than Fanon's book). Considering that "Hind Swaraj" was written almost 50 years earlier than "The Wretched of the Earth", the ideas Fanon presents were already old by the time he wrote the book!

Although Gandhi advocated non-violence while Fanon believes violence is inevitable in anti-colonial struggle, there isn't much that Fanon says that Gandhi hadn't already discussed. For instance, Fanon is often credited for predicting (or warning about) the fact that the intellectual and political elite of newly independent countries may simply replace the foreign oppressor. Gandhi had already warned his people about that, when he said that the leaders who overthrow colonialism by violence will also govern by violence. The example if India, which is one of the few colonies that gained independence by non-violence and which is one of the few that has been and remains democratic, proves that Gandhi's predictions were better than Fanon's since Gandhi also knew that violence was not inevitable in the fight for independence and that non-violence was the best way to avoid a simple substitution of the opressor.

In other words, if you want to read well-writen work and interesting ideas about anti-colonialism, don't waste your time with Fanon, read Gandhi instead...

About twenty years ago, I read this trash-book, here in Brazil.Frantz Fanon (1925-61) was a french( Martinique-born), black and anticolonialist intellectual.This book, The Wretched of the Earth, is Frantz Fanon's last and most famous and important work.In fact, the author wrote this book confined to his bed, dieing of leukemia in 1961.
Even writen with so many wyll, the ideas of this book aren't just absurds, but also outdated today.To example, it claims that criminals, vagrants, and the unemployed are the persons that someone must find to begin a communist revolution.Please, traditional communist revolution is over as way to the left get power.Since 1980, left only created communist tyrannies by fascist-like praticers.After fair elections, leftists became dictators, emulating Hitler and Mussolini and using democray to doom itself.Robert Mugabe began this pratice in 1980.Hugo Chavez was nominated by Fidel Castro to be his deputy, years ago.Both entered to power after normal elections, but became communist tyrants and robbers, by coups and elections.
Writen for a world complete different, this book is outdated, absurd and useless today; even for the left.Communism is alive, but Frantz Fanon was buried by history.
The real future for communist isn't the useless fake, describe in this book.The real future for the left is to become muslins.Forget Moscow;remember Mecca forever.Forget Marx, but remember Muhammad forever.Forget "The Capital" , but read and follow "The Koran".
Islamism is the real totalitarism, of the future.