Fanon and the 21st century violence against Blackness

On 6 December, 1961 the global Pan-African society lost its intellectual icon. The world lost a revolutionary intellectual. We forever mourn the physical departure of Fanon from the earth, but his contribution to resuscitating the lost ontological density of Blackness remains registered in all articulation methodologies of Afro-social sciences.

On that gloomy day of 1961, the world was robbed of the author of the following revolutionary handbooks of our liberation, Black Skin White Masks, The Wretched of the Earth, A Dying Colonialism and Toward the African Revolution. Born on the 20 July 1925 in the Caribbean island of Martinique, Fanon still remains a philosophical superman and protagonist of our time.

From Paul Freire (1971)’s point, Fanon is better ranked among the par-excellent teachers of the “Pedagogy of the Oppressed”. As a French citizen by colonisation Martinique, Frantz Fanon fought in the French war against the Germans. After sustaining heavy injuries, he was merited for extraordinary bravery. Soon after this war, Fanon took the academic route and went to France to study medicine.

In France, Fanon came across an extremely ugly face of racism which further exposed him to the pathological White hate of Blacks. Fanon’s crude encounter with French racism made him to migrate to Algeria. When the Algerians waged their revolt against French colonialism in 1954, Frantz Fanon went back to the trenches, this time against France for the African people of Algeria.

So in Fanon is a soldier who got injured in war, but dedicated a greater part of his life healing those that had been physically and mentally injured by war. This is the reason why his work speaks well to the schizophrenic condition of the entire colonial world. His works make sense to a continent at war with itself.

I am aware that reflecting on the legacy of Fanon can be generously misconstrued as one of those mundane routine leanings to the past — a common feature of Afro-social science thinkers. However, it is inappropriate to think that such processes of reminiscence are fundamentally nostalgic and not relevant to the present.

This is because Africa is still battling with the past and a whole load of unfinished decolonisation business. As a result, it is impossible for any critical thinker to avoid revisiting some aspects which are viewed as part of the past yet still manifest in the present.

This is because the sphere of thinking is entrapped in recurrent historical underpinnings of coloniality. This is what makes it crucial to reflect on Fanon today in order to challenge the permanent impact of colonialism.

Fanon was professionally trained as a psychiatrist. However, he found his call in framing the revolutionary thought process of the world’s oppressed who he specifically addresses as the Wretched of the Earth (1961). In this particular seminal publication, Fanon (1961) discusses key characteristics of colonisation and its consequences on both the colonial plunder settlers and the rightful descendants of Africa categorised as the “colonised”.

Through this analysis, Fanon’s thesis is attentive on the violence that is inevitably produced by decolonisation and the shortcomings of impromptu rebellions and movements. Fanon argues that the inborn qualities of the connection between the oppressors and the oppressed and how their historically framed historical conflict play out in the struggle for freedom and postcolonial sanity.

His points are interesting in that they apply not only to specific instances of history, but to international and local relationships in general. By identifying and isolating qualities of a protagonist-antagonist situation, Fanon allows his audience to understand the dynamics that are present throughout history on both small and large scales.

This publication specifically serves as a decolonial epistle to the Algerians in their quest for independence from France in the 1960s. During that time, most countries in Africa were fighting the ugly episode of imperialism. After all, Ghana had proved that decolonisation was possible.

Prior to that, the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) had been formed. Therefore, Fanon’s work was in touch with Africa’s revolutionary processes that time. In a way, this book can be categorically described as a decolonisation manifesto. The “Fanonian” tradition does not only apply to specific instances of history, but it applies to Global North and South relationships in general. By identifying and isolating qualities of a superiority-inferiority situation, Fanon permits his students to understand the dynamics that are relevant throughout history on both trivial and hefty scales.

This book can also be viewed as a guide to the ideological fruition of Pan-Africanism at that time. On the other hand, in the same book, Fanon exhumes the teething troubles of certain routes to decolonisation taken by Latin America countries.

In most of these countries, the national bourgeoisie merely replace the metropolis bourgeoisie and remain dependent on foreign markets and capital after the country is “freed.” Just like in the case of post-colonial Africa, they represented what Professor Sabelo Ndlovu-Gatsheni occasionally refers to as nationalist “change with repetition”.

The masses of the newly created state however, are unaffected. In the first section of the book, Fanon argues that the solution to these recurrent problems of decolonisation can only be realised through a violent uprising of the povo. Fanon arrives at this conclusion by defining colonial society as a Manichaean, or compartmentalised society — a world divided in two.

The good is pitted against the bad; the white against the dark; the rich against the poor; the indigenous against the foreigner; the ruling class against the others; evil “niggers” and “towel-heads” against humane whites.

In Fanon’s perspective this colonially manufactured social chasm can be eradicated through violence in the context of decolonisation.

In its pure sense, decolonisation epitomises the “substitution of one ‘species’ of mankind by another” Fanon further posits that as a result of the aggressive nature of decolonisation, “you do not disorganise a society . . . if you are not determined form the very start to smash every obstacle encountered”. This skulking division of the population generates an inevitable class struggle that cannot be ignored.

True decolonisation, therefore, will eradicate this colonial dichotomy and create a society where “the last shall be first”. However, because colonialism is produced through extreme physical and mental aggression, Fanon’s explanations that violence is the only language that a colonial oppressor society comprehends and appreciates: “colonialism is not a machine capable of thinking, a body endowed with reason. It is naked violence and only gives in when confronted with greater violence”.

Fanon derides the concept of ceremonial sovereignty granted through peaceful handovers and more moderate means.

This is the kind of independence which was disputed by our nationalists when Ndabaningi Sithole and Abel Muzorewa wanted to settle for a smooth handover of independence.

This is because negotiation is no substitute for capitulation, and does not bring about effective decolonisation.

Fanon’s condescension for the national bourgeoisie ascends from his consciousness of how their primary goal of decolonisation is not essentially transforming the political system and improving the situation of the majority.

Their prime wish is to gain access to the wealth and social status that had previously been requisitioned by the colonists. They wish to drain the povo and natural resources for their selfish benefit just as the colonisers did.

They simply have no heart for the povo and their immiseration which they are responsible for as a result of duplicating the character of the erstwhile oppressor.

Fanon further problematises the supposedly decolonial national bourgeoisie, defined by its Eurocentric education and culture, credited with founding the political parties, which give rise to the country’s future leaders and those that negotiate the terms of decolonisation with the colonist country. However, the societal and financial wellbeing of the national bourgeoisie prevents them from supporting a violent insurgence (which might dismantle their self-serving status).

In fact, “once a party has achieved national unanimity and has arose as the outstanding negotiator, the colonialist begins his manoeuvring and delays negotiations as long as possible” in order to “whittle away” the party’s demands. Consequently, the party must eliminate itself of extremists who make the granting of liberation charters problematic.

The result of such a path to decolonisation is simply a cloaked form of the former colonialism. Prior to decolonisation, the “mother country” realises the inevitability of “freedom,” and thus drains most of the “capital and technicians and encircling the young nation with an apparatus of economic pressure”. The young, supposedly independent nation, therefore, is forced to preserve the economic conduits recognised by the colonial regime.

The national bourgeoisie, in their incomplete and lifeless state, do not have the means to provide either capital or classy and refined economic leadership to the new republic, and must therefore have faith in colonial bankers’ loans and counsel, which all aim at forcing the new nation to remain hooked on its former coloniser just as it was during the colonial period.

The desire to end this dependence on the colonial powers leads the new country to attempt the impossible and rapidly develop an idealistic, organic, nationalist form of capitalism that is thoroughly diversified for the purpose of economic and political stability.

Additionally, Fanon projects that after colonisation the national bourgeoisie occupy the posts once reserved for colonists from within their party ranks. Thus, the party becomes a “screen between the masses and the leadership”, and party die-hard revolutionaries are neglected as the “party itself becomes an administration and the militants fall back into line and adopt the hollow title of citizen”.

Therefore, it is only through a violent insurrection aimed at destroying everything touched by colonialism that a new species of new (decolonial) beings will be produced. On the other hand, Fanon prescribes the need to obliterate the religious and tribal divisions aggravated by the colonists.

The depreciation of these divisive attitudes will facilitate urgency of harmony to be realised by the masses.

The individualism espoused by the colonists will succumb to the quest of the colonised for Pan-Africanism and revisiting the legacy of nationalism.

It is through this struggle that a new national culture will be defined-not a culture defined by European values.

From that point aspirations for freedom will be gained. As President Mugabe once declared it in relation to our context; Zimbabwe will never be a colony again.

Richard Runyararo Mahomva is an independent academic researcher, Founder of Leaders for Africa Network — LAN, Convener of the Back to Pan-Africanism Conference and the Reading Pan-Africa Symposium (Reps) and can be contacted on rasmkhonto@gmail.com ALTHOUGH Gokwe is well known for producing cotton it is disappointing to see that its road network is very bad.

This situation has forced many cotton growers to sell their crop to some unscrupulous cotton buyers who are buying it at a give-away price when in fact these farmers are supposed to earn a lot of money from their cotton.

This crop is not easy to grow and farmers will have to folk out a lot of money to buy some chemicals for their cotton to grow well.

I spoke to some cotton producers last week who said they had an agreement with companies such as Cotco where the company would buy all the cotton from them but their roads are in very bad state and that some transporters are now reluctant to go and collect the crop from these cotton producers.

Most roads in Gokwe, especially the Gandavaroyi areas, are impassable and some bus companies which used to service the ever busy wards have since stopped plying the route.

I witnessed some villagers who were transporting cotton to the nearest business centre where the road network was better using scotch carts even though the distance covered was close to 40km. Haulage truck drivers were complaining about poor roads in the area and said their tyres were being damaged in Gokwe and the business of transporting cotton to cities and towns was no longer profitable.

We hope that Zinara will do something urgently and upgrade all roads in Gokwe since cotton is also the backbone of our economy. Eddious Masundire Shumba, Swiswi Primay School, Gokwe.