The Wretched of the Earth.pptx

The Wretched of the
Earth
- Frantz Fanon
Yesha Bhatt
Department of English

 Frantz Omar Fanon was a French
West Indian psychiatrist – Political
philosopher
 He worked in the fields of Post-
colonial studies, critical theory and
Marxism
 He presented psychopathology of
colonization and the process of
decolonization
 He was in Algerian War of
Independence as a physician and
psychiatrist
 “The most influential anticolonial
thinker of his time”
Frantz Fanon (1925 – 1961)

 Psychological and psychiatric analysis of
colonized individual and nation
 The dehumanizing effects of colonization
 Process of Decolonization – Social, cultural,
political implications (Africa – Algeria)
 Preface is by Jean Paul Sartre
(Existentialist critic)
 Begins with explanation of violence and its
need for decolonization and ends with the
descriptions of mantle disorders of
colonized.
The Wretched of the Earth - 1961

 Bourgeoisie: The capitalist class of society –
mediocre for colonizers
 Manichaeism: Religious dualism – Light and
darkness – divided into two
 Colonized: Natives – dominated by colonizers
 Colonizer: Settlers – Dominates natives
 Lumpenproletariat: Lower orders of society –
people associated with criminal activities
 Peasant masses: People of countryside
 Culture and combat: Culture and to fight
against something
Important Words:

 Harsh, aggressive and militant
 As a White he supported the Black writer
 ‘Self’ and ‘Other’ – Orientalism
 200,000 people (population)
- 500 Colonizers
- 1500 Colonized (500 Bourgeoisie)
“We might add, quite between ourselves, as men of the world: "After all, let them
bawl their heads off, it relieves their feelings; dogs that bark don't bite."
Preface – Jean Paul Sartre

1. Concerning Violence
 Colonialism – Beginning of violence
 The world cut in two: Settlers and Natives
 The Settlers – To native that they are animals – soon
natives realized that they are human, they rebel against
the settler
 Decolonization - ‘national liberation’ or ‘the
restoration of nationhood’ – substitution of one
“species” from another.
 Not any kind of violence can be justified, but
“Decolonization is always a violent phenomenon because
Colonization is violent” (Fanon)
 The colonial world is Manichean world –
Manicheanism (Natives are Evil – painted by
settlers)
 The native intellectual – ties with bourgeoisie
 Staying under two flags makes natives stimulate
to attack..

Violence in the International Context
 Relationship between: former colonial powers
and former colonies (newly independent
nations)
 Colonizing nations have money from the former
colonies and independent nations are poor
(European counties are developed and
former colonies are called Third World
countries “Underdeveloped”). Colonial
countries are in debt of their former colonies
 No division of Settlers and Natives –
“Reintroducing mankind to the world, the whole of
mankind”
 Settlers cannot pack up and leave, they have to
return the wealth they have stolen, to help
independent nations to rehabilitate.

2. Spontaneity: Its Strength and Weakness
 Process of decolonization: “Nationalist parties”
– “The mass of people”
 Distinction of Peasants and leaders of Nationalist
parties – as peasants are more anticolonial
than these leaders - Peasants are the source of
spontaneous uprising but they need leaders to
support them. Nationalist parties cannot stand
effectively without peasants. – Class struggle
has no space in this
 Nationalist party leaders are formed in urban
space and have some mindsets of settlers –
peasants are purely anticolonial
 The union of peasants and urbanite is the
solution – helps in the fight with settlers and also
in building a new nation.
 Eg. Algeria – the lumpenproletariat

3. The Pitfalls of National Consciousness
 Decolonization into neocolonialism
 National bourgeoisie – Upper class natives – after
colonizers these class tries to dominate nation
 This class helps former colonizers to enter
into the independent nation’s government
– Former settlers take advantage of this to
dominate the independent nation by continuing
old colonial structure
 Solution to this – Decolonization in the
extreme
 “Bourgeoisie take on the role of manager
and set up country as the brothel of
Europe”
 A truly decentralized nation: Urban space +
countryside (Fanon)

4. On National Culture
 Speech to the Second Congress of Black Artists and
Writers in Rome in 1959
 Consequences of colonialism: mental health –
sense of past – cultural exploitation – “It turns to the
past of the oppressed people, and distorts, disfigures
and destroys it”
 Fanon – strong political and economic structure for
nation is important than strong cultural structure.
 Natives should gather to build the nation (struggle to
built the nation) which will lead to the culture of
nation
 Rather than imitate Europe or try to promote black
culture globally, native should realize the culture is
national.

5. Colonial war and mental disorders
 The facts: Actual cases of his work as psychiatrist
(1954 – 1959)
 Reflects actual and evidential cases of damage and
torture
 Some cases are from Blida-Joinville Hospital –
Algeria others are from his work at Army of
National Liberation
 This chapter contains four series – four classes of
mental disorder and damage because of
colonialism (European + Algerian patients)
 “In reality, who I am?”
 He also describes theories of Algerian criminality

Series - A
 Mental disorders of the reactionary type: 5 patients
(2 European and 3 Algerian)
 Case 1- Algerian following the rape of his wife – B
joined guerrilla fighters leaving his wife and
daughter, and in revenge French soldiers raped his
wife. Wife told him to forget her and he experienced
impotence
 Case 2- Undifferentiated homicidal impulsions – S
used to give aid to guerrillas, French soldiers
punished his village for that, burned houses, shot 29
men, beat women, S survived the shot – S started
feeling everybody around him is French and he
started attacking all even nurses and doctors

Series - A
 Case 3- Marked anxiety psychosis of the depersonalization
type – Dj, a soldier, his mother got killed and in revenge he
killed a colonialist’s wife, who was not involved in it. He
was disarmed by army and has started having nightmares
of his victim.
 Case 4- Behavior disturbance – A, European policeman
haunted by the scream of the one who died at headquarter
– he put cottons in his ears to reduce scream sound – lastly
he was allow to retire to France
 Case 5- abusing wife and children – R, European inspector
began abusing, he was having a mastery in torturing people
calmly and coldly.

Series - B
 Mental disorders of The atmosphere of total war
which reigns in Algeria: 5 patients
 Case 1- Algerian teenage boys 13, 14 years old who
killed European boy, their schoolmate – 13 said he
was a good friend and 14 said, Algerians are killed
every day? Why only they are in jail? Fanon
explained that killing is not the solution.
 Case 2- 22 year man, maker of copy machines,
during war he started hearing voices calling him
‘traitor.. Traitor” and he cut off his contacts and
lied in room, then left the room and went on
streets, police caught him and he tried to grab the
gun, later sent to hospital

Series - B
 Case 3- Young French woman, neurotic
problems started from her father’s death,
her father was in Army, he tortured
Algerians in the house, she was knowing
that Algerians were right. Her father died in
war, she got offered pension but she denied
by telling that the money is the price of the
blood split by her father.
 Case 4- Under age 10 refugees, parents are
fighting for independence or killed in the
war – a fear of loud noises, sleeplessness
(insomnia), enjoyment of sadistic games
 Case 5- Refugee women became mentally ill
during childbirth

Series - C
 Mental disorders resulting from torture – 4 categories
 1- Tortured for the purpose of getting them to talk – 1)
those who know something 2) Those who know
nothing - depression, loss of appetite, inability to stay
still
 2- Tortured with electricity – abnormal sensations, feel
depressed, electricity phobia
 3- Given truth serum or pentothal- verbal stereotype
(repetition), vision problems, fear of private
conversation
 4- Brainwashed – “Algeria is not a nation” – “Algeria’s
patriotism is nonsense” and forced to shout “Long live
France” by physical torture– turned them into ‘not
serious’

Series - D
 Psychosomatic disorder- bodily disorder with its
origin in mental disorder.
 Criminal impulses found in North Africans which
have their origin in the National War of
Liberation
 Fanon read lengthy psychiatric literatures about
Africans and their criminality. They used to get
imposed as “born liar, born criminals” all these
because of poverty and absurdity” – but still
crime ratio in Algeria is high.
 Two categories 1. Crime because of laziness and
2. Crime against Algerians because of aggression
against the French

Conclusion
 The end is all about beginning
 A call to action
 He calls all ‘brothers’ and ‘comrades’ to turn
away from Europe
 All independent nations should follow their
own economic, political and cultural
tendencies rather than imitating Europe or
allow Europe to interfere

Manichaeism - colonial context
 Manichaeism is a Persian religious practice from the 3rd
century that is based on the basic conflict of light and dark,
and, Fanon claims, it serves as the basis for the racist practice
of colonialism.
 The colonized individual is seen as the “quintessence of evil”
 Manichaeism assumes that,
Light = the white settler—represents good,
Dark = the black colonized individual—represents evil.
 Divided into the civilized and the savage
 Colonial countries are further divided into two separate
“sectors”: the “colonist’s sector” and the “’native’ quarters.”

“The infrastructure is also a superstructure” -
colonialism
 In Marxism, the infrastructure is the economy and the superstructure
is the sphere of culture and society.
 Infrastructure = Economy (divides)
 Superstructure = Culture and society (settle into divisions)
 The infrastructure is supposed to determine the superstructure, which
means that economic realities determine social inequalities.
 Fanon says that is not true in colonialism.
 In colonialism, racial inequality creates economic inequality.
The infrastructure (economy) does not determine the superstructure
(racial inequality): rather, they are one and the same. Economic
equality is maintained through racial inequality.

Racialization
 The racialization of culture means turning all of culture into matters of
race.
 The colonized intellectual, in reaction to the defamation of African
culture by the Europeans, racializes culture in order to assert the
legitimacy of culture across Africa.
 But this means fighting a cultural battle on the colonist’s terms.
Instead of lumping everything into a category based on race, ignoring
national and ethnic differences, Fanon argues for a national culture
that is about a people asserting their own nationhood, rather than
race.

The Wretched of the Earth.pptx

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The Wretched of the Earth.pptx