Writing in the 1960s in the context of Algeria and its French colonial
occupation, Frantz Fanon has been an influential figure in postcolonial
theory. His The Wretched of the Earth (1963) and later Black Skins, White
Masks (1967) rank with some of the most influential texts in the twentieth
century.
Fanon was fascinated by the psychological effects of colonialism on both the colonizer and the colonized.
He argued that, for the repressed and
suffering native, colonialism destroyed the very soul. The colonial master's constant representation of the native as a non-human, animalized ‘thing’
annihilates the identity of the native.
Fanon's insight into the psychology of colonialism was simply this: When
the colonial paints the native as evil, pagan and primitive, over a period of
time the native begins to accept this prejudiced and racialized view as true.
As a result, the native comes to see himself as evil, pagan and primitive.
The black man loses his sense of self and identity because he can only see himself through the eyes of the white man.
Fanon argues that for the native the term man itself begins to mean white man because he does not see himself as a man at all. In terms of culture, the native extends this accepted notion to
believe that the only values that matter are those of the white man.
For the white man, the native is always the negative, primitive Other: the
very opposite of what he and his culture stand for.
Fanon here develops a psychoanalytic theory of colonialism where he suggests that the European
self develops in its relation and encounter with the Other (the native).
Thus, colonialism engages the white and the native in an encounter/relation where one develops only in its contrast with the Other.
Colonialism is a violent conjugation where the sense of self develops
through a negotiation rather than a separation, a relation rather than a
disjunction, with the Other.
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 western values,
religion, the language and practices of the white colonial and rejects his own
traditions. He puts on, in Fanon's phrase, ‘white masks’. 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 build-up of this sense of inadequacy and inferiority in the colonized's psyche, argues Fanon, results in violence. Violence, writes Fanon, is a form self-assertion. When the native discovers that he cannot hope to become
truly ‘white’, or even 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.
Fanon recognized the significance of cultural nationalism when he
propounded the idea of a national literature and national culture (in his essay of the same title 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 (and not just narrow, sectarian–tribal
ones).
The blacks had to create their own history, write their own stories and
it is through this control over representation that the native can break free of the colonial shackles.
Such a national culture, believed Fanon, must take recourse to, or return to,
the African myths and cultural practices. It is within this mythic, cultural and
even mystic traditions that black identity can be resurrected.
A national culture is framed in three stages. In the first, the native intellectual is under the influence of the colonizer's culture, and seeks to emulate and assimilate it by abandoning his own.
The native thus tries to be as white as possible.
In the second stage, the native discovers that he can never become truly white, or white enough for the colonial master to treat him as an equal.
The native intellectual now returns to study his own culture, and might even romanticize his traditions and past.
Fanon suggests that there is no critical
engagement with native cultures, just a celebratory tone.
In the third stage, the native intellectual is truly anti-colonial. He joins the ranks of his people and battles colonial domination. This is accompanied by a careful analysis of his own culture.
Such an analysis hopes to abandon those elements of native
culture that seem dated or even oppressive so that a new future (after
colonialism) is made possible.
However, Fanon was also prophetic enough to argue that the idea of a
‘national literature’ and ‘national culture’ might result in xenophobia and
intolerance.
He proposed that national culture had a limited value: It could
help define native culture against the overwhelming assault of the colonial.
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