In 1996, in a film entitled “Frantz Fanon: Black Skin, White Mask,” Fanon was placed at the center of contemporary discussions around post-colonial identity which was reinforced by his scholarly approach in the following statement: “though color does not define character, it often describes the oppressors.” He of course, was referring to White people as the oppressor of non-Whites worldwide—in Southern and Eastern Asia, South America, North America, the Caribbean and particularly Africa.

About the film, world-renowned professor, Angela Davis of the University of California, Santa Cruz stated, “Visually stunning and intellectually provocative, Isaac Julien’s (the director) film is an eloquent and complex exploration of the life and legacy of this (20th) century’s most compelling theorist of racism and colonialism.” And even though he was Black, Fanon’s psychological identity of the impact of colonial oppression is used beyond the white racism dynamic of Black people. One Chinese scholar stated that in China, and in the Chinese Diaspora, those who are victimized by the European culture and values are called “bananas—yellow on the outside and white on the inside.”

The duration of his most prolific years as a writer, coincided with several other like-minded individuals who were fighting against the same oppressors and the system of oppression about which he was writing, in a different way. Fanon believed that violent revolution was the only means of ending colonial repression and the cultural trauma it wrought. He stated, “Violence is a cleansing force. It frees the native from his inferiority complex and from his despair and inaction; it makes him fearless and restores his self-respect.” Fanon surmised that the ensuing counter-violence did not carry the same justification as the initial violence the oppressors inflicted on the oppressed peoples. Some of his contemporaries violently (sic) disagreed. And though they were sometimes in close physical proximity—and ideologically—they never met, their language differences notwithstanding. While serving as ambassador-at-large for the “Gouvernement Provisoire Algerien,” the Algerian Resistance Movement’ provisional government, Fanon attended the All-African Peoples’ Conference of 1958 in Ghana. (There he may have crossed paths with Kwame Nkrumah, Hastings Banda and Jomo Kenyatta). He realized that the great bulk of Africa had been carved out arbitrarily to the detriment of the indigenous African peoples by European colonialists/imperialists, namely: Britain, France, Belgium, Spain, Italy and Portugal.

Many scholars, including Fanon, who have studied colonialism and its devastating effects, have concluded that racism and White supremacy are wedded to oppression; they are like three peas in a pod. Dr. Frances Cress Welsing, a psychiatrist, wrote the following, about three decades after Fanon died: “The system of racism (White supremacy) utilizes deceit and violence, indeed by any means necessary, to achieve its ultimate goal objective of white genetic survival and to prevent white genetic annihilation of planet earth.”

Fanon’s other masterpiece, “Les Damnes de la Terre” (“The Wretched of the Earth”), appeared to have been written in anger, justified anger, and based on what he had learned and extrapolated from his continuing experiences. It has been described as a brilliant examination of the role of violence in effecting brutal historical changes by colonial oppressors and of its simultaneous use as a handbook of revolutionary practice and social reorganization. It had reportedly been required reading for revolutionary movements in Latin America and the United States especially during the 60s and the 70s, including the Black Panther Party, and as standard text in several universities. The following statement was written in the English version of the paperback text beneath the title: ‘The handbook for the Black Revolution that is changing the shape of the world.’

Published in : News, Legends

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