Anticolonial Revolution In Frantz Fanon's The Wretched Of The Earth

The emergence of Africana-humanist thought and Fanonian philosophy in the late 1960’s is arguably, one of the most important ideological developments ever to take place in the evolution of African political progress. Seen as a revolutionary way of thinking, it surfaced at a time when above-ground black political activities were virtually nonexistent in Africa, following the suppression of the African National Congress (ANC) and the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC) by the racist colonial governments. The alienation of the colonized youth from the dominant white colonist society found concrete expression in the work of such academics as Frantz Fanon. In his book The Wretched of the Earth, Fanon’s stunning intellectual manuscript adheres to the praise of anticolonial revolution. First published in French in 1961, then the English translation in 1963, Fanon’s book aided a shift in discourse which permitted perceptions of Africa to change. Published at a time of fluctuating political power, it overshadowed many liberal analyses of African independence being produced at the time. Numerous revolutionaries advocated the adoption of radical political ideology, which borrowed major elements from the pioneering writings of Fanon. It is the purpose of this essay to demonstrate the dynamic link between Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth and the issue of political apathy.

Observing critically and with suspicion the charade which played out between colonial powers and colonized peoples, Fanon used his experience treating Algerian mental patients to comment on the therapeutic effects that revolutionary violence has on the brainwashed minds of the colonized. Seemingly preoccupied with the renowned side effect of colonialism, an underlying theme of Fa...

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...ent which declares its intent to politicize the people expresses its desire to govern with the people and for the people” (Fanon 1963, 124).

In the struggle for total liberation, Fanon advocated the use of any means, including violence, to achieve that objective. There can be no question that in all national liberation struggles the secret for success lies primarily in the mind, where all revolutions are hatched and nurtured. This was Fanon's message which was so effectively and powerfully transmitted in The Wretched of the Earth. His revolutionary ideas became effectively entrenched within countless anti-colonial movements; branding a central message to oppressed and exploited people, Fanon attributed great importance for the colonized to break off their chains, cleanse their politically apathetic minds, and to take up the struggle for total liberation.