Frantz Fanon: The Westernized Asian Intellectuals

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On the other hand, Eastern production of knowledge about Asia also reinforced this stereotypical binary. To promote Asian unity and redefine the East, Asian intellectuals began producing knowledge about Asia. This call for Asian unity and congregation came after Japan’s triumph in the Russo-Japanese War, which crushed “not only the widely held belief of the ‘natural’ superiority of the white ‘race’; it also demonstrated to Asia the formidable achievements in modernization by Meiji Japan” (Stolte and Fischer-Tine 70). By proving to the world that Asia was capable of modernization and could escape the Western cultural hegemony, Asian intellectuals gained confidence in their ability to produce knowledge about Asia for the West. These Asian intellectuals …show more content…

They challenged the stereotypical images of the East created by the West, while critically redefining the East. The evolution of these Westernized Asian intellectuals was analyzed by Frantz Fanon, who commented how the intellectual “first proves that he has ‘assimilated the culture of the occupying power’ before deciding to ‘remember what he is’ by immersing himself in the culture of his people” (qtd. in Poole 1211). Fanon’s theory of the colonial intellectuals resonates well with the Westernized Asian intellectuals such as Yi Tae-jun and Lu Xun. These two intellectuals were both born and raised in the East, but received higher education in Japan. They both returned to Asia and critically analyzed the different sources of knowledge, thus creating their own depictions of Asia and complicating the binary …show more content…

By studying in Japan, they became exposed to Western definitions of the East, which impacted how they viewed the binary relationship. These intellectuals held the similar peculiar position as Japan in the binary of East and West, where they were not able to fit the mold of either side. Poole comments that the Westernized Asian intellectual “whose immersion in culture goes against both the current of history and the people and who behaves like a foreigner when he tries to return to that people by way of ‘cultural achievements,’” are treated by both the East and West as foreigners (1211). Because of their isolation, these intellectuals ended up having different approaches and sentiments on the West’s treatment of the East, which further complicates the binary model of knowledge production of

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