Rating: 
Summary: Fanon Does Not Glorify Violence! (and Other Corrections)
Review: Most powerful and relevant book on the earth - read it, re read it and recommend it. It will change your outlook on the African continent or help you to see something not studied before about colonialism.
Rating:
Summary: Rich...Timeless...Provocative
Review: Most powerful and relevant book on the earth - read it, re read it and recommend it. It will change your outlook on the African continent or help you to see something not studied before about colonialism.
Rating:
Summary: The truth is here
Review: Reading this amazing book in 2001, the first fact that blew my mind was how relevant this book is in today's world, even though it was written in 1961.
This book is an attempt at understanding the processes of decolonialization, and offering a constructive way to make this process successful and meaningful. Seemingly, it has only historic value in today's decolonized world. But as I read the book, from its beginning to its end, I could not help finding parallels to many current world issues. Wherever there is a situation of oppressed groups trying to put an end to their oppression - the words of Fanon are relevant and enlightening.Fanon helped me understand the attitudes of the oppressed (found today mainly in Africa and Asia), and the pitfalls of the national liberation struggles. Reading this book explained why so many countries replaced colonialism with corrupt dictatorships. This book shows that Fanon is one of the sharpest and most truthful intelectuals of the 20th century. I know I did not manage to convey the full impact this book had on me. The impact may become clear when I say that this book must be translated to every language, taught in every high school system, and discussed at every academic and political level.
Rating:
Summary: A Beacon for the future yet to come!
Review: The corrupted and disintegrated society of the West dies out depleted once again verifying the laws of human history. In the midst of that historical event a voice, a prophet foresees and foretells what is going to be the nemesis of this dying era that will deliver the coup de grace...
Rating:
Summary: Must Read
Review: This is a very useful book to anybody interested in understanding colonialism and its effects in Africa. Colonialism was a military project, and Fanon explained that clearly. Fanon does not shy away from suggesting the use of force, if necessary, to achieved freedom. But this book is not about the use of force/violence to achieve freedom, and should not be regarded as such. It is a book that explains western attitudes towards the colonized world, their willingness to use violence, their assault on African culture, and the curruption of African leaders after independence. Do not forget that independence came to Africa, after the French, the British and Belgians were given a clear warning about the fate that was awaiting them in other parts of Africa by the FLN (in Algeria), the MAU MAU movement (in Kenya), and the very aggressive movement for indepence in the Congo and Ghana. Europe was distoryed after World War II, and their armies could no longer sustain their military projects in Africa. This vulnerability was exploited by African leaders. That is why they failed in maintaining direct colonial control of their former colonies. When you ready this excellent material, you will appreciate Fanon's foresight:-his warning to Africans(and every colonized country)to take their destiny into their own hands: saying that every generation must out of relative obscurity, find its mission, fulfill it or betray it. A warning that most Africans ignored after independence. To anybody interested in the works of people like Dr. Walter Rodney, Aime Cesaire, Chinua Achebe, Wole Soyinka, and Basil Davidson, this book is a "Must Read". Please read other Fanon material: Toward African Revolution, Dying Colonism, Black Skin White Masks. Interesting reading! Every African must read Fanon's books!
Rating:
Summary: Deals with issues that affect all people of African descent.
Review: This is the first book that I picked up that dealt with colonization from a psychological perspective. It deciphers the intricate elements that are used to establish bondage over African people's minds. Most of which we are oblivious to.
Rating: 
Summary: This is the only real revolutionary manifesto...
Review: This is the only truly revolutionary manifesto of the 20th century. Fanon excoriates colonialism & post-colonial nationalist governments. As a psychiatrist, he is one of the original theorists for the social origins of mental illness. Was this guy radicial? He once berated Jean-Paul Sartre for not being radical enough! So Sartre wrote this book's foreward.
Rating:
Summary: Fanon Does Not Glorify Violence! (and Other Corrections)
Review: Those reviews that castigate Fanon for "glorifying violence" ought to be ignored. Fanon is writing, among other things, a phenomenology of anti-colonialism. It is meant neither as a recommendation nor a condemnation but as a description of the objective truth of a historical condition. That is, for Fanon reverse racist violent nationalism is a stage in the emergence of a political consiciousness that will eventually overcome and, indeed, renounce its own beginnings. What is remarkable is that people at present are so manifestly incapable of reading a dialctical unfolding such as this. The violence of the Algerian War had already largely taken place at the time of Fanon's writing and, let it be recalled, it was primarily the murder of Algerians by the French, for whom African imperialism is still a profitable if somewhat unsavory business.
While Fanon tracks the stages in the evolution of a radical anti-capitalist consciousness in the underdeveloped world, there is no question of his endorsing or advocating violence. One has only to read the final chapter on the psychological effects on both the colonizer and the colonized to see that Fanon is acutely aware of the brutality for all concerned of the Algerian War, even or, indeed, especially, for the oppressors themselves. There is certainly no question of his endorsing the indiscriminate horrors committed that were committed by the FLN against their oppressors.
The other thing, of course, that the petulant, anti-intellectual, ahistorical reactionaries who have shared their opinions here conveniently ignore is the violence inherent in the settler colonialism Fanon was addressing. As for the comparison with India, it is indeed illuminating, and one might profitably develop Fanon into a critique of the post-colonial India elite. After all, the real thrust of the book is its attempt to push anti-imperialism in a genuinely democratic direction, insofar as this was even possible for a largely peasant agricultural society caught within a much larger capitalist cosmos. At any rate, contra one reviewer, in the much-vaunted democracy of India, were peasants substantially liberated by the Indian National Congress from their indebtedness and from coercive labor practices? For his part, Fanon is not content with such liberal eye-wash as the talk of "Indian democracy" achieved through non-violence. In stark contrast to many other romantic commentators, he is keenly aware that there is nothing save radical democratic organized politics that can prevent post-colonial societies from a descent into poverty, despair, and the reactionary resurgence of "leadership" and virulently post-traditional "ethnicities" and "religiosities" though, in the face of the further defeat of the radical left in the West, most likely there is nothing to prevent the implosion of the Third World and the exhaustion (and extermination) of progressive energies there. Pages 95ff. in which Fanon discusses the terrible brutality of the very attempt to create industrialism in a country such as Algeria, and the awful irony of "independence" from the wealth of the colonizer are powerful and utterly ignored by most "radicals" who refuse to see that the resources already exist for the world to enjoy both opulence and sustainability.
Another thing - Fanon is inconceivable without Marxism. It informs his every argument, even if his point is only to criticize actually existing Marxisms. Therefore, the claim that "Fanon is great, except for the Marxist bit" is absurd and puerile. The real problem is that that entire intellectual language and with it the vast majority of the history of 20th century social hope is being actively forgotten. The nuances of so much of Fanon lies in the way he handles, refashions, and pushes up against the limits of the Marxian legacy as it came to him. (The idea that Fanon is a "genius" and that there are none else like him is similarly an indication of a tragic social and political amnesia, and this is not meant to detract in the slightest from the incredible achievement that is both this work and youthful masterwork "Black Skins, White Masks").
Finally, to uncritically drag Fanon into the American context, as some other reviewers want to do, is, it seems to me, potentially extremely misleading. Far more so than "Black Skins," "Wretched" is a book of its time and place. Certainly, any comparison with Malcolm X, who was no leftist and certainly no Marxist, is hopelessly misguided. Never mind the fact that Fanon's project of a liberated Algeria can scarcely be compared with the project of black American radical activists. American blacks were not colonized but forcibly transported and enslaved. More importantly, American blacks live within the heart of capitalism and Fanon's recommendation to the New World descendents of slaves would never be so crackpot as a separatist black nationalism.
There are many good grounds for criticizing Fanon, but since few reviewers seem capable of even approaching those matters, a more basic commentary seemed necessary.
Rating:
Summary: Fanon Does Not Glorify Violence! (and Other Corrections)
Review: Those reviews that castigate Fanon for "glorifying violence" ought to be ignored. Fanon is writing, among other things, a phenomenology of anti-colonialism. It is meant neither as a recommendation nor a condemnation but as a description of the objective truth of a historical condition. That is, for Fanon reverse racist violent nationalism is a stage in the emergence of a political consiciousness that will eventually overcome and, indeed, renounce its own beginnings. What is remarkable is that people at present are so manifestly incapable of reading a dialctical unfolding such as this. The violence of the Algerian War had already largely taken place at the time of Fanon's writing and, let it be recalled, it was primarily the murder of Algerians by the French, for whom African imperialism is still a profitable if somewhat unsavory business.
While Fanon tracks the stages in the evolution of a radical anti-capitalist consciousness in the underdeveloped world, there is no question of his endorsing or advocating violence. One has only to read the final chapter on the psychological effects on both the colonizer and the colonized to see that Fanon is acutely aware of the brutality for all concerned of the Algerian War, even or, indeed, especially, for the oppressors themselves. There is certainly no question of his endorsing the indiscriminate horrors committed that were committed by the FLN against their oppressors.
The other thing, of course, that the petulant, anti-intellectual, ahistorical reactionaries who have shared their opinions here conveniently ignore is the violence inherent in the settler colonialism Fanon was addressing. As for the comparison with India, it is indeed illuminating, and one might profitably develop Fanon into a critique of the post-colonial India elite. After all, the real thrust of the book is its attempt to push anti-imperialism in a genuinely democratic direction, insofar as this was even possible for a largely peasant agricultural society caught within a much larger capitalist cosmos. At any rate, contra one reviewer, in the much-vaunted democracy of India, were peasants substantially liberated by the Indian National Congress from their indebtedness and from coercive labor practices? For his part, Fanon is not content with such liberal eye-wash as the talk of "Indian democracy" achieved through non-violence. In stark contrast to many other romantic commentators, he is keenly aware that there is nothing save radical democratic organized politics that can prevent post-colonial societies from a descent into poverty, despair, and the reactionary resurgence of "leadership" and virulently post-traditional "ethnicities" and "religiosities" though, in the face of the further defeat of the radical left in the West, most likely there is nothing to prevent the implosion of the Third World and the exhaustion (and extermination) of progressive energies there. Pages 95ff. in which Fanon discusses the terrible brutality of the very attempt to create industrialism in a country such as Algeria, and the awful irony of "independence" from the wealth of the colonizer are powerful and utterly ignored by most "radicals" who refuse to see that the resources already exist for the world to enjoy both opulence and sustainability.
Another thing - Fanon is inconceivable without Marxism. It informs his every argument, even if his point is only to criticize actually existing Marxisms. Therefore, the claim that "Fanon is great, except for the Marxist bit" is absurd and puerile. The real problem is that that entire intellectual language and with it the vast majority of the history of 20th century social hope is being actively forgotten. The nuances of so much of Fanon lies in the way he handles, refashions, and pushes up against the limits of the Marxian legacy as it came to him. (The idea that Fanon is a "genius" and that there are none else like him is similarly an indication of a tragic social and political amnesia, and this is not meant to detract in the slightest from the incredible achievement that is both this work and youthful masterwork "Black Skins, White Masks").
Finally, to uncritically drag Fanon into the American context, as some other reviewers want to do, is, it seems to me, potentially extremely misleading. Far more so than "Black Skins," "Wretched" is a book of its time and place. Certainly, any comparison with Malcolm X, who was no leftist and certainly no Marxist, is hopelessly misguided. Never mind the fact that Fanon's project of a liberated Algeria can scarcely be compared with the project of black American radical activists. American blacks were not colonized but forcibly transported and enslaved. More importantly, American blacks live within the heart of capitalism and Fanon's recommendation to the New World descendents of slaves would never be so crackpot as a separatist black nationalism.
There are many good grounds for criticizing Fanon, but since few reviewers seem capable of even approaching those matters, a more basic commentary seemed necessary.
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