Frantz Fanon. Bio

7/31/2019 Frantz Fanon. Bio

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Frantz Fanon

1925-1961


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Writings

The Wretched of the Earth1961

Black Skin White Mask 1952A Dying Colonialism

Towards the AfricanRevolution: Essays


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Frantz Fanon - Biography

Proponent of anti-colonial revolutionary

thought

Fanon was born in 1925, to a middle-class

family in the French colony of Martinique.Married French Woman Jose Duble

In 1953, Fanon became Head of the

Psychiatry Department at the Blida-

Joinville Hospital in Algeria,


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Biography continued 1956 he formally resigned his post with the

French government to work for the Algeriancause.

Following his resignation, Fanon fled to

Tunisia and began working openly with theAlgerian independence movement.

While in Ghana, Fanon developedleukemia, he died in 1961 in an Americanhospital in Maryland.


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Fanons Theories Colonisation by language

the category "white" depends for its stability on itsnegation, "black."

In The Wretched of the Earth, Fanon develops the

perspective implicit in Black skin white mask. Toovercome the binary system in which black is badand white is good, Fanon argues that an entirelynew world must come into being. This utopiandesire, to be absolutely free of the past, requirestotal revolution, "absolute violence" (37).


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Theories Use of violence

Fanon rejected the concept of Negritude

"I have no wish to be the victim of the Fraudof

a black world.

My life should not be devoted to drawing up

the balance sheet of Negro values.

I am not a prisoner of history. I should not

seek there for the meaning of my destiny.


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Terms

Anti-colonialism

The subaltern

Negritude


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Other aspects The black man has two dimensions. One with his

fellows, the other with the white man. A Negrobehaves differently with a white man and with

another Negro. That this self-division is a direct

result of colonialist subjugation is beyondquestion...No one would dream of doubting that its

major artery is fed from the heart of those various

theories that have tried to prove that the Negro is astage in the slow evolution of monkey into man....


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Literature

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Sambos Language

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Influences on Fanon

Treated with disdain

Personal experiences of rejection

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Critiques of Fanon Fanon as being unrealistic

Fanon knew that violence could not work yetadvocated its use

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Algeria Independence in 1962

Arab-Berber 99%, European less than 1%note: almost all Algerians are Berber in origin, notArab; the minority who identify themselves asBerber live mostly in the mountainous region ofKabylie east of Algeirs; the Berbers are alsoMuslim but identify with their Berber rather thanArab cultural heritage; Berbers have long agitated,

sometimes violently, for autonomy; thegovernment is unlikely to grant autonomy but hasoffered to begin sponsoring teaching Berber

language in schools


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French colonisation (1830-

1962) Influence of the French Empire

demographicallyMuslims viewed as an inferior underclass

officially French subjects they could notbecome French citizens unless theyrenounced Islam and converted toChristianity.

After world war II attempts by French toassimilate too late for Algerians.


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Overview

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Statistics

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Towards the African Revolution

political essaysLetters to a French man

Unperceived arab

Ignored arabs

Perpetuated by an ignorant silenceTeaching young arab children seen as the

less they understand the better off they are

Largely illiterated and depersonalised.


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Some of Fanons observationsThe negrowill be proportionately

whiterin direct ratio to his mastery of theFrench language (Black Skin, White Mask)

A man who has a language possesses the

world expressed and implied by thatlanguage.

Adopts the cultural baggage of mother

country due to strong identification ofsuperiority of that culture.


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The French Empire France had colonial possessions from the

beginning of the seventeenth century four overseas departements- Caribbean islands of

Guadeloupe and Martiniques, Reunion in the

indian ocean and the and the small south americanmainland possession of french; 3 overseas

territories: French, French Southern and Antarctic

Lands, New Caledonia; and two territorialcollectivities: Mayotte in the Indian Ocean and St.

Pierre and Miquelon near Newfoundland.


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HistoryFirst French Empire

Colonial conflict with Great Britain from1744 1815

War of the Austrian Succession (17441748),the Seven Years War (17561763), the War

of the American Revolution (17781783),

and the French Revolutionary (17931802


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The second french colonial

empireBeginnings in 1830 with the French

invasion of AlgeriaThe French made their last major colonial

gains after the First world, when they

gained mandates over the former Turkishterritories that make up what is now Syriaand the Lebanon, as well as most of the

former German colonies of Togo andCameroon.


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Collapse of the empireAfter the second world war II

War with Algeria in the 1950s

"For, remember this, France does not stand

alone. She is not isolated. Behind her standsa vast Empire"

Charles de Gaulle, June 18, 1940


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ConclusionFrantz Fanon process of decolonisation

evaluatedFrench Empire

Algeria Identity and Language

Frantz Fanon. Bio

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