Frantz Fanon
Theoretical and postcolonial pioneer activist, who wrote in 1960 in the context of the French occupation of Algeria, Frantz Fanon through his seminal work, The Damned of the Earth (1961) and the black skin, white masks (1967) analyzed the effects of colonialism both on the colonizer and on the colonized. Fanon argued that the native develops a sense of “self” as defined by the “colonial master” through representation and discourse, while the colonizer develops a sense of superiority. Thus, Fanon developed a psychoanalytic theory of postcolonialism in suggesting that “I” Europe develops their relationship and encounter with the “other”.
In an attempt to tackle the psychological failure, the native tries to be as white as possible, adopting the values, religion, language and Western white practices and rejecting his own culture. Fanon calls this phenomenon by placing white masks on the black skin, which translates into a duality and experiences a schizophrenic atmosphere. Furthermore, the sense of inadequacy and insecurity in the psyche of results colonized in violence, which is a form of self-affirmation.
Fanon argued that the sense of “inadequacy and inferiority in the colonized psyche translates into violence, which according to the natives is a form of self-affirmation”. This violence even explodes against its natives, when the native realizes that he can not really be “white”. Thus, tribal wars, for Fanon, are an example of this violence, generated through the colonial system, where the natives face. , tormented by the inability to rebel against the colonial master.
In The Wretched of the Earth, Fanon proposed the idea of a national literature and a national culture, recognizing the importance of cultural nationalism, which leads to national consciousness. He tried to support a wider pan-African cause, because blacks had to create their stories and rewrite their stories. Fanon believed that such a national culture should draw on African cultural myths and practices. He made the three phases in which a national culture:
- native under the influence of the culture of the colonizer, tries to emulate and assimilate discarding his own culture (what Homi K. Bhabha later called mimicry).
- recognizes native and discovering the great disparity that can never be too much is too white or white for the colonizer to treat him from equal peers, and returns to study his own culture, with a romantic and festive way.
- However, in the third phase, the native is truly anti-colonial, accompanied by a critical analysis of his own culture.
However, Fanon also foresaw the other side of cultural nationalism, which can lead to xenophobia and intolerance. He realized that national culture had limited value, to help define the native culture against the overwhelming assault of the colonial. Another limitation of the cultural nationalism that Fanon underlined is that he would not guarantee the correction of the working classes and the oppressed. Therefore, although its concept of cultural nationalism was representative, it was also materialistic and economic.
He also proposed a dynamic culture that must be critically evaluated and respond to changing socio-historical circumstances. Another prophetic argument was that after political independence, the power struggle between the colonizer and the native resurgence in the road between the native elite and the rest of the post-colonial society and oppression, exploitation and corruption continue, as is reflected in the beauty of Ayi Kwei Armah is not yet born.
