hello comrades here we shall be discussing The Wretched of the earth preface and chapter one On Violence i was gonna write my own summry for yall but this summary and analysis i found would serve you all better than what I could write this morning, my sincere apoligies I wiil start us off with some optional question promts!
what did you think of satare's preface?
what does Fanon mean by "replacing one species with another"?
who is the colonized intellectual? what role does he serve?
what does Fanon say about nationalist reformist movements? what are their failings?
why must decolonization be total and all encompassing?
why is the allocation of instruments of force important? I also want to encourage everyone to try to make critique of the reading.
these are just a few things to get the ball rolling, please let me know what I can do better! Please keep commenting and contributing to this thread through out the week for those of you not caught up, this isnt school there is no late work, in fact i hope people come back to these threads many times to see other comrades thoughts. lastly it seems like you guys really like the summary and study guide I found so I will keep using it in future post (its pretty cool its like sparknotes)
English translation by Richard Philcox – https://ia801708.us.archive.org/3/items/the-wretched-of-the-earth/The Wretched Of The Earth.pdf – you'd be reading from page 42 to 311 of this PDF, 270 pages
English translation by Constance Farrington – https://abahlali.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/Frantz-Fanon-The-Wretched-of-the-Earth-1965.pdf
Original French text – https://monoskop.org/images/9/9d/Fanon_Frantz_Les_damnés_de_la_terre_2002.pdf
English audio version – https://inv.tux.pizza/playlist?list=PLZ_8DduHfUd2r1OOCtKh0M6Q9xD5RaR3S – about 12h20m – Alternative links
I didn't get a chance to reread this yet, unfortunately, so I may be a bit fuzzy on the contents of individual chapters. But my personal takeaway from the early chapters, was realizing how whitewashed and specific colonizers/capitalists have managed to confine our definition of violence. From passive voices about police shootings to anaodyne language around military invasions, our culture works very hard to make sure that violence is seen as a physicial action of the "lesser" people of our society; Unwarranted and Uncouth. Riots are never framed as uprisings, theft is never framed as expropriation. By refusing to acknowledge the grievances of the lower classes in our language, the Cultural Hegemony erases the crimes of the ruling class.
This realization combined with the idea of Social Murder blew my brain open. By a small miracle, a short time later I ended up reading Blackshirts and Reds followed by The Jakarta Method.
I think you have really hit the heart of the chapter. If we used the colonizers morality we can not hold the perpetrators accountable. great response!
Thanks! Pretty sure when I get a visit from the feds for posting too hard, I'll have Fanon to thank.