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after all why shouldn't i try to read it in the original french? i'm sure the broken quebecois that i haven't practiced in a few decades will be serviceable. (i'm relying heavily on translation help for this, it was not at all serviceable)

Mais la guerre continue. Et nous aurons à panser des années encore les plaies multiples et quelquefois indélébiles faites à nos peuples par le déferlement colonialiste.

but the war goes on. and we will have to bandage/heal for years to come the wounds, many and sometimes indelible [unable to be washed away], inflicted on our people by the colonialist déferlement.

déferlement is an interesting word to use here. i see it being translated as "onslaught", a word closely related to "slaughter" implying a deliberate attack. but déferlement is more literally an unfurling, something unfolding in the wind or the breaking of waves in a surging tide. fanon is talking about colonialism here almost as a force of nature, which i think is interesting in the context of both the first chapter where he talks about colonialist and colonized as separate species, and later in this chapter:

The Algerians, the veiled women, the palm trees and the camels make up the landscape, the natural background to the human presence of the French. Hostile nature, obstinate and fundamentally rebellious, is in fact represented in the colonies by the bush by mosquitoes, natives, and fever, and colonization is a success when all this indocile nature has finally been tamed. Railways across the bush, the draining of swamps and a native population which is non-existent politically and economically are in fact one and the same thing.

the colonized and colonizer occupy entirely separate social environments [milieu, in the middle of a place].

L'impérialisme, qui aujourd'hui se bat contre une authentique libération des hommes, abandonne çà et là des germes de pourriture qu'il nous faut implacablement détecter et extirper de nos terres et de nos cerveaux.

imperialism, which today battles against an authentic liberation of humanity, spreads here and there the seeds of putrescence which we must implacably find and remove by the roots from our land and from our minds.

combat liberalism. destroy the imperialist in your own mind.

fun fact: pourriture is closely related to potpourri, literally "rotten pot".

Nous abordons ici le problème des troubles mentaux nés de la guerre de libération nationale que mène le peuple algérien.

we address here the problem of mental troubles born of the war of national liberation led by the algerian people.

fanon keeps using "we", i assume it's a kind of formal style that he's adopting. i'm curious if anyone knows any more about this.

On trouvera peut-être inopportunes et singulièrement déplacées dans un tel livre ces notes de psychiatrie. Nous n'y pouvons strictement rien.

one will find it perhaps inopportune and singularly out-of-place in such a book these notes of psychiatry. we can do strictly nothing [about that].

i'm not quite sure why but this made me laugh. yeah, sorry-not-sorry we can't do anything about that, deal with it. this war and french imperialism caused this crisis of mental health that we're dealing with, i didn't want to have to deal with this, but i had no choice and so neither do you.

more later

This is another one of my favorite chapters. Chapter 5 details Fanon's field work in as a psychologist working with Algerians and French settlers. It's different from the previous chapters which discusses theory. I like this chapter because when Mao said, "no investigation, no right to speak," Mao wasn't talking about reading a bunch of books as investigation but doing actual field work (The title of the article is "Oppose Book Worship" as in books aren't good enough). As a testament to the thoroughness of his field work, Fanon also treated French policemen and made it really obvious that their mental disturbances are completely attributed to them torturing Algerian prisoners. One French torturer went to Fanon because he kept on beating his wife and kids, and he repeatedly beat his wife and kids because he spends his entire day beating Algerian prisoners. Colonization not only dehumanizes the colonized, but also dehumanized the colonizer as well, turning them into inhuman monsters. Part of the chapter also dealt with the way the French would torture Algerians and the PTSD Fanon had to deal with.

The Conclusion is also very powerful. I'll leave the ending of the conclusion here:

So, comrades, let us not pay tribute to Europe by creating states, institutions, and societies which draw their inspiration from her.

Humanity is waiting for something from us other than such an imitation, which would be almost an obscene caricature.

If we want to turn Africa into a new Europe, and America into a new Europe, then let us leave the destiny of our countries to Europeans. They will know how to do it better than the most gifted among us.

But if we want humanity to advance a step further, if we want to bring it up to a different level than that which Europe has shown it, then we must invent and we must make discoveries.

If we wish to live up to our peoples' expectations, we must seek the response elsewhere than in Europe.

Moreover, if we wish to reply to the expectations of the people of Europe, it is no good sending them back a reflection, even an ideal reflection, of their society and their thought with which from time to time they feel immeasurably sickened.

For Europe, for ourselves, and for humanity, comrades, we must turn over a new leaf, we must work out new concepts, and try to set afoot a new man.