Frantz Fanon, Essay Example

Frantz Fanon was born in Martinique in 1925 He came from a middle class background in what was then a French Colony.  He was best know for writing plays and political essays. In particular the impact of colonialism in indigenous people. His most noted works were that of  Black Skin, White Masks (1952) and The Wretched of the Earth (1961).  As a Psychiatrist in an Algerian hospital Fanon wrote about the war of independence and the terrible traumatic disorders endured by many of his patients.  “If psychiatry is the medical technique that aims to enable man no longer to be a stranger to his environment, I owe it to myself to affirm that the Arab, permanently an alien in his own country, lives in a state of absolute depersonalization” (Poulos, 1996)

In a dying colonialism Fanon talks about the plight of the Muslim Arabs and in particular the stereotyping that the western colonials use.  ” The veil worn by the woman appears with such constancy that it generally suffices to characterise Arabic society ” (Fanon, 1959)Hence the term “veil” being used as a euphemism to describe Arabs and Islamic society as secretive, closed or mystique.

Jean-Paul Sartre in his preface to the “Wretched of the Earth”, considered Fanon to be somewhat of a cold detached person.  He refers to the comments on the doom of Europe and subsequent references to The black Goncourts and the yellow Nobles are finished; the days of colonized laureates are over.  He was really offering a medical diagnosis on the plight of European Colonialism.  He was not offering a solution or proffering hope; rather a throw away opinion of someone completely indifferent to the situation.  This was a complex précis but it contains some powerful messages. The most poignant of these being the light of the European colonists told around the camp fire: ” Europeans, you must open this book and enter into it. After a few steps in the darkness you will see strangers gathered around a fire; come close, and listen, for they are talking of the destiny they will mete out to your trading-centres and to the hired soldiers who defend them. They will see you, perhaps, but they will go on talking among themselves, without even lowering their voices. This indifference strikes home: their fathers, shadowy creatures, your creatures, were but dead souls; you it was who allowed them glimpses of light, to you only did they dare speak, and you did not bother to reply to such zombies. Their sons ignore you; a fire warms them and sheds light around them, and you have not lit it. Now, at a respectful distance, it is you who will feel furtive, night bound and perished with cold. Turn and turn about; in these shadows from whence a new dawn will break, it is you who are the zombies.” (Sartre, 1961).

After the revolutionary aspects of colonialism waned in 1968 and subsequently  Algeria settled down in the 1980’s the works of Fanon lessened in impact. Nevertheless as pointed out by Immanuel Wallerstein the struggles continue to this day. We still are guilty of stereotyping and often lack sincerity in our dealings with others ”  Fanon thought that to overcome the alienation of the black man would require more than what Freudian psychoanalysis had to offer. Freud had argued the need to move beyond a phylogenetic to an ontogenetic explanation; for Fanon, what was required was a sociogenic explanation.”  (Wallerstein, 2009).  As a Psychiatrist Fanon was interested in what made us behave in this way.

Works Cited

Fanon, F. (1959). A dying Colonialism. In F. Fanon, A dying Colonialism (pp. 35-36). New York: Grove Press.

Poulos, J. (1996, 4). Frantz Fanon. Retrieved 11 17, 2009, from Frantz Fanon: http://www.english.emory.edu/Bahri/Fanon.html

Sartre, J.-P. (1961). Preface to Frantz Fanon’s “Wretched of the Earth” . In J.-P. Sartre, Preface to Frantz Fanon’s “Wretched of the Earth” (p. Preface). New York : Grove Press.

Wallerstein, I. (2009). Reading Fanon in 21st Century . In I. Wallerstein, Reading Fanon in 21st Century . Omhar Khalid.