Introduction
The struggle against oppression was the central thesis of Frantz Fanon’s revolutionary philosophy. And colonialism was the target of this fury. Fanon condemned colonialism in the most bitter terms and advocated violence in its most extreme form to confront this plague. In his words, “colonialism is not a thinking machine nor a body endowed with reasoning faculties. It is violence in its most natural state … and will only yield when confronted with greater violence.”
Frantz Fanon
This revolutionary outlook is reflected in many of Fanon’s works, among which include: Black Skin White Masks, A Dying Colonialism, Toward the African Revolution and The Wretched of the Earth. The latter book, acclaimed as Fanon’s most accomplished work, has been described as the “bible of decolonization” because of its radical impact on, and eventual success of the anti-colonial struggle.
Half a century after Fanon’s death, his thesis of violence still remains an object of heated debate. This controversy is increasingly fanned by the undying contradictions within postcolonial Africa. Dr. Homi K. Bhabha questioned the relevance of Fanon’s radicalism in contemporary Africa. “Is The Wretched of the Earth now only a historical and scholarly artifact?” he asked. Continued he, “In the era of globalization is it a relic of naturalistic struggle? Or do Fanon’s insights transcend the particulars of his time? Might they help us make sense of today’s political and economic tensions?” Dr. Bhabha’s doubts suggest both the climate of tension and uncertainty in Africa on the one hand, and the almost-futile search for solutions to the innumerable problems infecting the continent. All of these calamities always boil down to conflicts of one form or another. Where is Fanon’s place in this violence-plagued continent?
Judged against the background of current upheavals in Africa, one requires a deeper reading and then a second interpretation of Fanon. These twin tasks can only make sense when we strive to understand the climate of Fanon’s time and compare it with that of today. Given that Africa alone currently accounts for more than 35% of the world’s conflicts, Fanon still has many questions to answer. Firstly, did Fanon in the middle of his rage ever prescribe an end to violence in Africa in the foreseeable future? Secondly, what is the difference between the unabated spiral of violence in Africa and the colonial-type violence? Put in other words, is violence in contemporary Africa a mark of change or is it of continuity? Thirdly, is half a century not time enough for Africa to reconsider its reverence for violence? And consequent upon these questions, is the struggle lost for Africa?
Violence in Africa, a colonial heritage
Colonialism was without doubt a turning point in Africa’s history and destiny. It accelerated the pace of devastation initiated by the obnoxious slave trade. In Walter Rodney’s words, colonialism completely destroyed what remained of the political, economic and socio-cultural achievements of Africa and left in its place “nothing of compensatory value.” This colonial havoc was the springboard of Fanon’s philosophy of violence. Its test ground was Algeria where Fanon saw for himself what he later called “the psychiatric disorders of colonialism.” Angered by this bestiality of colonialism, Fanon concluded that the Algerian revolution had created “an irreversible situation” for the entire African continent.
Fanon was not alone in preaching violence as the only way out of colonialism and neocolonialism. Che Guevara in 1964, also made it unequivocally clear that “to solve the problems now besetting mankind, there is need to eliminate completely the exploitation of the dependent countries by the developed capitalist countries.” And he spelt it out clearly “with all the consequences that this implies.” This loud call to arms explains the triumph of violence throughout Africa in the 1960s, 70s and 80s. The eventual success of liberation forces in Africa lent credit to Fanon’s dictum that “only violence pay.” Even the Organization of African Unity (OAU), the continental body formed in 1963 to free the continent from colonial rule recognized the need for violence by establishing a Liberation Committee. Its task was to use every means possible, including violence to end colonial rule. And this it did.
In calling on the African masses to resort to violence against colonialism, Fanon did not have to search too far for reasons to convince his audience. He pointed to the exploitative relationship that existed between the settlers and the Africans. The settlers used every means possible to secure their economic interests, including extreme brutality which Fanon describes as “bayonets and caning.” Violence and cruelty were therefore major features of colonialism. Fanon therefore pressed on the need to counter this violence “with greater violence.” Even at the cost of 45.000 lives in Setif, 90.000 in Madagascar, 2000 in Kenya and 250000 in German Tanganyika, Fanon urged Africans to answer violence with violence. This was only part of the price Africans had to pay for carrying the “Whiteman’s burden,” the imposed weight of colonialism.
Like Rodney, Fanon blames the diametrical relationship existing between Africa and Europe entirely on colonialism. Says Fanon, “the well-being and progress of Europe have been built on the sweat and dead bodies of negroes….” And Fanon did not mince words when he made a strong claim that “Europe is Africa’s creation.” To Fanon therefore, the colonized man only “finds freedom in and through violence.” In the course of this struggle, Fanon warns that the native should be prepared to “…sacrifice everything and water their native soil with their blood.” He further cautioned seriously that as a strategy in this struggle, the native can accept a “compromise with colonialism, but never a surrender of principle.”
Another damaging aspect of colonialism which Fanon vociferously decried was the physical and spiritual partition of Africa. It was under colonial rule that Africa was split into several halves for European domination. Colonialism seized African land and minerals for European economic enterprise. It was under colonial rule that Africans were graded, degraded and finally classified into natives and assimiles. Colonialism obliged Africans to carry identification badges on their own soil. On a more dramatic scale, colonialism dissected Africa along the Sahara and prided the northern part of the continent with civilization because it bordered Europe, the land of achievement and wonder. The Southern part of the continent was termed “barbaric” and “uncivilized.” This “primitive” part needed the civilization missions from Europe, hence the justification for European “paternalism” in Africa.
This deliberate attempt at tearing Africa apart was the handiwork of colonialism and a forerunner of (and compliment to) the “divide and rule” policy that marked colonial rule. Added to this puncture on Africa, was the tendency to implant and enforce the notion of racism and ethnicity which have today set Africa ablaze. Observes Fanon, “Colonialism does not simply state the existence of tribes, it also reinforces it and separates them … colonialism is separatist and regionalist.” As a result, continues Fanon, this “legalized racism … maintained in the very depth of the consciousness (of the African people) can only be combated by force.” Fanon’s anger at colonialism is reflected by the dose of fury with which this plague had to be confronted. “No diplomacy, no political genius, no skill can cope with it except force,” he stressed.
Violence in the postcolonial context
Did the coming of independence halt the specter of violence in Africa? Or put in other words, has independence met the expectations of Africans who fought for and eagerly awaited this “wind of Change?” The answer to this question is found on the faces of millions of African children who are either born with disease, or turned refugees or orphans at infancy. It is found on the faces of African youths with bleeding feet on the sands of the Sahara as they make their way to Europe where persecution, prejudice and deportation await them. The answer is found on the faces of millions of Africans caught in the crossfire of civil wars and armed conflicts, genocide and state brutality. Who else can tell the true meaning of independence than those Africans caught in the claws of AIDS, malaria, hunger, mismanagement and corruption? What should the peasants of Africa say of independence when they survive on what Fidel Castro calls “starvation salaries?”
When Europe granted flag independence to Africa, the new breed of European spokesmen in the name of Presidents saw no need to severe the colonial bond. Mr. leon M’ba of Gabon could claim with impunity that “Gabon is independent, but between Gabon and France nothing has changed.” His counterpart in the Ivory Coast, Houghouet Boigny had earlier opposed independence for Africa at the Bamako Conference insisting that “there is no national problem in Black Africa.” The successors of M’ba and Boigny are the current leaders of Africa. This is the bunch Fanon calls “the straw men and traveling salesmen of colonialism.”
In Fanon’s words, independence for Africa simply meant the replacing of one “species” of men with another “species” of men. This new species constitutes the core of the neocolonialist framework, the logical continuation and consequence of colonialism. Here, Fanon singles out two groups of people who need an equal dose of violence. These are the national bourgeoisie of the Third World and the lumpenproletariat. The former group Fanon says, balances its budget with loans and gifts. And together with the latter group, both simply serve the role which Fanon describes as “a transmission line between the nation and capitalism.”
To Fanon, there is a vivid contrast between the bourgeoisie of the metropole and that of the periphery. While the metropolitan bourgeoisie contributed enormously to the development of the colonial country, the bourgeoisie of the colonised country has always remained ignorant and underdeveloped. This group is more preoccupied with what in Fanon’s words are “activities of the intermediary type.” Its major concern is with “the ground nut harvest, with Cocoa Crop and olive yield.” This parasitic group remains contented with sending “out raw materials, being Europe’s small farmers who specialize in unfinished products.”
Fanon has found many apologists in modern Africa. Walter Rodney vividly painted the picture of an African peasant entering colonialism “with a hoe” and leaving “with a hoe.” Five decades after Fanon’s pronouncements on Africa, his views on African agricultural backwardness were repeated by French President Nicholas Sarkozy on his visit to Senegal in 2008. The French President observed that African peasants were living according to the seasons and were therefore outside of history. In”the African imaginary world … there was no place for human adventure or the idea of progress,” he said. Sarkozy however admitted that “Europe had ruined a way of life during its colonization of the continent.” Does Sarkozy share Fanon’s advocacy for violence? It is difficult to tell because the Frenchman expressed sympathy for Africa when he wept “the suffering of the black man is the suffering of all men.”
Insisting that the Third World bourgeoisie exists only in spirit, Fanon observes that this class invests its energy on a “neo-colonialist industrialization in which the country’s economy flounders.” This poorly informed and misdirected middle class instead of investing in the priorities of their people, instead take to leisure thus transforming Africa into what Fanon sees as “Europe’s brothel.” This class makes virtually “no change in marketing of basic products.”
It was against this background of economic inefficiency, mismanagement and misdirected priorities that Fanon reminded the exploited army of peasants throughout Africa that “only violence pays.” His thesis of violence was recently invoked by Nelson Mandela, former South African President and icon of the anti-apartheid struggle. Angered by the level of decay in Zimbabwe, Mandela was among the few African leaders to invoke a “Fanonist” approach to the crisis in Zimbabwe by calling for an uprising against the leadership. “Ordinary people should depose leaders who enrich themselves at the expense of their countrymen,” Mandela said in 2000. Was Mandela Speaking for Fanon?
One very strong case Fanon makes against the bourgeoisie of the Third World is the political weakness of this class. Its Leadership is marked by cruelty, greed and violence. This “unmasked, unpainted and cynical” dictatorship is given a tribal connotation because it emerges from the dominant tribe. If Fanon were alive today, he would have been alarmed by the fact that there is not one country in Africa which has been spared the scourge of tribalism. This tribal dominance of power and resources is at the heart of the ceaseless conflicts in Africa. These conflicts take different forms; civil wars, inter-tribal wars, coups and state brutality. From the Congo and Nigeria in the 1960s, through Rwanda in the 1990s to present day Kenya, Chad and Sudan, cases abound. There is little indication that the wave of violence in Africa shows any signs of ebbing. What then do we make of Fanon’s thesis of violence?
In Fanon’s view, the diminished effect of independence (or its complete lack of meaning) owes largely to the complacency of the Third World bourgeoisie. This class rose to power in the name of a “narrow nationalism.” Unable to put into practice a government even with a “minimum humanist content,” this class took to rhetoric and propaganda. In Fanon’s words, they “bandy about in irresponsible fashion phrases that come straight out of European treaties on morals and political philosophy.” Alex Thomson in his book “An Introduction to African Politics” seems to agree with Fanon on the surge of personal philosophies by African leaders. Thomson cites Sengho’s negritude, Kaunda’s humanism, Nyerere’s Ujama and Mobutu’s Mobutuism.
In recent years, this rhetorical campaign has grown even louder from the state to the continental level. Libyan leader Muammar Gadhaffi takes centre stage as the protector of the oppressed and defender of African unity in modern times. Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe, the bete noire of the West comes in as champion of a “look east” policy for Africa. South Africa’s Thabo Mbeki poses as the flag bearer of an “African renaissance.”
When cut to size, do these philosophies offer any credible alternatives to the postcolonial frustrations in Africa? Does Mr Mbeki’s silent diplomacy towards Zimbabwe and the recent upsurge of Xenophobia in his country augur well for his “renaissance scheme?” Does Mr Mugabe’s absolutism give him any moral authority to tell Africa which direction to look when his own people have nowhere to turn and no one to look up to? Does the alleged maltreatment of black Africans in Libya and the rest of North Africa speak well of President Gadhaffi’s position as the unifier of a divided continent? Are these leaders still “the transmission line between the nation and Neo-colonialism?”
When one situates Fanon within the context of ceaseless uncertainties in contemporary Africa, one easily identifies the root causes of violence. This remains the only weapon in the hands of the suppressed and exploited masses. To these “wretched of the earth” as Fanon would call them, “national consciousness is nothing but a crude empty shell…the cracks in it explain how easy it is for young independent countries to switch from nation to ethnic group and from state to tribe which is terribly detrimental to the development of the nation and national unity.”
Fanon was very prophetic in foreshadowing what Dr. Bhabha later termed “ethno-nationalistic switchbacks” of our time. In post independent Africa, such switchbacks in the form of violent conflicts are quite visible. The entire continent is ablaze with conflicts of one kind or another all of which trace their origins to bad leadership, neo-colonial intrusion and lack of vision for the continent. While serving with the Press Services of the National Liberation Front (FLN) in Algeria, Fanon seized this opportunity to amplify one of his first themes, “the unity of Africa.” What have African leaders made of this call? Fanon himself saw these compradorbourgeois as obstacles to African unity. As solution, he stressed the need to “turn the revolution inwards” against these agents of African underdevelopment.
From Fanon’s time till present, violence in Africa has taken many forms. State brutality against the people has provoked equally hostile responses from the people against the state as seen in Sudan. Tribes have stood against tribes, leading to unforgettable genocides as seen in Rwanda. Coups and counter coups, border conflicts, religious conflagrations, secessionist attempts and the struggle among people and nations for access to resources such as land and water are among the several causes of this chaos. None however, is as evident as bad leadership, greed, graft and corruption, which remain the worst forms of violence against Africans by Africans.
It was in Fanon’s own Algeria (where he gave his life in the fight against oppression), that the army showered bullets on defenceless youths in 1988. This act of carnage forced Fanon’s widow, Josie, to cry from her sickened heart “Oh Frantz, the wretched of the Earth again.” If Fanon were alive today, he would have reiterated the need for such gruesome acts to “be beaten down by force.”
Conclusion
Fanon died in 1961 at the age of 36 with the language of violence still fresh in his mouth. He was very unrepentant in his claim that “colonialism only loosens its hold when the knife is at its throat.” He would have repeated these same words in the present context of neo-colonial oppression with the conspiracy of Africa’s new “species” of men in the name of leaders.
Since Fanon’s death in the age of “the wind of change,” millions of Africans are yet to know the meaning of change. The challenges still remain for millions more who go night and day without food, clothing in a supposedly scientific, technological and space age. Adding his voice to Fanon’s call for violence against oppression, Rodney not only identifies the presence of “African accomplices in the imperialist system,” but challenges the oppressed masses to take up the responsibility to understand the system and work for its overthrow. There are two lessons to be drawn from this line of thinking. The first is that violence in Africa is intricately linked with the nature of leadership and governance. Secondly, and consequent upon the first implication, Africa still has many conflicts on its way if the current system remains unchanged. The AU and NEPAD do not have to search too far for causes of instability in Africa.
They rather have to search far for solutions beginning with “in-house” cleaning.
