Thursday 31 January 2013

Frantz Fanon, Boko Haram and the Wretched of the Earth

by William W. Hansen and Umma Aliyu Musa

In our postcolonial universe it is often claimed that Frantz Fanon has become irrelevant, that his understandings of the colonizer/colonized dichotomy, mediated by race and racism are no longer relevant. The slaves have all been freed and The Other has returned to whence he came. It is a central argument of our work that one need not have a racially and geographically bifurcated society in order to see the continued relevance of Fanon’s work. From how far away must The Other, he who comes from elsewhere and is absolutely unlike I am, originate? Must he come from across oceans, from a different continent, from a different “race”, or may he originate from down the street, the next village, the same village?

Click here to download this paper in pdf.