Jonis
Ghedi Alasow
Alice
Cherki’s 2006 biography of Frantz Fanon, Frantz
Fanon: A Portrait, offers an interesting and insightful understanding of
the man who has had a tremendous impact on the way in which the postcolonial
situation is understood today. In her book Cherki traces the trajectory of
Fanon’s life from his youth in Martinique to his untimely death in 1961. She
also provides an interesting and personal window into the development of
Fanon’s political thought. The remainder of this essay will pay particular
attention to this development of intellectual and political thought in Frantz
Fanon. Though the trajectory of Fanon’s life will be mentioned in this essay,
the primary focus will be with the ideas of Frantz Fanon which are highlighted
by Cherki.
Having
been born into a ‘petit-bourgeoisie’ family in Martinique on the 20th
of July 1925, Cherki describes Fanon’s first engagement with the political
during his schooling years. Fanon noticed whilst on a school excursion that the
history of slavery in Martinique was never really spoken about (Cherki, 2006:
8). He was concerned about the fact that his education was based on a denial of
something so instrumental in his own existence. This critical engagement with
the power relations and the history of what is around him is what Fanon tapped
into when he left in 1939 to fight against Nazi Germany. He was quite prepared
to go off to Europe to fight against the racism of Hitler whilst he himself was
oppressed by racism within his own country.
Fanon
was adamant on leaving to go fight against injustice, even in the face of Aimé
Césaire’s warning that “blacks had nothing to lose and everything to gain if
white people are killing each other” (Cherki, 2006: 10). Fanon’s commitment to
justice did not wane. Even when he became disillusioned by the way in which
black soldiers were “carelessly dismissed by both the army and the civilian
population” (Cherki, 2006: 13), he remained firmly opposed to Nazism. It is
important to note that though Fanon was quite conscious politically throughout
his life, he was never wholeheartedly linked to any political movement. Even
when he was working within the Algerian National Liberation Front, the FLN, he
was quite openly critical of the FLN if it was not in harmony with his views.
He did not mould his own views on the framework of a political organisation,
but rather developed his political philosophy independently.
Shortly
after the War ended in 1945, Fanon returned to France and started studying
psychiatry. Even in this field Fanon developed views and approaches to
psychiatry that were counter to mainstream views. He for instance remained
adamant that madness was closely tied to “social and cultural alienation”
(Cherki, 2006: 21). He was quite critical of other psychiatrists at the time
who did not pay sufficient attention to the effects of society on the creation
of madness in the individual (Cherki, 2006: 21). Thus he saw society as the
problem that needed to be addressed. The patient was not the problem, but
rather the product of an alienating society. It is largely as a result of
Fanon’s concern with the modern society that he lived in that he wrote Black Skins, White Masks (Cherki, 2006:
26).
Related to the above is that fact that Fanon
was particularly critical of totalising identities. He was opposed to
essentialising groups of people into single identities. Thus he supported the
views of Jean-Paul Sartre, his idol of sorts, that movements such as the
negritude movement were no more than transitional moments. Much later he would
remain true to his rejection of essentialising people when he pointed out that “when
colonialism dies it takes both the coloniser and the colonised with it”
(Cherki, 2006: 137). Thus he did not object to the existence of white/European
people in Algeria. He was not seeking an end to whites in Africa, but rather a
conclusive end to the system of colonialism which was, according to him,
dehumanising both the coloniser and the colonised.
Whilst
working in Blida, 45 km outside of Algiers, Fanon was able to put his theories
on the relationship between alienation, oppression and madness into practice.
He developed “sociotherapy” (Cherki, 2006: 65) which was concerned with moving
away from the dominant approach to psychiatry that considered mad people as
problem people. There was thus a drive to humanise the hospital as an
institution, thus supporting Fanon’s view that society was the problem and that
his patients were the victims of this alienating society. It was also from his
position in Blida that he became involved with the FLN. Pierre Chaulet, the
medical doctor working with the FLN, got Fanon involved with the movement as a
“safe psychiatrist” who the guerrilla fighters could go talk to about their
trauma. With time Fanon became more and more involved with the FLN until he
ultimately resigned from his position as head doctor in Blida’s psychiatric
hospital in 1956 (Cherki, 2006: 89). He claimed to resign because “the native,
a permanent alien in his own country, lives in a state of total
depersonalisation” (Cherki, 2006: 90). It is important to note that Fanon’s
resignation does not constitute a break from psychiatry and a move towards
politics. For Fanon, the two disciplines were always intricately linked
(Cherki, 2006: 59). He did not see madness as a sickness, but rather as a
symptom of an alienating and subsequently oppressive society. Thus it was his
duty as a psychiatrist to treat the cause of the problem. Becoming politically
active and joining the FLN to fight for complete autonomy for the Algerian
people was therefore part of Fanon’s larger project to create a society that
does not alienate its members. His resignation and subsequent focus on the
political can therefore be seen as a convoluted, yet comprehensive, treatment
of madness.
Fanon
was certainly a revolutionary. His label as a revolutionary can be applied to
more than just his involvement with the FLN in Algeria, but more importantly,
the term can be applied to his intellectual work. Fanon thought independently
about both politics and psychiatry to deal with the difficulties faced by
society. Alice Cherki provides an interesting and nuanced window into the man
whose work has become vital in understanding the postcolonial situation.
Works cited:
·
Cherki, A., Frantz
Fanon A Portrait, Cornell University Press: New York (2006).
