tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-65696900078771796362023-11-16T15:19:18.875+02:00The Frantz Fanon BlogReading Frantz Fanon in Grahamstown, South AfricaReading Frantz Fanon Here & Nowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03552708300555707437noreply@blogger.comBlogger2359125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6569690007877179636.post-27607340787022960842016-12-31T10:46:00.000+02:002017-03-17T10:49:50.773+02:00Aimé Césaire: Homage to Frantz Fanon<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "cambria"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><b>Homage
to Frantz Fanon</b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "cambria"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Aimé
Césaire <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "cambria"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Frantz
Fanon is dead. We expected this for many months, but against all reason,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "cambria"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">we
were hopeful. We knew him as such a determined person, capable of<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "cambria"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">miracles,
and as such a crucial figure on the horizon of men. We must accept<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "cambria"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">the
facts: Frantz Fanon is dead at age 37. A short life, but extraordinary. Brief,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "cambria"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">but
bright, illuminating one of the most atrocious tragedies of the 20th century<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "cambria"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">and
detailing in an exemplary manner the human condition, the condition of<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "cambria"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">modern
man. If the word “commitment” has a meaning, then it is embodied in<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "cambria"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">the
person of Frantz Fanon. He was called “an advocate of violence, a terrorist.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "cambria"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">And
it’s true Fanon appointed himself the theoretician of violence, the sole<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "cambria"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">weapon
of the colonized against the barbarism of colonialism.</span></div>
<a name='more'></a><o:p></o:p><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "cambria"; line-height: 150%;">However
odd it seems, his violence was non-violent; the violence of justice,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "cambria"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">of
pureness, uncompromising. His revolt was ethical, his approach one of
generosity.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "cambria"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">He
did not simply join a cause. He gave himself to it. Wholly. Without<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "cambria"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">reserve.
Without measure. With unqualified passion.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "cambria"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">A
doctor, he knew human suffering. As a psychiatrist, he observed the impact<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "cambria"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">on
the human mind of traumatic events. Above all, as a “colonial” man<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "cambria"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">he
felt and understood what it was to be born and live in a colonial situation;<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "cambria"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">he
studied this situation scientifically, aided by introspection as much as<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "cambria"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">observation.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "cambria"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">His
revolt was in this context. As a doctor in Algeria, he witnessed the unfolding<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "cambria"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">of
colonial atrocities, and this was what gave birth to rebellion. It wasn’t<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "cambria"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">enough
for him to argue in defense of the Algerian people. He united himself<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "cambria"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">with
the oppressed, humiliated, tortured and beaten down Algerian. He became<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "cambria"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Algerian.
Lived, fought and died Algerian. A theoretician of violence,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "cambria"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">doubtless,
and yet more so of action. Because he had an aversion to mere talk.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "cambria"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Because
he had an aversion to compromise. Because he had an aversion to cowardice.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "cambria"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">No
one was more respectful of ideas, more responsible to his own ideals,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "cambria"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">more
exacting of life he imagined as a practical ideal.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "cambria"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">It
is thus that he became a combatant, and a writer, one of the most brilliant<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "cambria"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">of
his generation.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "cambria"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">On
colonialism, the human consequences of colonization and racism, the<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "cambria"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">key text
to read is <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Black Skin, White Masks</i>.
On decolonization, again by Fanon,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "cambria"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">The Wretched of the Earth</span></i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "cambria"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "cambria"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Fanon
died and one reflects on his life; his epic side as well as his tragic side.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "cambria"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">The
epic side is that Fanon lived to the very end his destiny of a champion of<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "cambria"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">liberty,
mastering to the heights his sense of identity with humanity and that<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "cambria"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">he
died a fighter for Internationalism.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "cambria"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">At
the actual moment when he himself was entering the “great darkness,”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "cambria"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">at
the brink of which he was reeling, he understands: “Come Comrades, it is<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "cambria"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">better
to change our thinking. To shake off and leave behind the great darkness<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "cambria"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">into
which we have plunged. . . . It is necessary to invent, to discover . . . for<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "cambria"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Europe,
for ourselves, and for mankind, . . . to develop a new way of thinking,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "cambria"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">to
try to bring forth a new humankind.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "cambria"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">I
don’t know of anything more moving or greater than this lesson of life<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "cambria"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">coming
from a deathbed.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "cambria"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<i style="line-height: 150%;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "cambria"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Présence Africaine</span></i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "cambria"; line-height: 150%;">, no. 40 (1962); translated by Connie
Rosemont</span></div>
Reading Frantz Fanon Here & Nowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03552708300555707437noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6569690007877179636.post-11710799232177966992016-11-28T14:58:00.000+02:002017-03-08T15:02:46.602+02:00Dignity is Essential: An interview with Alice CherkiALICE CHERKI is a psychiatrist, psychoanalyst and author. Born in Algiers, 1936. She knew Frantz Fanon well, working by his side in Algeria and Tunisia as a psychiatrist, and sharing his political commitment during the war of independence in Algeria.<br />
<br />
Alice Cherki has lived in France since 1965. She is co-author of the books, <i>Retour à Lacan</i> (Fayard, 1981) and <i>Les Juifs d’Algérie</i> (Editions du Scribe, 1987), and author of <i>La frontière invisible </i>(Editions des Crépuscules, 2009) <i>Frantz Fanon, portrait </i>(Seuil, 2000) translated into English by Nadia Benabid and published as <i>Frantz Fanon: A Portrait </i>(Cornell University Press, 2006) and <i>Mémoire anachronique</i> (Editions De L’aube, 2016).<br />
<br />
Gaele Sobott: Can you talk a little about the history of your family, your place of birth and your childhood?<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
Alice Cherki: I was born in a family of Jewish Algerians who were in Algeria since the Romans or before the Romans. My parents were born in the small towns of Medea and Ksar Bukhari but they met in Algiers. I was born and I lived in Algiers. I am Algerian, voilà!<br />
<br />
Some of my family are Jewish Berbers.<br />
<br />
GS: Were there Jews in Algeria before the Arabs?<br />
<br />
AC: Yes, the majority were there well before. Some came later in 1492 from Spain through Morocco, others from Italy, and then Alsatian Jews, but at that point it was already colonial Algeria. Many of those left again and went elsewhere. But most of the Jews of Algeria had been there for a very, very, very long. Some of them were Berbers who converted to Judaism. I belong to that history.<br />
<br />
GS: Did you speak Arabic?<br />
<br />
AC: Very little. I’m not very good at languages. I come from the same environment as Derrida. at school, we learnt Latin and Greek.<br />
<br />
GS: Did you know Derrida?<br />
<br />
AC: I knew Derrida very well. He was eight or nine years older than me and that represents a big difference but yes I knew Derrida well.<br />
<br />
Like Hélène Cixous and Derrida, my childhood was marked by the Vichy anti-Jewish legislation which excluded Jews born in Algeria, denied us French nationality, the right to go to school, the right for Jews to work in government administration. This was hugely traumatic for me as a child.<br />
<br />
One Christmas, I was 4 or 5 years old, my teacher said, “Tell your mother that after the break you must not come to school anymore.”<br />
<br />
When I asked her the reason, the only answer I got was, “It’s because you’re Jewish.”<br />
<br />
I didn’t know what that meant. So, I gathered my courage and asked, “What’s Jewish?”<br />
<br />
She replied, “It’s you with your big eyes, big mouth and big ears.”<br />
<br />
Each of us, as Derrida also relates, was excluded from school, our parents could no longer work.<br />
<br />
GS: How has this experience affected your adult life?<br />
<br />
AC: It opened my eyes to the injustices of the world in which we live; a world marked by colonial ideology. In Algiers in the 1950s, there was no intersection between Europeans, the Jews and Arabs – the so-called natives. I didn’t experience it at home but we were caught up in all that. I talk about it a little in my book, Mémoire anachronique. Everyone lived in their own sphere. Some of us would meet each other outside these spheres.<br />
<br />
During my early years at primary school there was no mixing at all. In Grade 6, there were some girls; Rachida, Malika. For the whole of my secondary schooling I only knew of one Algerian woman student even though my school was not the most snobbish high school in Algiers.<br />
<br />
GS: It was the same principle as Apartheid?<br />
<br />
AC: The same principle except that it was more camouflaged. Algerians were contained in their own neighbourhoods. Even the bourgeois had their areas. The Algerians passed like shadows in the European neighbourhoods<br />
<br />
GS: What area of Algiers did you live in?<br />
<br />
AC: I first lived on the border of a working-class suburb, near the boys’ school, known then as Lycée Bugeaud, now it’s called Lycée Abdel Kader. Later, at the age of 17, we moved to Central Boulevard in Hydra. Our house was on a piece of land owned by my uncle – my father’s brother, my father’s sister, and my father. After some years, they managed to build a three-storey house there for the three families.<br />
<br />
GS: What did your father do for a living?<br />
<br />
AC: My father traded in cereal. He carried out transactions with farmers for the export and import of chickpeas and lentils.<br />
<br />
GS: How did your interest in psychiatry come about?<br />
<br />
AC: Firstly, it was a struggle for me as a woman to study. After I passed my baccalaureate, even though I was from the middle-class, it was not usual for women to continue their education. Women were expected to marry and so on. I had an older brother and a younger brother and was the only girl. Neither of my parents continued their studies. My father, a brilliant student, was pulled out of school at age 16 by his father. He was the eldest of ten children There were two or three girls before him so he had to work. I believe my mother chose to leave school to get married. When she met my father, she dropped out.<br />
<br />
My parents were both very intelligent and relatively progressive. My father spoke Arabic, but they did not have a higher education.<br />
<br />
I already had a certain outlook on society and I was more inclined towards literature. I wasn’t a good student and had never received any awards for excellence. I was impertinent and people always told me I would make an excellent actress. With no one to advise me, in those days, if I had decided I wanted to be an actress, it would have been worse than deciding to be a prostitute. Having said that, I did later have the luck to meet many people who became involved in theatre.<br />
<br />
So, I found myself first in hypokhâgne and then khâgne. You know what they are?<br />
<br />
GS: No.<br />
<br />
AC: Preparatory literary classes for the grandes écoles. The equivalent also exists in the scientific field. I was interested in studying philosophy but decided that would mean cutting myself off from the real world. I made up my mind that I wanted to be useful so I chose to study medicine. But very soon I realized medicine didn’t meet my needs. It was all about identifying symptoms and responding with treatments. I remember a teacher saying, “But Mademoiselle, you ask too many questions.”<br />
<br />
We never say, “Why” in medicine. Instead we talk about, “How to fix it.”<br />
<br />
So, I was part of two cultures; one of interest for human beings and their psyche, and the other a group culture which stemmed from my medical studies.<br />
<br />
GS: Were there other women you knew of who were studying medicine then?<br />
<br />
AC: There were a few, but they were a definite minority.<br />
<br />
There was a saying that summarized the situation quite well. It relates to sitting the intern examination:<br />
<br />
If you are white, European and male, you have an 80% chance of sitting the exam. If you are female and European, you have a 60% chance. If you are Jewish and male, you have a 50% chance. If you are female and Jewish, you have a 25% chance. If you are Muslim and male, you have a 10% chance. As for being Muslim and a woman, you are not even mentioned because you just don’t get the opportunity.<br />
<br />
Some managed to study medicine or become trainees but none got to sit the intern examination, voilà!<br />
<br />
GS: When did you meet Fanon for the first time?<br />
<br />
AC: I was part of a youth movement called AJASS (Association of Algerian Youth for Social Action) and Fanon was invited to give a lecture by a friend of mine, Pierre Chaulet, who died recently. It was a lecture on fear and anxiety in 1955. I must have been 19 or 20 at the time and had to leave my parents’ home where I’d been living. Most of the interns at the hospital were French-Algerian and because of my opinions I faced all kinds of problems. My car tyres were punctured, my white doctor’s coat soiled, my files stolen. So, when Fanon found out I wanted to do psychiatry, he told Pierre Chaulet I should come and intern under him at Blida psychiatric hospital.<br />
<br />
GS: So you lived at the hospital in Blida?<br />
<br />
AC: Yes, as an intern. That’s where I met my husband, Charles Géronimi. He shared my ideas, but having Corsican parents, teachers but Corsicans, they had trouble accepting a little Jew in their family, especially my mother-in-law.<br />
<br />
GS: What were your first impressions of Fanon?<br />
<br />
AC: My first impressions, at 20, I found everything he had to say very interesting and didn’t think of him as black. He analysed the subjectivity of racism which was very different from the discourse of the time. On the one hand, we had Existentialism and on the other, Marxist materialism which didn’t include questions of subjectivity. It was the first time I’d met someone who was only 10 years older than me but had immense experience, and a developed understanding of these two worlds, of the two ‘ideologies’. He was neither on one side nor the other which met my expectations, answered my questions.<br />
<br />
GS: He had practical ideas?<br />
<br />
AC: Yes, he was a hands-on kind of man.<br />
<br />
GS: That’s to say, the development of his thought was founded not only on the theoretical but also on his lived-experience?<br />
<br />
AC: On his experience, yes. And that also pleased me. It was from his lived-experience that he elaborated his ideas. But he also had very advanced psychiatric training.<br />
<br />
GS: What were some of the work experiences during your time with Fanon in Blida that influenced your practice of psychiatry?<br />
<br />
AC: Everything he brought to psychiatry, especially his critique of the School of Algiers’ theory of primitivism. He also introduced social therapy, institutional psychotherapy.<br />
<br />
GS: How do you define institutional psychotherapy?<br />
<br />
AC: Institutional psychotherapy, as developed by Tosquelles, took off in France with the support of Oury and Bonnafé. It encourages the residents of psychiatric institutions to share things with their caregivers. Through humanising the functions of these institutions, it allows understanding not only of patient symptoms but also the roots of these symptoms. There are still two or three people in France who are struggling to create places that foster institutional psychotherapy, but it is becoming more and more difficult.<br />
<br />
GS: Why is it becoming more difficult?<br />
<br />
AC: Because of the prevailing ideology. Now we have DCM 3, DCM 4, DCM 5. It is a performative ideology that absolutely bypasses all subjective aspects of alienation.<br />
<br />
GS: Did you have any significant experiences in the hospital setting as a female doctor caring for patients in that historical and social context?<br />
<br />
AC: What do you mean by significant experiences?<br />
<br />
GS: For example, when you worked at Joinville-Blida Hospital, were there certain events that affected you?<br />
<br />
AC: Yes, of course.<br />
<br />
GS: What were they?<br />
<br />
AC: So many things. For example, I saw women hospitalised after childbirth for postpartum, transitory delirium. Some doctors didn’t understand and sometimes even people in the women’s families said, “It’s the djnoun who came to inhabit her.”<br />
<br />
It affected me deeply because I wanted to ascertain their experience of the delivery because it influences their relationship to the newborn baby. It’s a complicated relationship.<br />
<br />
GS: Did you have your own children at that time?<br />
<br />
AC: No, I had no children at the time. I now have a son who is 40 years old. He studied political science and then he got involved in theatre.<br />
<br />
GS: So, he is fortunate?<br />
<br />
AC: Well there you have it.<br />
<br />
Black and white photograph of Alice Cherki as a young women. She has short, dark hair, is wearing a white, V-neck dress and a necklace, and she is smiling.<br />
<br />
GS: As a female doctor, what were your professional relationships like with your colleagues at the hospital?<br />
<br />
AC: Amongst us interns at the psychiatric hospital of Blida, I was considered an equal.<br />
<br />
I married an intern from the hospital. No, I can’t say I had any problems. On the other hand, before that when I was at the Mustapha Hospital in Algiers, I was very young, I did my hair in a bun and put on big glasses to make myself look older so I’d be left in peace.<br />
<br />
GS: Was your husband originally from Blida?<br />
<br />
AC: No, he was also from Algiers but he was an intern with Fanon in Blida. They wrote a paper together on Algerian women and the cultural specificity of TATs (Thematic Apperception Tests).<br />
<br />
GS: In your book, Fanon, Portrait, you mention a meeting between Fanon and Jeanson. (1)<br />
<br />
AC: Yes.<br />
<br />
GS: In that meeting Fanon expressed his wish to go beyond certain ideas so that readers can experience aspects of life that they could never know firsthand. You talk about Fanon exploring the sensory dimension of language. Do you think that this approach to writing could enable us to communicate experiences around difference, to understand our differences from an egalitarian point of view – not superior or even inferior?<br />
<br />
AC: Yes, I think this type of writing is essential. In my experience, sensory writing starts from perceptions, sensations to try to improve communication with the other, I think it is very, very necessary.<br />
<br />
GS: Do you know any writers today who write like that?<br />
<br />
AC: I’m not qualified to say. I don’t know today’s writers that well. But Kateb Yacine wrote like that.<br />
<br />
GS: Do you see difference as a dialectical space that can trigger creativity and imagination?<br />
<br />
AC: Yes, that’s what I call the relationship to the other, the recognition of the outside, the stranger. It is important. I wrote another book called La frontière invisible, in which I insist on the relationship to the other. This allows you to accept the outsider in yourself.<br />
<br />
GS: In your book, La frontière invisible, you link psychoanalysis and politics. I understand colonial violence, violence of displacement, violence against the subject in the social context, the context of specific historical and political circumstances, for example, those of Algeria and France. But when I try to analyse this violence from a psychoanalytic point of view, I find it difficult to understand.<br />
<br />
AC: It is complicated. But you have sought out strangers?<br />
<br />
GS: Always, yes.<br />
<br />
AC: Perhaps it’s not by chance.<br />
<br />
GS: Perhaps not.<br />
<br />
Did you know Fanon outside his work, in his family life? What kind of man was he as husband and father?<br />
<br />
AC: Yes, of course I had the opportunity to know Fanon outside his work. I knew his wife well and I know his son very well. As a dedicated husband and father. At the same time, he was a very busy man. But he was very dedicated to his family. When his father left for Africa, Olivier didn’t see him that often only from time to time when Fanon came back from working there. Olivier was only five when his father died.<br />
<br />
Fanon loved life. He liked to go out to dinner, go dancing, things like that.<br />
<br />
GS: What type of dancing did he like?<br />
<br />
AC: All the dances of that time, le slow, the rhumba . . .<br />
<br />
GS: Did you like to dance?<br />
<br />
AC: It has been a long time since I really danced but yes at the time I loved it.<br />
<br />
GS: At friends’ places?<br />
<br />
AC: Yes.<br />
<br />
GS: What type of music did Fanon like?<br />
<br />
AC: He especially loved Caribbean music.<br />
<br />
GS: And you?<br />
<br />
AC: Back then my tastes were very eclectic. I liked the Arab-Andalusian, Jewish-Andalusian music right through to Bach, Beethoven, Mozart and then Jean Ferrat, Barbara, Montand. More and more now I love Musique Concrète.<br />
<br />
GS: Tell me more.<br />
<br />
AC: When I was a psychoanalyst, I was working very hard. In the evening, when I had finished working and my head was full of words, words, words, I’d play the likes of Kurtág and Blériot. The music is largely based on the sonority of the human body. It defies the normality of melody. It’s best to listen to it alone. There are not many people who love and desire that genre of music. It scares them.<br />
<br />
GS: What kind of a sense of humour did Fanon have? What made him laugh?<br />
<br />
AC: He had a great sense of humour, Fanon. It was humour that made him laugh.<br />
<br />
GS: People who are very involved in revolutionary struggle often dedicate huge amounts of time and energy to the cause, and I suppose that doesn’t allow them to be very good parents.<br />
<br />
AC: That’s true, yes. Especially at the time because the people involved in the struggle were very young.<br />
<br />
GS: Have you met children whose parents were not only very involved but who were tortured, wounded or killed as part of the struggle?<br />
<br />
AC: Yes, children who became orphans.<br />
<br />
GS: Regarding the children of revolutionaries, what observations have you made?<br />
<br />
AC: It was very variable. For example, Fatma Oussedic, her father was a great militant and she has good memories of her relationship with him. In addition, many families did not only consist of the father and mother, there were, aunts, uncles, cousins etc. They weren’t nuclear families. If we’re talking about orphans this helps a little. But when you see your parents killed before your eyes, that’s not the same thing. As for the children of the surviving revolutionaries following independence, the notion that their fathers are heroes has weighed heavily on many of them.<br />
<br />
GS: Would you mind giving me a brief definition of your concept of alienation and the ways it may be experienced in countries marked by colonisation.<br />
<br />
AC: That’s a big question. Both the coloniser and countries who achieved their independence, like Algeria, deny in various ways the colonial wars that have taken place. Algeria swept a large part of the past away by claiming the national story begins at the time of Independence. Generations have been taught that they have one history, one language, one origin. This kind of discourse has done a lot of damage. There are many young people who now don’t know who they are.<br />
<br />
GS: How does that manifest psychologically?<br />
<br />
AC: It varies considerably and is different in Algeria and in France. Here in France these young people are excluded from participating in the inner circle, In Algeria they are divided. There is group of social conformists who represent the youth, and another group of which no one ever speaks but which gnaws away at the heart and soul of the country. Young people are suffering a great deal, even those who are socially successful. Many young people ask, “What was Algeria like before 1962?” Many are Berbers. The heterogeneity of their roots has been hidden from them. It is as if these roots don’t exist but they are longing for what I call multiple identification … not to be cast in a single mould.<br />
<br />
In France there are many young people who describe their lives very well and write novels. Some are very interesting, written in the language of the suburbs. For example, Sabri Louatah, Les Sauvages.<br />
<br />
GS: What is your definition of dignity, especially the dignity of colonised people, people considered mentally ill or disabled?<br />
<br />
AC: Dignity is essential. Dignity means we are viewed by the other as a human being.<br />
<br />
GS: In revolutionary situations, when a group of people can no longer withstand massive pressure and extreme violence, they react violently to create a change in the power structure. This changeover is often quick, lasts for a moment, the objective is specific: to get rid of the immediate cause of the violence that oppresses them. Beyond this moment of revolutionary violence, what measures do you think people can use to get rid of the everyday violence that continues?<br />
<br />
AC: Firstly, to speak.<br />
<br />
GS: To whom?<br />
<br />
AC: Speak, tell, write. . . I think there are many forms of expression, of creation. Because we must get by. We must get out of the stupor. The essential thing is to get out of it, including through collective struggle.<br />
<br />
GS: What for you is the most urgent task required to change human relations in the future? What needs to be done to update and develop new definitions of power?<br />
<br />
AC: We need to do work in many areas if we are going to change human relations and bring about new definitions of power. Each person should focus on their own domain, the place where they live. It’s true, like many people, I feel I am very active and committed. At the same time, I denounce all modes of liberalism and things like that.<br />
<br />
GS: How do you define liberalism?<br />
<br />
AC: It is being governed by financial capitalism which transforms the subject into an object.<br />
<br />
GS: Is it enough to denounce? Sometimes I get the impression that it is useless.<br />
<br />
AC: I know it well. Organisations are important. There are organisations, people who are militant. I am fortunate to have a son, and nephews who are politically engaged in their fields. Me, everyone knows my positions, my writings. My son works in theatre. They go to schools, to high schools. I am not against the revolution.<br />
<br />
GS: Do you think that as individuals, we are afraid of revolutionary violence, afraid of revolutionary confrontation?<br />
<br />
AC: It depends. There are many people who are afraid of violence. In my case, I’m not afraid. Many French people want to stay in their little cocoons. In Europe, the French are very much like that, withdrawn on their plots of land, and yet they made a revolution.<br />
<br />
But I believe violence is . . . for example, what happened in 2005 in the housing estates, with Sarkozy insulting everyone. People called them riots but I called them revolts. Those young people were not afraid.<br />
<br />
GS: It is temporary, a moment?<br />
<br />
AC: Revolution is always like that. It’s a moment. But moments that produce difference. Every revolutionary moment must be seen as the introduction of change.<br />
<br />
GS: Even if it takes a long time to get to that point.<br />
<br />
AC: Yes, like psychoanalysis.<br />
<br />
GS: Why did you choose to become a psychoanalyst?<br />
<br />
AC: Because I found it was the best way to understand the psyche and help people. It’s exciting, I love it, yes, I like it very much.<br />
<br />
GS: You must undergo psychoanalysis for several years to be a psychoanalyst?<br />
<br />
AC: Yes, you do. It’s experience. You see, even you talk to an 80-year-old woman who is a psychoanalyst and it’s fine.<br />
<br />
GS: Yes, it’s been good.<br />
<br />
AC: I have lots of stories to tell. I am attentive to other human beings.<br />
<br />
GS: Ah yes, but not all psychoanalysts are like you.<br />
<br />
AC: That’s true.<br />
<br />
GS: Did you have any conversations with Fanon about the ‘Jewish question’ or the events that led to the establishment of the State of Israel?<br />
<br />
AC: Of course, Algerian Jews, like myself and Jacques Azoulay, worked with Fanon in Blida. Fanon had very close Jewish friends in Tunis. The subject of the establishment of the State of Israel was far from our concerns. Fanon was profoundly atheist. I, too, am an atheist. We were part of the struggle for Algerian independence, there was never any conversation about the existence of God for example. Those questions and discussions were not on our radar.<br />
<br />
GS: But religious discourse was there nonetheless with Messali . . .<br />
<br />
AC: Oh, yes. Those discussions took place within the independence movement. It was very heterogeneous. There were plenty of different poles of thought, different ideas. For example, Fanon, returning from sub-Saharan Africa, jokingly said to his colleagues, to the revolutionary friends of the mujahidin, that they should follow the example of Islamic Africans, their wives can walk topless. He said that jokingly. I mean the issue of Islam as a fundamental direction was probably underestimated, but religion was not ubiquitous in our workplace. I think, even Messali, he was for independence from France, he was married to a French woman, he wasn’t a religious Iman.<br />
<br />
GS: When and why did you leave Algeria? Do you consider yourself a woman in exile?<br />
<br />
AC: I did not really leave Algeria. I settled in Paris but with frequent trips to Algeria and back. I’m not in national exile and I think exile of the psyche is the hallmark of any successful human life.<br />
<br />
<b>Notes</b>:<br />
<br />
1. Alice Cherki refers to a meeting between Fanon and Jeanson in her book, Fanon, portrait (Seuil, 2000), however the English translation, Fanon: A Portrait, (Cornell University Press, 2006) refers to a letter.<br />
<br />
Alice Cherki was interviewed by Gaele Sobott in Paris, 26 September 2015 and by email between 18 and 20 November 2016.<br />
<br />
<i>Translated from French by <a href="https://gaelesobott.wordpress.com/2016/11/23/dignity-is-essential-dignity-means-we-are-viewed-by-the-other-as-a-human-being-an-interview-with-alice-cherki/">Gaele Sobott</a></i><br />
<br />Reading Frantz Fanon Here & Nowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03552708300555707437noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6569690007877179636.post-9270734380315247282016-11-17T10:09:00.001+02:002016-11-19T11:32:24.409+02:00Fanon as Example and Figure: A Conversation Between Oscar Guardiola-Rivera and Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">“Let me say from the
outset that it would be a mistake to make Fanon into a clay model for
revolution,” says Gayatri Spivak. I’ve asked her about Göran Olson’s 2014
celebrated documentary Concerning Violence: Nine Scenes from the
Anti-Imperialistic Self-Defense, which she prefaced. Herself the author of an
influential body work that includes A Critique of Postcolonial Reason and more
recently a translation of Aimé Césaire’s play A Season in the Congo, she
engaged Olson’s film in signature critical mode. As a counterpoint to the
documentary, her preface avoids the often repeated story of Fanon as a champion
of counter-violence. “Instead,” she
says, “one must understand that in the initial chapters of <i>The Wretched of the
Earth</i>, which a lot of people read as an apology of violence, Fanon is actually
claiming complicity with what was surrounding him. That is, the violence of
colonization.” “I will be as violent as they are, when they hold my life as
worth less than theirs,” says Frantz Fanon, the healer. </span></div>
<a name='more'></a><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Click <a href="http://nakedpunch.com/articles/260">here</a> to read the full article.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
Reading Frantz Fanon Here & Nowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03552708300555707437noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6569690007877179636.post-72304125373252497912016-11-10T10:16:00.000+02:002016-11-17T10:17:29.648+02:00A Black Left Feminist View On Cedric Robinson’s Black Marxism<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Carole Boyce Davis, <i><a href="http://www.aaihs.org/a-black-left-feminist-view-on-cedric-robinsons-black-marxism/">AAIHS</a></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">My point of entry to this
engagement with Cedric Robinson’s Black Marxism: The Making of the Black
Radical Tradition is as a black left feminist–thanks to the formation defined
by Mary Helen Washington and used by Erik McDuffie in Sojourning for Freedom.
Indeed, black left feminism is one of the political positions that describes
Claudia Jones in my book though it was not explicitly indicated by using those
specific terms.</span></div>
<a name='more'></a><o:p></o:p><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">In
an earlier essay, I briefly engaged Cedric Robinson’s Black Marxism, largely
because it dedicated a substantial amount of space to describing the primary
actors or exemplars in the Black radical tradition. In his work, Robinson identifies three
intellectuals as illustrative of the black radical intellectual tradition –
W.E.B. Du Bois, C.L.R. James and Richard Wright. In this framing, one would
hardly get a sense that any women were major contributors to the Black radical tradition.
My students are still amazed when they read the work and activism of Ida B.
Wells and that she remains erased in most accounts of black intellectual
activism, even when her praxis clearly warrants inclusion. In his final
chapter, “An Ending,” Robinson gestures to a new generation and includes Angela
Davis but only in a listing of radical intellectual/activists (p. 450).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Still, I argue there that
his is a recognizable position—limited perhaps by its time and the nature of
intellectual work of that generation in which there was an absence of gender as
a category of analysis from their intellectual frameworks. That would come
later, but even a piece assigned to C.L.R. James, “The Revolutionary Answer to
the Negro Problem in the US” (1948) has a section titled “The Case of Negro
Women”; and there was already the publication of The Black Woman (1970) edited
by Toni Cade as well as Claudia Jones’s “An End to the Neglect of the Problems
of Negro Women” (1949/1974). Indeed, while in most formal left framings there
was always a “woman question,” there was an avoidance or as Claudia Jones would
say a “neglect” of black women as intellectual contributors.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">While Robinson offers the
critique that race and gender have been erased in Marxism, he repeats the same
error. The black gendered subject is also erased from his consideration at the
level of intellectual contribution. There is some diasporic breadth as he
includes C.L.R. James along with W.E.B. Du Bois and Richard Wright as the most
representative thinkers; he also has sections which examine older political
movements in the African Diaspora such as The Haitian Revolution and Palmares
in Brazil. Thus the book fulfills the
articulation of the radical tradition offered by Robin Kelley’s expansion,
which described it as always having “some kind of diasporic sensibility, shaped
by anti-racist and anti-imperialist politics.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">On the omission of
gender, a much more supportive take is offered by H.L.T. Quan, in which the
writer–a former student of Robinson–asserts appropriately that the “simplistic
inclusion of women does not, of itself, render a text feminist” but instead one
gets instances of women as self-activating subjects involved in various forms
of liberation. She also points out that Robinson explores the contributions of
women in his subsequent work, Black Movements of America. I find this reading
useful but still limited. Black Marxism like many of the works of its time
authored by male scholars, particularly Marxists, extended the reading to
include class and race, but did not see or have the tools (or did not care) to
articulate how gender was also implicated. So Quan’s reading is useful in the
sense that she sees Robinson’s work as open-ended, providing the space in which
a range of other intellectual projects could evolve.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">An
interesting and more recent essay by Aaron Kamugisha, raises a similar set of
issues about C.L.R. James’s omissions. In the James case, there is substantial
interest in women writers, his admitted mother’s influence, discussions with
his wife Selma James on issues that pertain to women’s labor, conversations
with Constance Webb and his assertion that Sylvia Winter was the brightest
brain in the Caribbean. But Kamugisha raises an interesting question in a
section titled “What if C.L.R. James Had Met Claudia Jones in 1948?” Here he is
not so much describing a possible physical meeting but an engagement with the
meaning of gender, race and class which Jones was able to articulate quite
seamlessly because her framework precisely included women, black people, and
workers–paying attention to where these overlapped. So let us also ask: what if
Cedric Robinson had read any work available on or by Claudia Jones? A perusal
of the bibliography reveals no such knowledge, even though that material was
available as indicated above.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;">One can offer, by way of
explanation, a modified version of the Fanon charge that each generation
advances its own analytical project and pursues different angles and new
readings based on what it is offered by history and its own conjuncture. This
is precisely what scholarship is supposed to do.</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">So it is for me less a suggestion that the
omissions are weaknesses than a claim that they always reveal lacunae in a
certain mode of thought until there is that creative leap to a new set of
positions. That creative leap was advanced by the work of a subsequent
generation of black feminists.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">The reach of scholars
like Cedric J. Robinson, whose career at Binghamton University (SUNY)–where I
also had my first academic appointment and was shaped as a scholar–was
legendary. As part of the World Systems Group, he deliberately situated the
black diasporic experience within an “international history of capitalism.” And
this remains a larger project even when the specific chosen primary actors are
re-engaged. What a Claudia Jones offers in this case then, within the context
of re-visioning, is a deliberate posing of where black women fit in this
arrangement and moves us beyond the tendency to “not read” black women’s work.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Still, we are definitely
in a period where there is the loss of a generation to which Cedric Robinson
belongs, and which attempted to theorize black left or new left politics.
Theirs was an optimistic politics, which assumed a forward movement and did not
anticipate the regressiveness of Trumpism. Missing now are the timely analyses
of C.L.R. James or Stuart Hall on the coalescing of what David Harvey calls the
“state-finance nexus” on the one hand in the person of a Trump and the
strategic alliance between transnational wealth and state in the person of a
Rodham-Clinton. In a way, we are left then with no optional leverage between
these two overlapping positions.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">What would someone
writing about the Black radical tradition today find still useful about Black
Marxism given the numerous false starts, failures and categorical punishments
meted out to those like the Black Panther Party willing to seek out more
interesting systems? Perhaps we can say we reached the limits of what is
possible with Black Marxism—we have seen its various analytical weaknesses as
we have gained new modes of seeing. Perhaps we can also say that its subtitling
The Making of the Black Radical Tradition is what remains salient and usable.
Stuart Hall, for example, indicates that in their search for a third way they
wanted to hold on to what Marxism offered but account for what it left out,
trying to find a pathway between older anti-capitalist critique and new
formations. According to Hall, “In my reading, this centred on the argument
that any prospect for the renewal of the left had to begin with a new
conception of socialism and a radically new analysis of the social relations,
dynamics and culture of post-war capitalism.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;">My sense is that we are
on the threshold of a new “conjuncture” in which 42% of millennials in the U.S.
say they would vote for a socialist government and the white working class
seems bereft of any union or left organizing and have therefore been allowed to
remain totally illiterate about their social conditions though with an innate sense
of being left behind. Trumpism enters that space of misinformation, illiteracy,
inadequacy and absence.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">And what of Black left
thought today? We are still clearly in the looking back mode—a “fifty years
after” framings of major events—without theoretical guidance for the future. A
Black Lives Matter movement exists but its actions remain sporadic and more
responsive than proactive. Elaine Brown former chairwoman of the Black Panther
Party is quoted in Spiked as critiquing their tendency to be more pacifist than
assertive, still requesting rights instead of assuming them.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">A number of questions
remain to be engaged. For me, the primary one is this: what kind of
theoretical/practical ideas can be generated–given the still tenuous lived
reality of black peoples worldwide–that can admit the limitations of past
movements (intellectual and/or political) but still move forward with new
agendas that refine past agendas and re-define new projects?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
Reading Frantz Fanon Here & Nowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03552708300555707437noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6569690007877179636.post-10252184869023966602016-11-01T09:55:00.001+02:002017-02-11T08:40:31.863+02:00Robin D. G. Kelley: Revisiting Black Marxism in the Wake of Black Lives Matter<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="384" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/xxRuTQZAT2Y" width="684"></iframe>Reading Frantz Fanon Here & Nowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03552708300555707437noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6569690007877179636.post-80670259864885846882016-10-27T11:01:00.001+02:002016-10-27T11:01:15.063+02:00To Remake the World: Slavery, Racial Capitalism, and Justice<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;">by Walter Johnson,<i> <a href="https://bostonreview.net/race/walter-johnson-slavery-human-rights-racial-capitalism">The Boston Review</a></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;"><i><br /></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;"><i>In Memory of Cedric Robinson (1940–2016)</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;">It is a commonplace to say that slavery “dehumanized”
enslaved people, but to do so is misleading, harmful, and worth resisting.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;">I hasten to add that there are, of course, plenty of
right-minded reasons for adopting the notion of “dehumanization.” It is hard to
square the idea of millions of people being bought and sold, of systematic
sexual violation, natal alienation, forced labor, and starvation with any sort
of “humane” behavior: these are the sorts of things that should never be done
to human beings. By terming these actions “inhuman” and suggesting that they
either relied upon or accomplished the “dehumanization” of enslaved people,
however, we are participating in a sort of ideological exchange that is no less
baleful for being so familiar. We are separating a normative and aspirational
notion of humanity from the sorts of exploitation and violence that history
suggests may well be definitive of human beings: we are separating ourselves
from our own histories of perpetration. To say so is not to suggest that there
is no difference between the past and the present; it is merely that we should
not overwrite the complex determinations of history with simple-minded notions
of moral progress.</span></div>
<a name='more'></a><b><i><br /></i></b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;"><b><i>Click <a href="https://bostonreview.net/race/walter-johnson-slavery-human-rights-racial-capitalism">here</a> to read the full article on the Boston Review site.</i></b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
Reading Frantz Fanon Here & Nowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03552708300555707437noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6569690007877179636.post-23031488301585023242016-08-29T12:58:00.002+02:002016-08-29T12:59:45.485+02:00The Podcast for Social Research, Episode 14: Violence and Resistance – Frantz Fanon<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "calibri"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">In
the fourteenth episode of the Podcast for Social Research, Anjuli, Tony, and
Ajay talk through the life, work, and legacy of Frantz Fanon, the Martiniquean
psychiatrist and philosopher of decolonization who was also a veteran of World
War II and an adherent of the Algerian revolution. This conversation takes up
major texts in Fanon’s oeuvre (<i>Black Skin, White Masks</i> and <i>The Wretched of the
Earth</i>) as well as profound theoretical controversies that radiate from
them—idiocy, the literary dimensions of Fanon’s work, his strangeness of form
and methodology, the psychological inflections of his writing, the political
structure of states and colonies, the best footnote in all of twentieth-century
philosophy, and particularly the nature and meaning of violence as praxis,
“perfect mediation,” symbol, and atmosphere—violence as reason to despair—and
as reason not to.</span></div>
<a name='more'></a><br /><o:p></o:p>
<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<o:OfficeDocumentSettings>
<o:AllowPNG/>
</o:OfficeDocumentSettings>
</xml><![endif]-->
<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<w:WordDocument>
<w:View>Normal</w:View>
<w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom>
<w:TrackMoves/>
<w:TrackFormatting/>
<w:PunctuationKerning/>
<w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/>
<w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>
<w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent>
<w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>
<w:DoNotPromoteQF/>
<w:LidThemeOther>EN-US</w:LidThemeOther>
<w:LidThemeAsian>JA</w:LidThemeAsian>
<w:LidThemeComplexScript>X-NONE</w:LidThemeComplexScript>
<w:Compatibility>
<w:BreakWrappedTables/>
<w:SnapToGridInCell/>
<w:WrapTextWithPunct/>
<w:UseAsianBreakRules/>
<w:DontGrowAutofit/>
<w:SplitPgBreakAndParaMark/>
<w:EnableOpenTypeKerning/>
<w:DontFlipMirrorIndents/>
<w:OverrideTableStyleHps/>
<w:UseFELayout/>
</w:Compatibility>
<m:mathPr>
<m:mathFont m:val="Cambria Math"/>
<m:brkBin m:val="before"/>
<m:brkBinSub m:val="--"/>
<m:smallFrac m:val="off"/>
<m:dispDef/>
<m:lMargin m:val="0"/>
<m:rMargin m:val="0"/>
<m:defJc m:val="centerGroup"/>
<m:wrapIndent m:val="1440"/>
<m:intLim m:val="subSup"/>
<m:naryLim m:val="undOvr"/>
</m:mathPr></w:WordDocument>
</xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" DefUnhideWhenUsed="true"
DefSemiHidden="true" DefQFormat="false" DefPriority="99"
LatentStyleCount="276">
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="0" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Normal"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="heading 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 7"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 8"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 9"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 7"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 8"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 9"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="35" QFormat="true" Name="caption"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="10" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Title"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="1" Name="Default Paragraph Font"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="11" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Subtitle"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="22" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Strong"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="20" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="59" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Table Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Placeholder Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="1" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="No Spacing"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Revision"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="34" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="List Paragraph"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="29" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Quote"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="30" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Intense Quote"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="19" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Subtle Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="21" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Intense Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="31" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Subtle Reference"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="32" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Intense Reference"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="33" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Book Title"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="37" Name="Bibliography"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" QFormat="true" Name="TOC Heading"/>
</w:LatentStyles>
</xml><![endif]-->
<!--[if gte mso 10]>
<style>
/* Style Definitions */
table.MsoNormalTable
{mso-style-name:"Table Normal";
mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0;
mso-tstyle-colband-size:0;
mso-style-noshow:yes;
mso-style-priority:99;
mso-style-parent:"";
mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt;
mso-para-margin:0in;
mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-fareast-language:JA;}
</style>
<![endif]-->
<!--StartFragment-->
<!--EndFragment--><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "calibri"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">You
can download <a href="http://traffic.libsyn.com/thebrooklyninstitute/Podcast_for_Social_Research_Episode_14.mp3">here</a> by right-clicking and “save as” or look us up on <a href="http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-podcast-for-social-research/id490267185">iTunes</a>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
Reading Frantz Fanon Here & Nowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03552708300555707437noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6569690007877179636.post-43152612589421892882016-08-05T16:52:00.004+02:002016-08-05T16:52:41.582+02:00Why Frantz Fanon Still Matters<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Nigel Gibson, <i><a href="http://www.thecritique.com/articles/why-frantz-fanon-still-matters/">The Critique</a></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">I<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<b style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 150%;">Living
Dream And Nightmare</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Over
sixty years ago, Frantz Fanon wrote <i>Black Skin White Masks</i> in hopes that it
would aid disalienation. He submitted the work as the thesis for his medical
degree at the University of Lyon in France. It was not accepted by his
supervisor and thus failed as a thesis. However, <i>Black Skin White Masks</i> has had
a remarkable afterlife as a foundational text across academic disciplines and
essential for radical social activists.</span></div>
<a name='more'></a><o:p></o:p><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Fanon
argues that the Black suffers in the body in quite a different way than the White.
What is the reason for this? It is because the Black is not recognized as fully
human, as a thinking and actional being. Wherever she goes, the Black remains
Black, an object put together by an Other, a phobogenic object, naturalized and
reduced to the biological, produced by social and economic realities and
reproduced in anecdotes, myths, and assumptions.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Fanon’s
specific concern was the tragic and impossible desire of gaining recognition
from the White Other. The situation is non-reciprocal. And in part the weight
of the racial gaze experienced in daily life, the double consciousness, as
DuBois called it, is the source of trauma and neurosis. One expression of this
alienation is what Fanon calls “fissipariousness” (expressing not only division
but literally breaking apart), manifested in modes of expression, tone of
voice, behavior and language (the Antillean will be whiter through the master
of French)[i] and at the same time Fanon argues, “The Black has two dimensions
one with his fellows, the other with Whites. . . That this self-division is a
result of colonial subjugation,” he adds “is beyond question.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Around
the same time <i>Black Skin White Masks</i> was published, Ralph Ellison described the
United States as a “nation of ethical schizophrenics” whose pathology of racism
“was deeply imbedded in the American ethos.” (1964: 99). It forced the Black
“into an inner world,” he said, “where reason and madness mingle with hope and
memory and endlessly give birth to nightmare and to dream” (1964 100).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">For
Fanon, this zone of the “Invisible Man,” is the zone of nonbeing, a “veritable
hell.” The “extraordinarily sterile and arid region” is more existential
nightmare and yet, still, there is a dream that from here “a genuine new
departure can emerge” (2008: xii).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Fanon’s
foundational question to Black Skin, “What does the Black want” thus opens up a
nihilistic syllogism:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">“The
Black wants to be recognized as human.</span><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"> </span><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">The
Black is not human.</span><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"> </span><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">The
Black must turn white or disappear” (2008: xii-xiv).</span></blockquote>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">This
source of tension is an open secret. The common “resentment” and what Fanon
calls an “affective anaphylaxis” (or serious rapid onset allergic reaction; he
often refers to medical analogies) leads Fanon to observe, “the Black’s first
action is a reaction” (Fanon 2008: 19). Indeed, neurosis is “normal” in a
racist society. The source is social, with “this ever-menacing death” connected
with material reality “and the absence of any hope for the future” (1965 128).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">How
can we break this nihilistic syllogism? By the utter destruction of the morbid
universe of anti-Black racism, he answers. Just as alienation must be diagnosed
socially, what Fanon calls disalienation is a social process fought “on the
subjective and objective level” (see 2008 xiv-xv) against “depersonalization on
a collective level” (2004 219).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 150%;"><b>(A)
Black Lives Matter</b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">What
does the Black want? To be recognized as human. The question and logic has
resonance with the idea of Black Lives Matter. Why? Because Black Lives Matter
is a demand not a request. In its gestures to humanism, it is an imminent
critique of White liberal humanism and its abstract universals, which, by
saying all lives matter, elides the concreteness and specificity of Black lives
mattering [See Thalos on the problems with the popular ‘all lives matter’
rebuttal].<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">In
other words, at the level of daily experience of Black life, especially the
life of Black youth, Black life does not seem to matter, or matters only as a
threat to civil society, which is normatively White. Put another way, in
cosmopolitan civil society, racially coded across space and place, Black life
is still not fully human.[ii]<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">In
fact, the Black—makes as Lewis Gordon puts it, an “illicit appearance” (Gordon
2015)—viewed as a phobogenic object, as well as a corrosive to moral values
(2004: 6). In this sense, Blackness is not life but what Fanon calls a living
death. And a stand must constantly be taken against it, which is why Fanon also
begins <i>Black Skin White Masks</i> with a note of hope.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">He
also dreams. He believes in humanity, in the possibility of understanding and
love and thus of course of reciprocity. Yet, equality in the face of the
criminal justice system continues to be illusory. The Black body is policed,
criminalized and incarcerated into a proverbial zone of nonbeing.[iii]<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">There
seems no way out. Fanon argues, “racism is the most visible … and the crudest
element of a given structure” (1967 32). In a racist society,[iv] the Black is
overdetermined from the outside—social and historically—reduced to the
racial-epidermis. Yes to love, Fanon writes. But there is no outside to the
racial gaze, which at once fixes and erases. To talk about life and love and
understanding is normal. To talk about Black life mattering is, however, not
normal, which is why the idea of Black Lives Matter begins with love, with
respect, and with dignity.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 150%;"><b>(B)
Breath</b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">In
the 1960s Fanon’s works became popular in the U.S. and his book The Wretched of
the Earth became the revolutionary “bible” of the Black movement. Today his
works still have a remarkable resonance even if translated from another time
and space.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">No
doubt things have changed as a result of constant struggles where nothing is
given for free: “There are laws that gradually disappear from the constitution.
There are other laws that prohibit certain forms of discrimination” (Fanon
2008: 196). But Eric Garner’s last words seemed to speak directly to Fanon’s
conception of the continued Black revolt in the United States. “We revolt
because we can’t breathe.” (Fanon 2008: 201)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">The
2014 suffocation of Eric Garner, whose last words were not only a literal plea
for help, as he struggled for his last breath with the police on his back, but
a Fanonian expression of Black experience of racism in many communities in the
United States.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Breathing
is of course essential to life, and is also an expression of Fanon’s vision of
a new humanism, “porous to all the breaths of the world” (as Fanon quoted
Césaire). And he concludes Black Skin connecting the difficulty of breathing
with the reason of revolt. Revolt “quite simply … because it became impossible
… to breathe, in more than one sense of the word.” (2008: 201). The person “who
takes a stand against this,” he adds, “is in a way a revolutionary” (2008:
199).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Fanon
uses the terms, “suffocated,” “hemmed in,” “smothered,” “imprisoned” to
describe the experience in The Wretched of the Earth, where the colonized are
forced to live in a “narrow world strewn with prohibitions” (1968 37; 2004: 3).
There must be revolt because life cannot be conceived “otherwise than as a kind
of combat … a combat breathing” (2004: 199; 1965 65).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 150%;"><b>(C)
Mental Health</b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">The
history of racism in the United States is intimately connected with the history
of mental health. The December 11th 2014 issue of the New York Times led with a
story uncovering the intimate connections between the American Psychological
Association (APA) and the post-911 American torture complex.[v]<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">On
the inside pages was a story that told of the continuing materiality of
institutional racism in American life and its terrible cost felt at the
individual level. I am talking about the sheer longevity, reproduction and
materiality of racism, aware of changes wrought by social struggles and by the
“evolution of exploitation” that sometimes may look as if racism has
disappeared and “no longer dares appear without disguise” (1967 37).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Racism,
in words, is not as an added element, but an essential and indeed modifying
element in American life and culture, arising out of slavery and reproduced in
ideas (crude and sophisticated), in cultural and in scientific discourses, from
eugenics, neo-eugenics, and DNA to neuroscience research on population “groups”
and brain MRIs.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">In
short, the idea is still playing out in America’s education system where
studies indicate that the darker the skin, the more likelihood of school
suspension.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Laying
aside for a moment the continued social science materiality of racial classifications,
we need to ponder for a moment this objectivity: “Black girls with the darkest
skin tones were three times more likely to be suspended than girls with the
lightest skin.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">The
stereotypes of race and gender inscribed as a disciplinary practice are
expressed quite openly: “when a darker-skinned African-American female acts up
there’s a certain concern about their boyish aggressiveness” and “researchers
say black girls tend to be penalized more subjectively, like for having a bad
attitude or being defiant.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">I
take subjectively here to be the product of a racial gaze on the look out for
the black girl’s defiance. Summing it, The Times article quoted Jamilia Blake a
professor of educational psychology at Texas A & M: “while black boys are
seen as threatening, black girls are often seen as ‘unsophisticated,
hypersexualized, and defiant.”’<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">The
latent messages are remarkably consistent over time. Black boys are seen as
threatening, Black girls are defiant. If Black teens and pre-teens react to
objectification they are “aggressive.” Girls become hypersexualized (and
therefore not feminine), which is already assumed for boys. The game is already
rigged: Reaction is pathologized and criminal. The Black becomes a pathological
type, quick to temper.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">In
the article we are told of Mikia Hutching, a slight 12 year old, “whose voice
barely raises above a whisper” and whom teachers describe as “very focused.”
She got into trouble writing on the wall at school. Accused of vandalism she
was fined $100, which the family could not afford. Because the family couldn’t
pay, the police showed up at her house and served her papers. In a plea deal
she agreed to criminal trespass and spent the summer on probation. The white
girl who had also written on the wall paid the restitution and faced no
charges. Mikia was criminalized. The 12 year old who had written “hi” on the
wall felt the full force of the “society.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">The
experience was traumatic. She was frightened; she couldn’t eat. She had become
the problem, a problem that reflected her essence, internalizing the problem,
as her failure, and her anxiety. But what of the society which creates it. Can
we consider this social failure?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 150%;">II</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><b>Failure?[vi]</b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Every
contact between the occupied and the occupier is a falsehood.</span></blockquote>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"> </span><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 150%;">Fanon,
“<i>Algeria unveils herself</i>”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">It
might seem counter-intuitive to argue that failure is an essential element of
Fanon’s dialectic of liberation. I am not only thinking of Hegel’s pithy
sentence that error is a dynamic of truth[vii] but a kind of historical
necessity to think critically through failure.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Fanon
does not begin with failure. Indeed, the necessity to patiently analyze failure
begins from the test of humanist universals. As a young man, he left Martinique
to join up with the Free French Army.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">After
being deployed through North Africa and then taking part in the Battle of
Alsace in 1945, his initial enthusiasm turned bitter. About his decision “to
fight for an obsolete ideal,” he wrote to his parents that he was questioning
everything, even himself. [viii]<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">And
yet from this moral failure he asks, by way of Karl Jaspers’ notion of
metaphysical guilt, Why is there not enough “solidarity among human beings as
human beings that makes each co-responsible for every wrong and every injustice
in the world, especially for crimes committed in his presence or with his
knowledge”?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">It
has been almost 55 years since Fanon died, a period marked by struggles,
victories, defeats and truces, and also continual oppression, exploitation,
repression, criminalization, imprisonment and a daily death at the hands of
police.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Hillary
Clinton’s super predator comment was no slip of the tongue. What is new is not
that she was taken to task for it twenty years later but this became front page
news thus reflecting this moment when the idea of Black lives mattering has
caught the imagination.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Clinton’s
choice of language is eerily presaged in The Wretched of the Earth where Fanon
speaks of the North African’s “predatory instinct and aggressivity” as “known
facts” straight out of the handbook of ethnopsychiatry (2004: 223):<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">One
of the characteristics of the Algerian people established by colonialism is
their appalling criminality. Prior to 1954 magistrates, police, lawyers,
journalists, and medical examiners were unanimous that the Algerian’s
criminality posed a problem. The Algerian, it was claimed, was a born criminal
… born idlers, born liars, born thieves, and born criminals (2004: 221).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Clinton’s
1996 statement was an expression of more than a decade long populist law and
order campaign presage on racial threat, legal reform and incarceration that
was connected with the neoliberal restructuring of the economy with devastating
effects on Black working class communities.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Increasing
pauperization and criminalization were linked to the “war on drugs,” three strikes
you are out, anti-gang legislation, stop and search, and mass incarceration and
mandatory sentencing. These political, economic, and social policies were all
parts of a program to control, discipline, subdued and pacify (see 2004: 228)
and became especially pronounced in the aftermath of the Los Angeles rebellion
of 1992.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">It
is estimated that on average the police kills a Black person everyday. We can
accumulate data as if this is a question of debate, but facts cannot be
separated from ground as Hegel advises, and to privilege the accumulation of
“facts” is to accept the ethnocentric, sociocentric (let alone socioeconomic)
ground on which they stand. “Cataloguing reality [is]… a colossal task,” Fanon
repeats. “We accumulate facts … but with every line we write … we get the
feeling of something unfinished” (2008 147). Unfinished indeed.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<b><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"> </span><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 150%;">(A)
The Failure of Reciprocity</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">“This
woman sees without being seen frustrates the colonizer. There is no
reciprocity. She does not yield herself”.</span></blockquote>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 150%;"><i>Algeria Unveils Herself </i>(1965 44)</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">European
humanism, namely its racism and chauvinism internalized by the colonized, has
severe psychological costs and the goal of Black Skin as a project of
disalienation simply put, is an “inner revolution” (2008 175).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">In
his catalogue of the failure of humanism, Fanon turns to Hegel’s master/slave
dialectic from the point of view of the Antillean now “emancipated” by the
former white master. Fanon does not simply dismiss Hegel’s notion of
reciprocity, but argues that the movement of Hegel’s dialectic, which begins
with equal self-consciousnesses meeting each other in a struggle for
recognition, does not operate because,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">“The
upheaval reached the black from the outside. The black was acted upon. Values
that were not engendered by the black’s actions …. The black went from one way
of life to another, but not from one life to another” (2008: 194)[ix]<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Since
there is no risk of life in the struggle for freedom, Fanon argues, the former
slave cannot be recognized as an equal, and even when there is a struggle, it
is framed by “white values.” In other words, in contrast to a new life demanded
in and through a particular liberation struggle, the former slave continues to
look to the former master for recognition. Reciprocity fails, and Fanon
concludes, the Antillean is doomed to look to the master.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">In
contrast, the American Black who continually fights and no quarter is given,
lives in a different drama. This is the history and thought of black America’s
freedom struggle (2008: 196).[x] Fanon notion of culture as a “fighting
culture” emerges in these struggles. In part, this is the dialectical necessity
of Black consciousness that philosophical thought teaches us is guarantee of
genuine reciprocity (2004: 179).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">This
dual moment, of failure and struggle expressed by these two Black characters,
the Antillean and the American, could be considered singularly, as one
character (double consciousness) or one movement, self-opposed, in which the
internal engagement with failure is critical.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">This
doubleness is reproduced in Fanon’s critique of decolonization. While there is
a class character to Fanon’s critique of the nationalist middle class, the gulf
between it and the mass of people is both material and ideational: The
opposition between the colonized intellectuals who have internalized European
values (2004 11) and the colonized who vomit them up.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">The
intellectual’s problem is their inability to attribute any reason to the
popular mass movements. The intellectuals think that those who have not been
formally educated can’t think. Consequently, rather than shifting the geography
of reason, they reinscribe colonial values (and elitism) by substituting
themselves for the people in the name of the nation, and achieve political
power within the state by looking out for their narrow interests without
transforming the state of the people’s social reality in any way.[xi]<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Speaking
of the United States, Hoyt Fuller argued that “On every notable front, the
state of well-being of ordinary Black people diminishes at the same rate as the
number of BEOs [Black Elected Officials] increases” (quoted in Turner 2015:
255).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">In
contrast, Fanon not only admonishes this narrow bourgeois interest but also
argues that decolonization is the work of turning everything upside down
through rethinking everything with the people who have been systematically
dehumanized.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 150%;"><b>(B)
Failure as elemental resistance</b>[xii]</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">“The
colonized’s indolence is a conscious way of sabotaging the colonial regime; on
the biological level it is a remarkable system of self-preservation”. </span></blockquote>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Fanon,
<i>The Wretched</i>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">“It
may well be that our world is in dire need of a new organization, The
International Association for the Advancement of Creative Maladjustment”. </span></blockquote>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Martin Luther King, Jr., “<i>The Role of the Behavioral Scientist in the Civil
Rights Movement</i>”.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Employed
by the colonial state as a psychiatrist at Blida-Joinville Hospital, Fanon was
asked by the court to conduct psychological evaluations of those who had
confessed to crimes. In an article “Confession among North Africans,” he makes
the point that about 80% of those who had confessed later deny their confession
and refuse to talk with the authorities.[xiii]<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Written
before his commitment to the Algerian revolution, Fanon does not say that the
denial of confession is an elemental political act, but it is the “failure” of
the notion of rehabilitation, the idea of accepting guilt as part of the work
of being rehabilitated back into the community, applied to the colonial
situation that also interests him.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">But
what is assimilation here? The actions of those who deny their confession can
be understood in terms of actions in the face of a pseudo-society, that of Kabylian
customary law framed by colonialism. Pathologized as almost hysterical
behavior, and framed by ethnopsychiatric notions of the Kabylian personality,
these individual actions are elemental resistances to the assimilation framed
by the master.[xiv]<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">The
history of racism in the United States is also intimately connected with
ethnopsychiatry. In the 19th century, diagnoses reflected slave-holding
interests in the context of revolt. Slaves who attempted to run away were
considered mad and diagnosed with Drapetomania (from drapetes, “a runaway
[slave],” and mania, madness). The cure was whipping.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">In
the 20th century, race became a pathology, and in 1968 after more than a decade
of Black revolt, leading psychiatrists (Walter Bromberg and Franck Simon)
conceived a diagnosis “protest psychosis,” considering Black power a
“delusional anti-whiteness.”[xv]<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">One
example of this pathologization can be seen in an advertisement in the Archive
of General Psychiatry (1974 31,5:732-733) for Haldol, an antipsychotic drug first
issued in 1967. In a color scheme reminiscent of the cover of the classic
American edition of The Wretched of the Earth—black against a burning orange
background–an angry Black man with clenched fist and teeth stares at the
viewer. The advert asks: “Assaultive and belligerent?” and answers:
“Cooperation often begins with Haldol.[xvi]<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Notwithstanding
the 2008 election of our first African American President, declares a 2013
Mental Health America report, “racism continues to have an impact on the mental
health of African Americans”[xvii] contributing “to high rates of hypertension,
heart disease, and other stress-related illnesses in the black community”
(Poussaint and Alexander 2000: 74) with the poisoning in Flint, Michigan being
the latest public health experiment on a poor Black community.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Over-diagnosed
with schizophrenia and other serious mental disorders at four times the rate of
Whites (Metzl 2010 x),[xviii] reported Black American psychological stress is
20 percent higher than that among Whites but Blacks are less likely to pursue
medical treatment regardless of availability and more likely to be subject to
institutional violence. Systematically excluded from social, economic, health,
and educational resources, many Black people continue to view white doctors and
psychiatrists with distrust.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 150%;"><b>(C)
The lie of the situation</b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">“The
“truth” of the oppressor, formerly rejected as an absolute lie, was now
countered by another, an acted truth”. </span></blockquote>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Fanon, “<i>This is the Voice of Algeria</i>”.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">“The
duty of the colonized is to have the slightest effort literally dragged out of
them… [and] for us who are determined to break the back of colonialism, our
historic missions is to authorize every revolt”. </span></blockquote>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Fanon, <i>The Wretched of the
Earth</i>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">“In
the colonial world, the colonized’s affectivity is kept on edge like an open
sore flinching from a caustic agent,” Fanon remarks, and the psyche retracts,
is obliterated, and finds an outlet through muscular spasms that have caused
many an expert to classify the colonized as hysterical and violent (see 2004:
19, translation altered).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">For
the colonized and “disinherited in all parts of the world,” he adds, “life [is]
not a flowering or a development of an essential productiveness, but as a
permanent struggle against an omnipresent death”(1965 128, my emphasis).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Reaction
is an element of resistance. A refusal. An organic scream against this life
that resembles what he calls an “incomplete death.” “Acts of refusal or
rejection of medical treatment are not a refusal of life, but a greater
passivity before that close and contagious death.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Reflecting
on a previous period of reactive resistance he argues that these acts “reveals
the colonized native’s mistrust of the colonizing technician. The technician’s
words are always understood in a pejorative way,” and “the truth objectively
expressed is constantly vitiated by the lie of the colonial situation.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">The
lack of nuance reflects the lack of nuance, so much so that, even when they
were values worth choosing (1967c 62) [namely antibiotics or some other drug or
procedure we might consider absolutely beneficial], they are a rejection of
European medicine because any “qualification” would be “perceived by the
occupier as an invitation to perpetuate the oppression, as a confession of
congenital impotence.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Fanon’s
approach to understand the colonized’s lie in the face of colonialism’s
“objectivity” requires another methodological point, namely that each one of
the reactions of the colonized is “analyze[d], patiently and lucidly, and that
every time we don’t understand … we must tell ourselves that we are at the
heart of the drama-that of the impossibility of finding a meeting ground”
(1967c 125).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">What
is at stake is not simply the failure of assimilation but also a refusal to be
complicit with assimilation, namely, that any complicity is felt as a
psychological breach. One can see how this is characterized by a reactive
resistance. There is no nuance. Simply put, any type of medical, educational,
and legal technician, whoever it is, reproduces systems of power and
dehumanization.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">This
is the Manichean world that Fanon tries to explain; the ways in which colonial
medicine, considered an unquestioned good, must be rejected. The way the
hospital is seen not as a place of recovery, but death. The physician, the
psychiatrist, and the researcher from the university cannot be trusted.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Confronting
this paradox leads us to the heart of the problem.[xix] The idea that Black
lives matter has highlighted resonances in Black communities in the United
States where the criminalization of Black youth is an expression of the
phenomena where the militarized police, the schools, the courts, and indeed
mental health professionals, are all understood as being part of the same
system. The racist structure is a total one, reproduced in socially,
economically, politically and culturally and also in the mental health of the
people.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Here
again, the apparent illogical refusal in the face of objective facts is based
on a will to resist and disavow “congenital impotence” in the face of superior
forces and technology, which seeks legitimization of its persistence in its
works.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">The
colonized reaction against this physical and psychical oppression “in the name
of [this] truth and reason,” often fragmented, isolated and pathologized is a
“remarkable system of self preservation” (2004: 220), but when it explodes into
a new movement, like Black Lives Matter, new truths and new meanings are
revealed.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<b><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"> </span><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 150%;">(D)
Wither consciousness?</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 150%;">Fanon’s
work as a psychiatrist is often overlooked as an essential element of his
humanist philosophy and still has practical applications to the issue of mental
illness and Black life in America.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Fanon’s
biographer, Alice Cherki argues that his refusal to call the police on patients
who were violent and labeled as dangerous was connected with his wish to find
“an ever-increasing connection with them, by involving them in an effort of
mental reciprocity.” “He countered the violence of the mentally alienated
other,” she argues, “by using language and acknowledgment to open a space for
negotiation.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">He
also understood the ways in which the personality expressed the psychic wounds
that had been inflicted on it by violence, and insofar as it was possible, he
tried to avoid a repetition of a similar violence in the therapeutic response
(2006: 73). In short, he refused to call the police.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Over
a quarter of Black people killed during encounters with police in the U.S. in
2015 were identified by family members, friends or police as having a mental
health disorder. In this context, let me conclude by remembering these stories.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Denis
Reyes, a Bronx man, depressed and diagnosed with schizophrenia told his mother
he didn’t feel well. He became increasingly anxious and agitated. His mother,
who doesn’t speak English, called 911 for an ambulance. Eight policemen
arrived. Pacified, he was held down by brute strength and couldn’t breathe. He
died before he got to hospital. His story was so unremarkable that it hardly
registered in the media.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Sarah
Reed. A 32-year-old, slight, British Black woman was murdered at Holloway
Prison in January 2016. Suffering severe mental illness after the death of her
baby, she became severely depressed. In 2012, a policeman beat her up after an
arrest for shoplifting. The beating was caught on CCTV. She was punched on the
head while he was kneeling on her. He was charged, and sentenced to 150 hours
of community service.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Sectioned
late last year to the famous Maudsley psychiatric Hospital in London, she was
arrested after defending herself from what she believed was an attempted rape
by another patient. No community service for her. She was sent to Holloway
Prison (the women’s prison in London that force fed the suffragettes over 100
years ago).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">How
did a woman with a history of mental illness end up there? The courts, the
police, and the mental health services which was supposed to protect her,
colluded in her incarceration and her death. A collusion that echoes Fanon’s
critique of psychiatry in the colonial world.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Sarah
Reed and Denis Reyes. Saying their names highlights why Black lives still don’t
matter; but Fanon admonishes, “As soon as you and your fellows are cut down
like dogs there is no other solution but to use every means available to
reestablish your weight as a human being” (2004: 221). On that ground,
reciprocity can begin.[xx]<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><b>Footnotes
& References</b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[1]
Cherki, Alice. 2006. <i>Fanon: A Portrait</i> Ithaca Cornell UP.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[2]
Ellison, Ralph. 1964. <i>Shadow and Act</i> New York: Vintage<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[3]
Fanon, Frantz. 1965. <i>A Dying Colonialism</i> New York: Grove Press.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">_______.
1967. <i>Toward the African Revolution</i> New York: Grove Press<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">_______.
1968; 2004 <i>The Wretched of the Earth</i> New York: Grove Press.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">_______.
2008. <i>Black Skin White Masks</i> New York: Grove Press.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[4]
Fanon, Joby. 2014. <i>My Brother: Doctor, Playwright, Revolutionary</i> Lanham MD:
Lexington Books<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[5]
Gordon, Lewis. 2015. <i>What Fanon Said</i> New York: Fordham UP.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[6]
James, C.L.R. 1980. <i>Notes on Dialectics: Hegel, Marx, Lenin</i> London: Allison and
Busby.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[7]
Marriott, David. 2011. <i>Whither Fanon? Textual Practice</i>, 25:1, pp. 33-69.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[8]
Metzl, Jonathan. 2010. <i>The Protest Psychosis: How Schizophrenia Became a Black
Disease</i> New York: Beacon Press.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[9]
Poussaint, Alvin F. and Amy Alexander. 2000. <i>Lay My Burden Down: Suicide and
the Mental Health Crisis among African-Americans</i> Boston: Beacon.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[10]
Turner, Lou. 2015. “Race, Rights and Rebellion in the Custodial State: A
Post-Los Angeles Marxian Reconstruction,” <i>Critical Sociology</i>, Vol. 41(2)
249–281<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[11]
Vega, Tanzina. 2014. “Discipline for Girls Differs Between and Within Races,”
<i>New York Times</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">—————————————————-<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[i]
Contrast this ontological logic with the shift in attitudes toward the French
language during the Algerian revolution where it begun to lose its accursed
character and be used in FLN communications (for example the radio, see Fanon
1965).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[ii]
That is, not a human being with the free will and morality that according to
liberal philosophy defines humanity.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[iii]
Indeed, the prison industrial complex (state penal institutions, profit-driven
prison corporations, hand in glove with courts and government sentencing) has,
witnessed an explosion in the population of women prisoners in the United
States along with a boom in prison construction. According to sources,
including the US justice department, about 12% of the US population is black
and about 40% to 45% of the US prison population is black and an increasingly
number are women.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[iv]
Or a post-racial society, which in Lewis Gordon’s terms is “little more than a
way of referring to continued racism that is simply now ashamed of itself.”
(Gordon 2015: 20).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[v]
We should remember that for Fanon torture is not accidental but is inherent in
a system where life does not matter: a product of “systematic racism, of
dehumanization rationally pursued” (Fanon 1967 64). The medical profession is
intimately involved as technicians in a coherent system where affective and
personality changes correspond to different methods of torture (2004: 207). The
literal drowning of waterboarding is just one method.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[vi]
My speculations on the idea of failure are indebted to Lewis Gordon’s What
Fanon Said and his discussion of failure and the paradox of failure in Black
Skin White Masks (see especially Gordon 2015: 19-46).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[vii]
“Only out of this error does the truth arise,” as Hegel puts it in A Smaller
Logic, a notion that CLR James admired and related to the self-understanding of
the proletariat and the self-belief that the lies with itself, and “not with
anything which claims to represent it or direct it,” [1980: 92] could be
directly related to Fanon’s notion of the historical becoming of the wretched
of the earth)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[viii]
This did not make him cynical. Indeed one can say that there was not one
cynical bone in his body and that Fanon remained committed to fighting
injustice wherever he found it (see the footnote on Jaspers in 2008: 69).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[ix]
He adds a medical analogy, “Just as a patient suffers a relapse after being
told that their condition has improved and that they will shortly be leaving
the asylum, so the news of emancipation for the slaves caused psychoses and
sudden death” (2008: 1945, my emphasis).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[x]
Certainly the history of the Antilles is also the history of revolt beginning
with the Haitian revolution. We should note, however, Fanon’s notion of the
Antillean here is conceptually specific. That is to say the Antilles,
particularly Martinique as postcolonial reflected by resentiment and
comparaison (for example, see Fanon 2008: 185-187).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[xi]
Such reflection he argues, intimately connected with the struggle, uncovers
“unknown facets … new meanings and underlines contradictions that had been
camouflaged by this reality” (2004: 95, translation altered).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[xii]
One can consider Fanon article, “Sociotherapy in a Muslim male ward,” as a
didactic of failure. Alice Cherki recounts an astonishing discussion in the
wake of the “failure” of the sociotherapy experiment in the Men’s Muslim ward
at Blida Hospital after having succeeded in the European women’s ward,
indicating not only the educative value of failure, but also the notion of
education as a social and dialogic process in which all are involved: “Was
Fanon’s attempt to impose European ‘methodologies’ on Muslim patients a genuine
‘mistake,’ or had he consciously implemented a plan that he knew was doomed to
failure from the outset? Asks Cherki: [W]hen Charles Geronimi, another intern,
approached Fanon a year or so after the fact to express his surprise that the
author of Black Skin, White Masks and “The North African Syndrome” could have
been so wide off the mark, Fanon reportedly smiled and said: “You can only
understand things with your gut, you know. It was not simply a matter of
imposing imported methods that had been more or less adapted to the native
mentality. I also had to demonstrate a number of things in the process: namely,
that the values of Algerian culture are different from those of colonial
culture; that these structuring values had to be embraced without any complexes
by those to whom they pertained-the Algerian medical staff as well as the
Algerian patients. I needed to have the support of the Algerian staff in order
to incite them to rebel against the prevailing method, to make them realize
that their competence was equal to that of the Europeans. The burden of
suggesting appropriate forms of socialization and integrating them into the
sociotherapy process had to be placed on the Algerian staff. (Cherki 2006:
70-71).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[xiii]
Here in colonial Algeria, the authorities are not the colonial civil
authorities but Kabylian “customary” authorities which are brokered by
colonialism.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[xiv]
The “refusal” to cooperate is often connected with fatalism (in The Wretched he
simply says that the colonized “does not accept guilt” (2004: 16).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[xv]
In the same period, the idea of schizophrenia made a remarkable shift from a
condition associated with “White feminine docility” to that of “angry Black
masculinity” (Metzl 2010 xv, 89). In his brilliant book, The Protest Psychosis:
How Schizophrenia Became a Black Disease, Jonathan Metzl points out how this
shift was marked in the second edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual
of Mental Disorders (DSM) published in 1968. Schizophrenia was recast as a
“disorder of masculinized belligerence” with the manual asserting, “the
patient’s attitude is frequently hostile and aggressive” (quoted in Metzl xi).
DSM strove to be “objective” opined its compiler Robert Spitzer, but argues
Metzl (2010 98), it “mirrored the social context of its origins in ways that
enabled users to knowingly or unknowingly pathologize protest as mental
illness.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[xvi]
The image for a 1955 advert for the anti-psychotic Thorazine had an image of
women quietly undertaking ergotherapy in the hospital ward. See Metzl
“Mainstream Anxieties about Race in Antipsychotic Drug Ads,” Virtual Mentor
June 2012, 14: 6 pp. 494-502.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[xvii]
http://www.mentalhealthamerica.net/african-american-mental-health<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[xviii]
See http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2574307/pdf/jnma00207-0025.pdf<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[xix]
Viewing the European doctor and European medicine not as an unalloyed good but
part of the same system as the police and the military simply reflects the fact
that the doctor “belongs to the dominant society and very often to the army”
(1965 121). What was the daily living death under colonialism becomes the
literal work of the medical personnel to keep “the tortured … hovering between
life and death.” The doctor continually intervenes to “give the prisoner back
to the pack of torturers” (Fanon 1965 138). Since the APA Council of
Representatives voted to adopt a new policy barring psychologists from
participating in national security interrogations, it should be noted that the
policy does not cover participation in America’s prison industrial complex.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[xx]
I was going to leave it there, but Fanon continues almost as a duty and indeed
as a belief in the humanity of the most dehumanized. Here he is speaking of the
torturers. Fanon adds, “You must therefore weigh as heavily as possible on your
torturer’s body so that his wits, which have wandered off somewhere, can at
last be restored to their human dimension” (2004: 221, my emphasis). Based on
necessity to uproot a system, which tortures, destroys, and crushes the human
being, this consideration of the humanity of the torturer in a chapter that has
analyzed the torturer’s work and sadism in The Wretched of the Earth is in
itself remarkable.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
Reading Frantz Fanon Here & Nowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03552708300555707437noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6569690007877179636.post-12198723136489355082016-08-04T08:26:00.000+02:002017-02-11T08:47:22.696+02:00Robin D.G. Kelley - Mike Brown's Body: A Meditation on War, Race, & Democracy<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="360" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/dQnw2IW9yiE" width="640"></iframe>Reading Frantz Fanon Here & Nowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03552708300555707437noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6569690007877179636.post-44817542531942277332016-07-21T12:33:00.000+02:002016-07-23T12:36:14.539+02:00On Frantz Fanon: An Interview With Lewis R. Gordon<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifhOgsNy7e8vr7nbl3QW2HYIcpMcrkU24cDildT6J7eBnMGItn8XdvsEgZk0sESqek_Drlx_a379FyQL7mJPJrN31RQkQ9zv-JO-zUVsXSo9cm8ebSyGNyU7_-t60UL5B4Hd9p9Yxp0b4/s1600/index.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifhOgsNy7e8vr7nbl3QW2HYIcpMcrkU24cDildT6J7eBnMGItn8XdvsEgZk0sESqek_Drlx_a379FyQL7mJPJrN31RQkQ9zv-JO-zUVsXSo9cm8ebSyGNyU7_-t60UL5B4Hd9p9Yxp0b4/s320/index.jpg" width="179" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Lewis Gordon</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 150%;"><i><a href="http://www.aaihs.org/on-frantz-fanon/">African-American Intellectual History Society</a></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 150%;"><b><br /></b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 150%;"><b>Kirchgassner</b>:
Describe the time in your life when you first read Frantz Fanon. What were your
initial impressions of his writings and why is Fanon still important for your
own work today?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><b>Gordon:</b>
I first attempted to read Fanon when I was about thirteen years of age. My
uncle, Shaleem Solomon, is a Rastafarian. He had a collection of books on Black
Liberation, which included writings by Almicar Cabral, Frantz Fanon, and Kwame
Nkrumah. I found Fanon’s prose gripping, but I didn’t yet know about the
thinkers to whom he was referring and the contexts of his discussion beyond the
clear ones of colonialism and racism. Those ideas stayed in the back of my
mind, however, as I soon after at fourteen read works by Malcolm X, James
Baldwin, and Angela Davis, with additions of G.W.F. Hegel and Karl Marx. When I
read Jean-Jacques Rousseau during my years at Lehman College, I kept hearing
the voice of Fanon. I was delighted to see <i>Les Damnés de la terre</i> (“<i>The Damned
of the Earth</i>,” more popularly known as “<i>The Wretched of the Earth</i>”) in M. Shawn
Copeland’s graduate seminar on Political Theology when I was a doctoral student
at Yale, and the supervisor of my dissertation, the late Professor Maurice
Natanson, was very enthusiastic about his inclusion in the thesis. Fanon became
a constant presence in my work because he addressed human affairs, particularly
those pertaining to Black people, with a heavy dose of something often
unfashionable in the academy: reality.</span></div>
<a name='more'></a><o:p></o:p><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><b>Kirchgassner</b>:
How did you settle on the title of the book, <i>What Fanon Said?</i> What message were
you trying to convey to readers?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><b>Gordon</b>:
Fanon is often accused of saying things he simply did not say or write. Some of
them emerged from terrible translations of the original French. Others are from
a lack of understanding of the contexts of his arguments, which raised the
question of the meaning of his statements. But there is more. I wrote a book
called An Introduction to Africana Philosophy, in which I explored, among many
things, the problem of articulating Black intellectual history in a world that
tends to de-intellectualize Black intellectual work. That book examined a vast
array of writings on ideas posed by an African Diaspora. This book brings that
task to the study of a specific Black intellectual with a critique of the
prevailing tendencies of subordinating thought to biography. Implicit in what
Fanon said is also what he thought, and I wanted to bring that dimension of his
work to the fore.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><b>Kirchgassner</b>:
In your opinion, what aspect of Fanon’s thought is the most misinterpreted or
misunderstood?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><b>Gordon</b>:
Much of his thought is misunderstood, but two aspects that are egregiously so
are his reflections on violence and what many critics perceive to be his ideas
about interracial relationships. In
terms of the first, many fail to see that Fanon hated violence. His point was that it was impossible to
attempt to reduce or eliminate it without entanglement. The situation was
tragic: Doing nothing about violence facilitates its persistence.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">In
terms of the second, Fanon wasn’t against interracial relationships, and his
discussion wasn’t about the woman of color and the man of color. It was a
critique of specific pathologies made manifest by colonialism and racism and
the limitations they pose for dominating views of the human sciences,
particularly Lacanian psychoanalysis. These pathologies took the form of seeking
legitimation and recognition from a specific source. In classical and Lacanian
psychoanalysis, women became such through seeking the love, and by extension
approval, of a man. The man became what he is through being able to give his
love to a woman. This heteronormative
model was advanced as how or what human beings are, and it made sex and gender
primary or ontologically basic—that is, absolute. Fanon showed, however,
examples of women of color who didn’t want love but instead a form of lie in
which a white man would, in his relationship with them, facilitate something
they wanted to believe: that they were not really black. This at first would
appear as the old order of seeking male approval, but the problem here is that
a black man cannot offer this. In fact, it works if the white man who does so
also hates black people—is, in other words, a racist. His “love,” then, cannot
be premised on anything other than such women supposedly not being black.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Fanon,
however, turns to the case of a black man who is also seeking legitimation
through receiving testimony against his being black. What many critics miss is that the
heteronormative schema falls apart. Although the white woman in the example
offers her love, her beloved rejects her and manipulates the reception of a
letter from a white man who ultimately informs her black beloved that he is not
really black but is instead—and get this—“extremely brown.” In effect, then,
this pathological search for escape through recognition challenges any view
that makes sex and gender the exclusive conditions for psychoanalysis: Both the
black woman and black man in the examples seek recognition from the same
source—the white man. This could only be accounted for through looking at the
impact of social and political conditions on psychological reality. Colonialism
and racism, he averred, always bring in the socio-historical factors that
contradict prevailing models of patriarchy and gender-based subjectivity.
Fanon’s discussion thus raises questions such as how whiteness functions in
relation to gender under colonialism and racism, which means other questions
could emerge—such as how these concerns would play out in same-sex relations. I
elaborate other considerations in What Fanon Said and I’ve also discussed these
matters and their relationship to concerns of power and politics in other
articles and books.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><b>Kirchgassner</b>:
One of the many reasons your book is an essential resource for beginners and
advanced students in Fanon studies is that you translate Fanon’s writings using
the original French texts. What is the significance of this approach? How does
the use of the original French texts enhance our understanding of Fanon and/or
alter commonly held perceptions of Fanon’s ideas?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><b>Gordon</b>:
I aimed through my translations to bring clarity to what Fanon was arguing and
also to address some unfortunate claims about the man and his thought. For instance, the semiological argument he
was making in some places required using the expression “the black” or “the
Black” instead of “the black man.” In some crucial passages, he distinguishes
pederasty (sleeping with minors) from homosexuality. He argued the former was
abnormal but the latter was normal. Yet, critics accused him of being a homophobe
because one translation simply placed “homosexual” for both. There are many
other examples. I also chose not to translate some words so readers could
interpret the ambiguities on their own. Thus, I simply write le nègre without
translation since it has a double meaning in French; in addition to describing
color it also connotes the equivalent of the very pejorative “n” word in
English.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 150%;"><b>Kirchgassner</b>:
Your analysis of Fanon and the blues illuminates what you call his “Euromodernist
predilections.” Could you elaborate on this point and also describe what led
you to focus on this topic?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><b>Gordon</b>:
I love and respect Fanon. For me, that means not idolizing him. Thus, I state
my disagreements with his positions here and there, as I would in a study of
any intellectual to whose work I devote serious study. Fanon, influenced by the
surrealists via the Négritude movement, privileged written poetry and looked
down at Black popular music, especially the blues. The importance of music extends well beyond
its performance. I argue that the blues is also existential and offers a sense
of mature reflection that enabled it to be the leitmotif of modern life.
Interestingly enough, Fanon admired be-bop because of its sophistication and
the extent to which it irritated white critics who were, in the end, afraid of
Black genius.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><b>Kirchgassner</b>:
How would you summarize the significance of Fanon’s ideas for a new generation
of black activists engaged in the continued struggles for black equality in the
United States and across the globe?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><b>Gordon</b>:
Many activists have been using Fanon’s name and his words in struggles across
the world. He, along with Steve Bantu Biko, is the voice of struggles in South
Africa; he is so across disenfranchised and alienated peoples of Asia,
Europe—everywhere. In the USA and the UK, large crowds show up to book sessions
and workshops on his work for obvious reasons: his ideas speak to current
struggles. Rather poignantly, it was he who said, in Year V of the Algerian Revolution,
that revolution is “the oxygen that invents the new humanity.” Eric Garner’s
last words, “I can’t breathe,” became metonymic as a reminder of so many who
are taking to the streets because of threatened or impending asphyxiation.
Fanon also offers a persistent, devastating critique of liberal political
philosophy in an age of colonialism: It collapses into a moralism that impedes
political action. Black liberation, as
a call for the liberation of humankind because of the interconnectedness, the
relationality, of human reality, demands transcending that impasse. That speaks
to activists.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
Reading Frantz Fanon Here & Nowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03552708300555707437noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6569690007877179636.post-27515780750529846012016-07-13T12:19:00.000+02:002016-07-23T12:39:20.317+02:00When Law Is Not Justice: Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak interviewed by Brad Evans<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><i><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/13/opinion/when-law-is-not-justice.html">The New York Times</a></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><b>Brad
Evans</b>: Throughout your work, you have written about the conditions faced by the
globally disadvantaged, notably in places such as India, China and Africa. How
might we use philosophy to better understand the various types of violence that
erupt as a result of the plight of the marginalized in the world today?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><b>Gayatri
Chakravorty Spivak</b>: While violence is not beyond naming and diagnosis, it does
raise many challenging questions all the same. I am a pacifist. I truly believe
in the power of nonviolence. But we cannot categorically deny a people the
right to resist violence, even, under certain conditions, with violence.
Sometimes situations become so intolerable that moral certainties are no longer
meaningful. There is a difference here between condoning such a response and
trying to understand why the recourse to violence becomes inevitable.</span></div>
<a name='more'></a><o:p></o:p><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">When
human beings are valued as less than human, violence begins to emerge as the
only response. When one group designates another as lesser, they are saying the
“inferior” group cannot think in a “reasonable” way. It is important to
remember that this is an intellectual violation, and in fact that the oppressed
group’s right to manual labor is not something they are necessarily denied. In
fact, the oppressed group is often pushed to take on much of society’s
necessary physical labor. Hence, it is not that people are denied agency; it is
rather that an unreasonable or brutish type of agency is imposed on them. And,
the power inherent in this physical agency eventually comes to intimidate the
oppressors. The oppressed, for their part, have been left with only one
possible identity, which is one of violence. That becomes their politics and it
appropriates their intellect.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">This
brings us directly to the issue of “reasonable” versus “unreasonable” violence.
When dealing with violence deemed unreasonable, the dominating groups demonize
violent responses, saying that “those other people are just like that,” not
just that they are worth less, but also that they are essentially evil,
essentially criminal or essentially have a religion that is prone to killing.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">And
yet, on the other side, state-legitimized violence, considered “reasonable” by
many, is altogether more frightening. Such violence argues that if a person
wears a certain kind of clothing or belongs to a particular background, he or
she is legally killable. Such violence is more alarming, because it is
continuously justified by those in power.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><b>B.E</b>.:
At least some violent resistance in the 20th century was tied to struggles for
national liberation, whether anti-colonial or (more common in Europe)
anti-fascist. Is there some new insight needed to recognize forces of
domination and exploitation that are separated from nation states and yet are
often explained as some return to localism and ethnicity?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><b>G.C.S.</b>:
This is a complicated question demanding serious philosophical thought. I have
just come back from the World Economic Forum, and their understanding of power
and resistance is very different from that of a group such as the ethnic Muslim
Rohingya who live on the western coast of Myanmar; though both are already
deeply embedded in global systems of power and influence, even if from opposing
sides. The Rohingya have been the victims of a slow genocide as described by
Maung Zarni, Amartya Sen and others. This disrupts an Orientalist reading of
Buddhism as forever the peace-loving religion. Today, we see Buddhists from
Thailand, Sri Lanka and Myanmar engage in state-sanctioned violence against
minorities.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">The
fact is that when the pro-democracy spokesperson Aung San Suu Kyi was under
house arrest there, she could bravely work against oppressive behavior on the
part of the military government. But once she was released and wanted to secure
and retain power, she became largely silent on the plight of these people and
has sided with the majority party, which has continued to wage violence against
non-Buddhist minorities. One school of thought says that in order to bring
democracy in the future, she has to align herself with the majority party now.
I want to give Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi the benefit of the doubt. But when the
majority party is genocidal, there is a need to address that. Aligning with
them cannot possibly bring democracy.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">However,
rather than retreating back into focused identity politics, resistance in this
context means connecting the plight of the Rohingya to global struggles, the
context of which is needed in order to address any particular situation. Older,
national, identity-based struggles like those you mention are less persuasive
in a globalized world. All of this is especially relevant as Myanmar sets up
its first stock exchange and prepares to enter the global capitalist system.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">In
globalization as such, when the nation states are working in the interest of
global capital, democracy is reduced to body counting, which often works
against educated judgments. The state is trapped in the demands of finance
capital. Resistance must know about financial regulation in order to demand it.
This is bloodless resistance, and it has to be learned. We must produce
knowledge of these seemingly abstract globalized systems so that we can
challenge the social violence of unregulated capitalism.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><b>B.E</b>.:
What are the implications when the promotion of human rights is left to what
you have called “self-appointed entrepreneurs” and philanthropists, from
individuals such as Bill Gates onto organizations like the World Bank, who have
a very particular conception of rights and the “rule of law?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">G.C.S.:
It is just that there be law, but law is not justice.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">The
passing of a law and the proof of its existence is not enough to assure
effective resistance to oppression. Some of the gravest violations of rights
have occurred within legal frameworks. And, if that law governs a society never
trained in what Michel Foucault would call “the practice of freedom,” it is
there to be enforced by force alone, and the ones thus forced will find better
and better loopholes around it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 150%;">That
is why the “intuition” of democracy is so vital when dealing with the poorest
of the poor, groups who have come to believe their wretchedness is normal. And
when it comes time to starve, they just tighten their nonexistent belts and
have to suffer, fatefully accepting this in silence. It’s more than children
playing with rocks in the streets. It takes over every aspect of the people’s
existence. And yet these people still work, in the blazing heat, for little or
next to nothing for wealthy landowners. This is a different kind of poverty.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Against
this, we have this glamorization of urban poverty by the wealthier
philanthropist and aid agencies. There is always a fascination with the
picture-perfect idea of poverty; children playing in open sewers and the rest
of it. Of course, such lives are proof of grave social injustice. But top-down
philanthropy, with no interest in an education that strengthens the soul, is
counterproductive, an assurance that there will be no future resistance, only
instant celebrity for the philanthropist.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">I
say “self-appointed” entrepreneurs because there is often little or no
regulation placed upon workers in the nongovernmental sector. At best, they are
ad hoc workers picking up the slack for a neo-liberal state whose managerial
ethos cannot be strong on redistribution,, and where structural constitutional
resistance by citizens cannot be effective in the face of an unconstituted
“rule of law” operating, again, to protect the efficiency of global capital
growth. The human rights lobby moves in to shame the state, and in ad hoc ways
restores rights. But there is then no democratic follow-up, and these
organizations rarely stick around long enough to see that.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Another
problem with these organizations is the way they emphasize capitalism’s social
productivity without mentioning capital’s consistent need to sustain itself at
the expense of curtailing the rights of some sectors of the population. This is
all about the removal of access to structures of reparation: the disappearance of
the welfare state, or its not coming into being at all.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">If
we turn to “development,” we often see that what is sustained in sustainable
development is cost-effectiveness and profit-maximization, with the minimum
action necessary in terms of environmental responsibility. We could call such a
thing “sustainable underdevelopment.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Today
everything is about urbanization, urban studies, metropolitan concerns, network
societies and so on. Nobody in policy circles talks about the capitalization of
land and how this links directly to the dispossession of people’s rights. This
is another line of inquiry any consideration of violence must take into
account.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><b>B.E.</b>:
While you have shown appreciation for a number of thinkers known for their
revolutionary interventions, such as Frantz Fanon, you have also critiqued the
limits of their work when it comes to issues of gender and the liberation of
women. Why?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><b>G.C.S.</b>:
I stand by my criticism of Fanon, but he is not alone here. In fact he is like
most other men who talk about revolutionary struggle. Feminist struggle can’t
be learned from them. And yet, in “A Dying Colonialism,” Fanon is really trying
from within to understand the position of women by asking questions about
patriarchal structures of domination.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">After
the revolution, in postcolonial Algeria and elsewhere, those women who were
part of the struggle had to separate themselves from revolutionary liberation
organizations that were running the state in order to continue fighting for
their rights under separate initiatives. Gender is bigger and older than state
formations and its fight is older than the fight for national liberation or the
fight between capitalism and socialism. So we have to let questions of gender
interrupt these revolutionary ideas, otherwise revolution simply reworks marked
gender divisions in societies.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><b>B.E.</b>:
You are clearly committed to the power of education based on aesthetic
practices, yet you want to challenge the canonical Western aesthetic ideas from
which they are derived using your concepts of “imaginative activism” and
“affirmative sabotage.” How can this work?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><b>G.C.S.</b>:
Imaginative activism takes the trouble to imagine a text — understood as a
textile, woven web rather than narrowly as a printed page — as having its own
demands and prerogatives. This is why the literary is so important. The
simplest teaching of literature was to grasp the vision of the writer. This was
disrupted in the 1960s by the preposterous concern “Is this book of relevance
to me?” which represented a tremendous assault on the literary, a tremendous
group narcissism. For literature to be meaningful it should not necessarily be
of obvious relevance. That is the aesthetic challenge, to imagine that which is
not immediately apparent. This can fight what is implicit in voting bloc
democracy. Relevant to me, rather than flexible enough to work for others who
are not like me at all. The inbuilt challenge of democracy – needing an
educated, not just informed, electorate.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">I
used the term “affirmative sabotage” to gloss on the usual meaning of sabotage:
the deliberate ruining of the master’s machine from the inside. Affirmative
sabotage doesn’t just ruin; the idea is of entering the discourse that you are
criticizing fully, so that you can turn it around from inside. The only real
and effective way you can sabotage something this way is when you are working
intimately within it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">This
is particularly the case with the imperial intellectual tools, which have been
developed not just upon the shoulders, but upon the backs of people for
centuries. Let’s take as a final example what Immanuel Kant says when
developing his “Critique of Aesthetic Judgment.” Not only does Kant insist that
we need to imagine another person, he also insists for the need to internalize
it to such an extent that it becomes second nature to think and feel with the
other person.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Leaving
aside the fact that Kant doesn’t talk about slavery whatsoever in his book, he
even states that women and domestic servants are incapable of the civic
imagination that would make them capable of cosmopolitan thinking. But, if you
really think about it, it’s women and domestic servants who were actually
trained to think and feel like their masters. They constantly had to put
themselves in the master’s shoes, to enter into their thoughts and desires so
much that it became second nature for them to serve.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">So
this is how one sabotages. You accept the unbelievable and unrelenting
brilliance of Kant’s work, while confronting the imperial qualities he
reproduces and showing the contradictions in this work. It is, in effect, to
jolt philosophy with a reality check. It is to ask, for example, if this
second-naturing of women, servants and others can be done without coercion,
constraint and brainwashing. And, when the ruling race or class claims the
right to do this, is there a problem of power being ignored in all their
claimed benevolence? What would educated resistance look like in this case? It
would misfire, because society is not ready for it. For that reason, one must
continue to work — to quote Marx — for the possibility of a poetry of the
future.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
Reading Frantz Fanon Here & Nowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03552708300555707437noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6569690007877179636.post-72760959857590140642016-07-06T14:35:00.000+02:002016-07-07T14:38:47.986+02:00ANC legacies? Retrieving and deploying emancipatory values today<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Raymond Suttner, <i><a href="http://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2016-07-05-op-ed-anc-legacies-retrieving-and-deploying-emancipatory-values-today/#.V35NQfn5jDc">The Daily Maverick</a></i></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">For
many decades and for many people, the name “ANC” conjured up selflessness,
sacrifice in the service of the oppressed people of South Africa and the
meaning of freedom itself. People bent every effort to link themselves with the
message of the ANC. They risked police attention and possible arrest by
listening to the ANC broadcasts on Radio Freedom, beamed from Lusaka and other
African states in the period of illegality. They read any scrap of paper or
document or listened to any message broadcast from the ANC in exile, for the
organisation represented their hope for freedom. It enjoyed great legitimacy
and authority in the imagination of very many South Africans.</span><br />
<a name='more'></a><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Despite
longstanding loyalty, the ANC has now come to represent something very
different in the eyes of many of those who previously attached so much weight
to what it said and the ideas it advanced. Remnants of the liberation ethos are
sometimes invoked in order to link the ANC to the heroes of the past.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">In
reality, insofar as the ANC associates itself with the values of the liberation
struggle, it is through its role as the leading party in government. In this
context, the ANC-led government positioned itself as the deliverer of “a better
life for all”, and as the party that is committed to improve the lives of the
majority of the South African people. This represents a paradigm shift away
from a movement that worked together with people as direct actors in the cause
of liberation with meaningful participation in the decision-making and
processes concerning their lives and future.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">The
notion of the ANC-led government as the deliverer of services has rendered
people passive recipients of the promised “better life”.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Increasingly,
it has become evident that the ANC-led government is unable or unwilling to
honour the commitments made to the people. In these actions or omissions, it
has failed to address or has attacked the wellbeing of the poorest of the poor,
which is paradoxically their own core electoral constituency. This is not due
to a lack of resources, but rather to a combination of factors including an
inability to reconcile what the ANC-led government professes to be its
commitment to the people of South Africa, especially the poor, with its mal-governance,
which has resulted in the political and social crises of our times. In
consequence, reports of widespread protest have become a common feature in
daily news.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">The
government has failed in its response to community anger, to discuss problems
in the context of shared values enshrined in the constitution. In fact, the
ANC-led government has undermined the constitution and rights-bearing legal
system. It has been seen to attack the very principles for which the freedom
struggle was waged.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">It
has drowned the struggles of the people of Marikana in blood. With stark
insensitivity, it has never made an unqualified apology to the nation or to the
families of those who lost lives in Marikana or admitted what it has done or
named it for what it was – a massacre.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Shortly
after 1994, a conscious effort was made to demilitarise the police. They have
now been remilitarised, and not only through reintroduction of the language of
militarism. Their licence to “to shoot to kill” has been used literarily
against those who demand a life with dignity, as well as in less politically
charged contexts. There has been a significant number of extra-judicial police
killings and those seeking remedies often face missing files and dockets and
other attempts to cover up criminality.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">The
ANC-led government has not hesitated to contract and employ former
apartheid-era security police and other operatives of that period as
consultants or to appoint them to high office in, for example, Crime
Intelligence, whose head General Richard Mdluli, is currently suspended and
facing charges. Many have shown themselves unworthy to wear the uniform of the
police service of a democratic state.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">There
was a time when people would point to the exemplary character of leaders of the
ANC as models of conduct for others to follow. Many of today’s leaders cannot
be that. How many conduct themselves in a manner to which one can point and say
to a child “that is how you should be when you grow up”?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">If
the ANC and its allies are no longer credible models of integrity, it is not
surprising that many people doubt whether the struggle did in fact comprise the
heroism with which it is conventionally celebrated by the ANC and beyond. We
now know that there was a place called Quatro, in Angola, where people were
tortured and that other abuses were committed elsewhere. There is also a
growing record of other deviations from the tasks of liberation towards
personal enrichment and other irregular objectives.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Some
have long predicted that the struggle was or would become abusive. The
liberation struggle has always been a species of criminality in the eyes of
those who kept “clean” by playing no part. But often, with very little
evidence, they demonised what was done by the ANC, the UDF and others who
joined to free South Africa.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">In
truth, the liberation struggle was primarily a story of young and older lives
put to the service of freedom. Some have not lived to see the fruits of their
efforts. Many selflessly gave all in order that we could be free.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">The
honourable legacies of that period have been outweighed in the minds of many in
present-day South Africa by the activities of scoundrels. The delegitimation of
the ANC and the struggle has created a moral vacuum. In place of the values
that participants in the struggle imbibed and to which they encouraged other
participants to adhere, space has been opened for modes of conduct that are
neither people-centred nor responsive to communities and their longings.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Whatever
else may be said of the struggle, it cannot be denied that it comprised
political activities standing in a relationship to communities. Issues were
taken up that mattered to people living under oppressive conditions. The ANC’s
military wing, uMkhonto we Sizwe (MK), chose targets that represented
institutions and authorities that had been especially harsh to local
communities. Thus, one of the first attacks by MK was on a police station in
Soekmekaar because of its connection with forced removals.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">The
UDF focused its struggles on injustices committed against communities and, with
variations depending on the strength of organisation and the powers of
repression, continually referred back to these people, whose cause was
represented.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">A
limited number of new social movements like Abahlali baseMjondolo have emerged
in the vacuum and stay in close touch with their members. This type of
development needs to be encouraged and advanced more widely.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">At
an ideological level, many offer commentary and advice through various media,
but operating as independent individuals. What is absent from much commentary
and needed today is some injection of liberatory, emancipatory and empowering
values in the broadest sense. They are needed also in relationship with and bearing
a sense of responsibility to the communities about whom they are writing.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Are
there not values from the struggle that need to be retrieved, albeit with some
reinterpretation in the light of what we have learnt and how our understandings
may have been enriched? These struggle values refer generally to all those who
contributed towards a collective strength that was pitted against the apartheid
regime, whatever their political tendency and whether they were political
organisations or faith-based or civic bodies, organised labour or other
sectors. What are these values? How can they help build a bridge between those
with voices and the voiceless? These are some of the values that come to mind:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Selflessness.
There was a belief in joining the struggle that one’s own needs should and
would be subordinated to the broader needs of liberation, affecting many, many
individuals beyond oneself. This notion of selflessness could be taken to mean
erasure of the self. But the way many understood this was as a way of realising
the individual in a deeply divided society through joining his or her life to
the suffering of the poor and oppressed communities from which most cadres
would have derived. The individual understood self-realisation socially,
through an interrelationship with others, as being connected to what was wider
than his or her own individual needs.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">While
commitment of the individual to the collective was not intended to erase the
individual and his or her needs, the rigours of struggle did often mean that
individual needs for inter-personal love and emotional fulfilment had to be
postponed or were never realised. (Che Guevara and others have talked about a
distinct conception: that of “revolutionary love” and “love for the people”,
driving freedom fighters. See discussion in Raymond Suttner, The ANC
Underground, Jacana and Lynne Rienner, 2008, pages 138-142).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">But
the connection to the collective was enriching in a society that was riven by
division. By joining the wider collective struggling for freedom, an individual
was able to break from the shackles of apartheid group divisions, join others
in a wider emancipatory quest and in so doing free himself or herself in some
respects. In some ways, this involvement helped make people into “whole” human
beings in a society intent on fragmentation and division.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Humility.
The struggle for freedom demanded humility. One had to learn from the oppressed
in order to join with them in freeing themselves. One could not assume one knew
what they needed, but had to hear this from their own lips and understand it
and insofar as one advanced a vision, express it in their own idioms. The
liberation struggle was not a place for “know-it-alls”.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Modesty
was needed because no matter how many university degrees one may have acquired
or how many books one had read, there was a knowledge one did not have. It was
held only by those who experienced oppression first hand, sometimes in places
whose names do not appear on maps. They could teach those willing to learn what
they (the oppressed) had in their heads and had learnt over time.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">But
modesty was a quality that was encouraged more widely in that inflated egos
were inimical to working together with others. And working together was what
was needed then, as it is needed now.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Listening.
Humility and modesty were manifested through listening to the oppressed. It is
said of all the great leaders that they spent time listening to people. Leaders
would take time before offering advice because the consequences would not be
borne by the person offering the advice, but by those who acted it out.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Respect
for other human beings. The oppressed people were not merely those in whose
name one acted, but human beings who were owed respect. It was precisely the
denial of respect for their humanity by the apartheid regime that was one of
the reasons why liberation movements existed.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Responsibility.
When acting out their role in relation to those who were suffering, whether
from poverty, police or other forms of oppression, freedom fighters had to act
with responsibility. They had to be aware that what they did ought to make a
positive difference to their lives and that they had to be accountable for
their actions<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Popular
self-empowerment. Increasingly, the ANC came to emphasise the importance of self-empowerment,
of communities taking on tasks that would contribute to their own freedom. They
were encouraged not to rely on the ANC or its army to do this, but to find ways
of demonstrating their own power.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 150%;">These
are some of the values that one can derive from unpacking the ethos of the
struggle against apartheid, at its best. These values may still have meaning
and significance for us, today. These emancipatory qualities could be retrieved
and built on through connections with people in communities and with
organisations that are linked with communities. Interpretation and analysis
informed by such connections would be more meaningful and could better help
empower communities to alleviate and remove the various forms of oppression
currently experienced.</span>Reading Frantz Fanon Here & Nowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03552708300555707437noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6569690007877179636.post-87722505795023349552016-06-30T09:27:00.000+02:002016-07-13T09:28:55.048+02:00Theodore W. Allen and The Invention of the White Race <iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="360" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/4XntB31Kkj4" width="640"></iframe>Reading Frantz Fanon Here & Nowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03552708300555707437noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6569690007877179636.post-23793285327102659842016-06-17T17:07:00.002+02:002017-02-11T08:41:27.036+02:00Cedric J. Robinson: the Making of a Black Radical Intellectual<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBHSaKwrIzwGWgHj6F5djNfjiquVOPxkied8nwnPMWPB94vvWk3eZdlpsLzexhkSeHZhOxympAcsAzdfNPLWBzFSpxLNY21YYPAH6LT5uKQwysRFB8jVUVe_suyMkPkcdA3dzUvxElz3M/s1600/robinson-1024x768.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBHSaKwrIzwGWgHj6F5djNfjiquVOPxkied8nwnPMWPB94vvWk3eZdlpsLzexhkSeHZhOxympAcsAzdfNPLWBzFSpxLNY21YYPAH6LT5uKQwysRFB8jVUVe_suyMkPkcdA3dzUvxElz3M/s320/robinson-1024x768.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Cedric Robinson</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 18.6667px; line-height: 28px;">Robin D.G.Kelley, <i><a href="http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/06/17/cedric-j-robinson-the-making-of-a-black-radical-intellectual/">Counter Punch</a></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><i><br /></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><i>Just
as Thucydides believed that historical consciousness of a people in crisis
provided the possibility of more virtuous action, more informed and rational
choices, so do I.</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"> </span><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 150%;">–Cedric
J. Robinson, 1999</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">On
Sunday, June 5, we lost an intellectual giant. Cedric Robinson was a wholly
original thinker whose five books and dozens of essays challenged liberal and
Marxist theories of political change, exposed the racial character of
capitalism, unearthed a Black Radical Tradition and examined its social,
political, cultural, and intellectual bases, interrogated the role of theater
and film in forming ideologies of race and class, and overturned standard
historical interpretations of the last millennia. Like W. E. B. Du Bois, Michel
Foucault, Sylvia Wynter, and Edward Said, Robinson was that rare polymath
capable of seeing the whole—its genesis as well as its possible future. No
discipline could contain him. No geography or era was beyond his reach. He was
equally adept at discussing Ancient Greece, England’s Middle Ages, plantations
in Cyprus or South Carolina, anticolonial rebellions in Africa or Asia, as well
as contemporary politics of Iran and Vietnam, El Salvador and the Philippines.
No thinker—not Hegel, not Hannah Arendt, not even Frantz Fanon—was above
criticism. We can seed why academia basically ignored his writings until
recently: he threw down the gauntlet before the alter of “Social Sciences,” and
challenged Black Studies to embrace its radical mission, which he once
described as “a critique of Western Civilization.”</span></div>
<a name='more'></a><br />
<o:p></o:p>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Oakland
born and bred, Robinson came into the world on November 5, 1940, as Cedric
James Hill, child of Clara Whiteside and Frederick Hill. A local nightclub
owner nearly twenty years Clara’s senior, Hill and Clara never married and soon
parted ways. Cedric’s named changed after Clara wed Dwight Robinson, though
their marriage was short-lived. Like so
many Black working-class families, Cedric was raised largely by his extended
family. When “Ricky” was not with his
mother, he stayed with his aunt Wilma Roundtree and his cousins, briefly lived
with his father, Frederick Hill, and spent considerable time with his grandparents,
Cecilia (“Mama Do”) and Winston “Cap” Whiteside, at their home on Adeline
Street in Oakland. Cedric grew particularly close to “Cap,” whom he
consistently identified as one of the most important influences on his
intellectual and political outlook.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Born
in Mobile, Alabama, on June 7, 1894, Winston Wilmer Whiteside embodied the
personal dignity, discipline, quiet intelligence, spiritual grounding, courage,
and commitment to family and community that characterized what Cedric called
the Black Radical Tradition. Although he had little formal education and worked
principally as a porter or janitor, Cap owned his Adeline Street home and was
respected in his community. Unlike most Black residents in West Oakland who
came during the war-time boom; Cap arrived in the late 1920s . . . fleeing for
his life. The story, as Cedric heard it, goes something like this: Cecilia was
working as a housekeeper at the Battle House, Mobile’s renowned luxury hotel.
When Cap learned that a white manager attempted to sexually assault Cecilia, he
headed straight to the Battle House, beat the manager unconscious and left him
hanging on a hook in the hotel’s cold storage room. A few days later, he headed west, first to
Chicago and then to Oakland. Once settled, he sent for Cecilia and his three
daughters, Clara, Lillian, and Wilma. In his book, Black Movements, Robinson
wryly delivers the denouement: “Chastened, the manager gained a reputation as
one of the best friends of the Negro in Mobile.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Cedric
grew up during the height of the Second Great Migration, as Black and white
Southern migrants arrived in droves. He attended public schools where he
learned from Black women and men who held advanced degrees but could not break
the professional color bar. He took great pride in his teachers and the
challenging intellectual environment they created. He was able to use his
mother’s address in order to attend Berkeley High, a school with a reputation
for academic excellence, political radicalism and racism. In the 1950s, Black
students at Berkeley were often steered away from college prep courses toward
metal shop, and an unspoken color bar separated student activities.
Consequently, Cedric received no assistance or direction from his high school
counselors with the college admission process. Elizabeth Robinson recalls that
Cedric simply showed up at U.C. Berkeley’s campus in the Fall of 1959 and stood
in the registration line, falling in behind Shyamala Gopalan. Gopalan, an
incoming graduate student from India pursuing a PhD in nutrition and
endocrinology (and future mother to California Attorney General Kamala Harris),
would soon become one of Cedric’s close friends. Perhaps because he followed an
international student, was dark skinned, and projected a sense of entitlement
at a university with so few Black students, the registrar assumed he was an
African national and asked if his government planned to pay his fees!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Cedric
had no government to pay his fees, so he worked. He washed dishes at the Bear’s Lair (the
coffee shop in the student union), cleaned hotel rooms, and during the summer
worked in a cannery overseeing titration, stealing time to read whenever he
could. He majored in social anthropology and soon gained a reputation as an
activist. He and J. Herman Blake (a sociology doctoral student and future
university administrator who would ghost-write Huey P. Newton’s 1970 memoir,
Revolutionary Suicide) were principal leaders of the NAACP’s campus chapter. In
March 1961, they worked with the Fair Play for Cuba Committee to bring Robert
F. Williams to speak at Berkeley High’s Little Theater. Former president of the
Monroe, North Carolina chapter of the NAACP, Williams came to prominence after
the national leadership suspended him for advocating armed self-defense. In
1960, he traveled to Cuba with a delegation of Black artists and intellectuals
and returned home, hoisted a Cuban flag in his backyard and pledged his support
for Fidel Castro. (Just months after Berkeley visit, Williams and his family
took refuge in Cuba to escape trumped up kidnapping charges.) Blake and
Robinson had invited Williams in defiance of national leadership. As Cedric
explained to historian Donna Murch, they decided to break with Roy Wilkins and
the old guard: “We wanted a different kind of analysis, a politics that emerged
from an analysis of race in America and race in the globe. . . . [T]hese were [the] global as well as
international dynamics at the time.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">A
month later, the Kennedy administration launched the failed Bay of Pigs
invasion of Cuba. Cedric helped organize demonstrations on campus against the
invasion and U.S. policy toward Cuba, for which he received a one-semester
suspension. The University of California prohibited protests on campus without
official approval and forty-eight hours notice. In his defense, Cedric
countered that the U.S. government did not give them forty-eight hours warning
before launching the invasion. Since he
had to finish out the spring term, he continued to agitate. He and Blake had
invited Malcolm X to speak on campus in May, only to be rebuffed by the
administration. (They eventually moved the event off campus to the local YMCA,
also known as Stiles Hall.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">That
summer, Cedric delivered a paper on “Campus Civil Rights Groups and the
Administration” at a conference organized by the left-leaning campus group
SLATE. Barely twenty-one, the deliberate and soft-spoken Robinson forcefully
described the administration’s unremitting hostility toward civil rights
organizations, namely Students for Racial Equality and the NAACP. He pointed to
three instances in which the administration banned students from peacefully
picketing racism on campus or banned speakers such as Malcolm X. In response to
the administration’s claim that the state constitution prohibited the
university from using its facilities “for religious purposes,” Cedric simply
disclosed “the fact that such speakers as Rev. Roy Nichols, Billy Graham, Rabbi
Fine and Bishop Pike had previously spoken on campus. Indeed, the last-named
churchman spoke on campus the very afternoon that Malcolm X had originally been
scheduled. It only needs to be added that Malcolm X thereupon continued his
speaking tour, a tour which had already taken him to such institutions as
Harvard, Boston, and Columbia Universities.” He closed with a parting shot at
Berkeley’s ineffectual student government “with its ever-present, if always
impotent, motion of censure of the administration.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Cedric
served his six months of exile in Mexico (his second choice after Cuba). He
wandered the country, lived among the people, became fluent in Spanish, studied
the culture and politics, and read. He returned to campus at the beginning of
1962, just as several of his political comrades were joining Black study
groups. Donald Warden, Leslie and Jim Lacy, J. Herman Blake, Nebby Lou
Crawford, Ernest Allen, Jr., Margot Dashiell, Welton Smith, Shyamala Gopalan,
Donald Hopkins, Frederick Douglas Lewis and Mary Agnes Lewis, began meeting
regularly to discuss Black identity, African decolonization, historical and
contemporary racism, and to read works by Ralph Ellison, Du Bois, E. Franklin
Frazier, Melville Herskovits and others. This loose gathering coalesced in the
Afro-American Association, led by Donald Warden, a law student at Boalt Hall.
Cedric was a part of the original group, which subsequently attracted future
Black Panthers Bobby Seale and Huey P. Newton.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">After
graduating in 1963, Cedric took a job at the Alameda County Probation
Department, although he continued to be active in Bay Area Civil Rights
activities. He participated in direct-action protests in San Francisco over the
racist hiring practices at the city’s luxury hotels and along Auto Row on Van
Ness, where the major car dealerships refused to hire Black sales people. But
even more than the mass protests, his experience working for the Probation
Department put him in direct contact with the sort of kids he grew up with in
Oakland—kids with limited education and few skills forced to navigate a
racially segmented job market. He found the work challenging yet important,
knowing fully well that he was employed by a criminal justice system hostile to
Black people.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">But
before he could complete his training, he was drafted and assigned to the
Officer Candidate School at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, since he had a college degree.
Ironically, his activism saved him from being deployed to Vietnam. The military
held up his security clearance because of his political history and his
friendship with fellow Berkeley student Douglas Wachter, a prominent member of
the Communist Party who had been subpoenaed by the House Un-American Activities
Committee in 1961. By the time security clearance was granted, he only had six
months left of his tour.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Upon
discharge, Robinson returned to his job at the Alameda Probation Department.
There he met and helped train a new employee named Elizabeth Peters. The
product of a middle-class Lebanese-American family, she also matriculated at
Berkeley, but entered in the fall of 1961 while Cedric was in Mexico. With a
degree in criminology and a genuine concern for the fate of kids under the
California Youth Authority, she became a counselor in child protective services
while Cedric worked with teens in the senior boys camp. Prefiguring the
language of restorative justice, they embraced effective, transactional methods
to reach young people. But the rise of
the Black Panthers, the antiwar movement, radical prison organizing, and urban
rebellions made clear that the existing criminal justice system was incapable
of real reform. Cedric and Elizabeth saw no future in probation.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">In
August of 1967, they were married. Cedric enrolled in San Francisco State
University to pursue an M.A. degree in Political Science, arriving just as the
Third World Liberation Front (TWLF) was fighting for an Ethnic Studies College.
He also taught at San Francisco City College. Before he could complete his
thesis, however, Stanford University’s Political Science Department recruited
him for their PhD program in political theory. He accepted their offer but
alerted his prospective mentors that he aimed to challenge the discipline’s
most basic premises. They failed to heed his warning.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Cedric
found Stanford cold and isolating. He worked hard, attended seminars, read
voraciously, but never succumbed to the prevailing culture of academic elitism.
Elizabeth recalls one of his professors arguing that he should not “advance to
candidacy since he’s not been properly socialized.” None of this prevented him
from writing. A Leverhulme fellowship enabled he and Elizabeth to spend 1970-71
at the University of Sussex in Brighton, England, where he completed his
dissertation, “Leadership: A Mythic Paradigm.”
In 370 pages, Robinson demolished the Western presumption that mass
movements reflect social order and are maintained and rationalized by the authority
of leadership. Challenging the conceits of liberal and Marxist theories of
political change, Robinson argued that leadership—the idea that effective
social action is determined by a leader who is separate from or above the
masses of people—and political order, are essentially fictions that even
Western anarchist traditions could not shake. After taking on virtually the
whole of Western political theory, he presented examples from Siberia,
Switzerland, the French countryside, and Southern Africa of social formations
that represent an epistemological break from dominant paradigm of order. He
used the Tonga people of Zambia and Zimbabwe as his principal case study,
largely because he wanted to illuminate non-Western examples of radical
democracy in order to break with Eurocentric models of Greco-Roman diffusion.
He told an interviewer nearly three decades later that one of the main
contributions of The Terms of Order and, later, Black Marxism, was to identify
in African traditions a commitment to “a social order in which no voice was
greater than another.” At the core of this democratic culture was a moral
philosophy that values “our historical and immediate interdependence,” our
relations with each other, with ancestors, with future generations, with life
itself.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">When
Cedric submitted his dissertation for approval, the faculty did not know what
to make of it. One by one, individual members resigned from his committee
citing an inability to understand the work. No one could reasonably reject a
thesis so sound, elegant, and erudite, but few were willing to sign off. Only
after Cedric threatened legal action was his thesis finally accepted—nearly
four years later. Finding a publisher proved equally frustrating. When SUNY
Press finally released the book, now titled The Terms of Order: Political
Science and the Myth of Leadership in 1980, it was thoroughly ignored and soon
disappeared. (Fortunately, the University of North Carolina Press brought it
back into print with a brilliant Foreword by Erica Edwards, giving the book a
new life and the attention it deserved thirty-five years ago.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">As
they awaited Stanford’s decision, Cedric accepted a position as Lecturer in
Political Science and Black Studies at the University of Michigan from 1971 to
1973. His appointment was partly the product of student struggles waged by the
Black Action Movement the previous year. Cedric and Elizabeth joined a
community of radical and progressive blackmarxismintellectuals, including
Harold Cruse, anthropologist Mick Taussig, Africanist historian Joel Samoff,
cultural critic Marshall Sahlins, and Archie Singham, noted scholar of
Caribbean and African politics. Elizabeth returned to school, earning an M.A.
in Anthropology from U of M. Together they devoted much of their energy to the graduate
students, hosting regular seminars and workshops in their home, feeding and
nurturing a generation who would reshape Black Studies. Darryl Thomas, then a
first-year grad student in Political Science, found these gatherings
invaluable: “That community remained a source of strength and survival long
after the Robinsons’ departure from the university in 1973. The workshop
exemplified how to pursue the type of interdisciplinary research and
scholarship originally imagined by the students and faculty members who led the
insurrections that created Black studies.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">In
1973, Cedric accepted his first tenure-track job at Binghamton University –
State University of New York. Still technically without a doctorate, he briefly
joined the Political Science Department until Terrence Hopkins persuaded him to
move to Sociology. He was also appointed Chair of the Department Afro-American
and African Studies. Meanwhile, Elizabeth was admitted to the PhD program in
Anthropology and worked as a graduate assistant in Sociology during the
founding of the Fernand Braudel Center for the Study of Economies, Historical
Systems, and Civilizations. Although it is never said, Cedric doubtless left an
imprint on the Braudel Center’s intellectual formation. The Robinsons five short
years in Binghamton proved consequential in other ways, as well. It was there
that their daughter, Najda, was born. And it was there, traversing the worlds
of Black Studies, historical sociology, and world systems analysis that the
seeds of Cedric’s magnum opus, Black Marxism: The Making of the Black Radical
Tradition, were planted. But it was in the U.K., and Santa Barbara, California,
that those seeds bore fruit.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">In
1978, Cedric became director of the Center for Black Studies Research and
joined the Political Science Department at the University of California, Santa
Barbara (UCSB). Before completely settling into his new position, however, he,
Elizabeth and Najda spent a year in the English village of Radwinter, just
southeast of Cambridge. Cedric began a life-long association with London’s
Institute of Race Relations, writing for its journal Race and Class, and
hanging out with the likes of A. Sivanandan, Colin Prescod, Hazel Waters, Paul
Gilroy, and C. L. R. James. He was soon invited to join the Editorial Working
Committee. He conducted research at Cambridge University, and published
articles at a furious pace—on Richard Wright, Du Bois, Amilcar Cabral, filmmaker
and novelist Sembene Ousmane; on the limits of European radicalism, the
formation of the black petit-bourgeoisie, and the Eurocentric character of
historical theory. His 1980 essay in
the Braudel Center’s journal, Review, rehearses his chief arguments in Black
Marxism by way of a critique of the liberal Scottish historian George
Shepperson’s treatment of John Chilembwe’s 1915 anticolonial uprising in
Malawi. Titled “Notes Toward a ‘Native’ Theory of History,” Robinson
respectfully takes Shepperson to task for ignoring the African cultural and
ontological bases for the rebellion and imposing a European (specifically a
Scottish nationalist) lens masquerading as universal. “He has sought to dignify
Chilembwe,” wrote Robinson, “by forcing his peculiar and particular movement
into a style quite alien to it: European political revolution. Chilembwe was
not a Cromwell; he never could be. But most importantly he never had to be. His
movement had its own quite special and remarkable integrity.” It was a critical
intervention, for Shepperson was one of the “good guys,” a careful,
sympathetic, deeply anti-imperialist scholar noted for his attention African
agency. Indeed, Robinson’s essay elicited a polite eight-page defense from
Shepperson that appeared in a subsequent issue of Review.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">When
Zed Press, an obscure left-leaning London publishing house, released Robinson’s
monumental Black Marxism in 1983, it was largely ignored, treated as a
curiosity, or grossly misunderstood. For a the few radical thinkers willing to
wrestle with the text, it inspired a generation to rethink Marxism and attend
more carefully to historical materials. Robinson took Marxism to task for its
inability to comprehend the racial character of capitalism or radical movements
outside of the West. He essentially re-wrote the history of the rise of the
West from Ancient times to the mid-20th century, scrutinizing the very idea
that capitalism could impose universal categories of class on the entire world.
Tracing the roots of black radical thought to a shared epistemology among
diverse African people, he shows that the first waves of African New World
revolts were not governed by a critique structured by Western conceptions of
freedom but a total rejection of enslavement and racism as it was experienced.
Revolts, Robinson emphasized, which were often led by women. However, with the advent of formal
colonialism and the incorporation of black labor into a more fully governed
social structure, emerges the native bourgeoisie, more intimate with European life
and thought, assigned to help rule. Their contradictory role as victims of
racial domination and tools of empire, compelled some of these men and women to
revolt, thus producing the radical black intelligentsia. And it is that
intelligentsia which occupies the last section of the book. He reveals how W.
E. B. Du Bois, C. L. R. James, and Richard Wright, by confronting Black mass
movements, revised their positions on Western Marxism or broke with it
altogether. The way they came to the Black Radical Tradition was more of an act
of recognition than invention; they did not create the theory of black
radicalism as much as found it in the movements of “ordinary” Black people.
Much like The Terms of Order, Black Marxism would enjoy a renaissance after it
was re-issued in 2000.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">The
Robinsons made Santa Barbara their permanent home. In 1980, Cedric and a UCSB
student named Corey Dubin, launched Third World News Review (TWNR), a radio
program and later a public access television show that, in Elizabeth Robinson’s
words, served as “a small corrective gloss on what the Pentagon, White House or
State Department proffered for public consumption.” For three decades, Cedric
and Elizabeth co-hosted TWNR, providing in-depth reporting and political
analysis on a variety of global crises, from the Iranian Revolution and U.S.
“dirty wars” in Argentina and Central America, the anti-apartheid struggle in
South Africa the invasion of Grenada, the bombing of Lebanon, the contested
elections in the Philippines, the machinations of Mobutu in the Congo, to the
ongoing struggles in Palestine. Most importantly, consistent with Cedric’s
history of political activism and his commitment to meet people where they are,
TWNR attracted a significant following beyond the academy.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Over
the next thirty-six years, Cedric Robinson enjoyed a distinguished academic
career. He rose through the ranks, served as Chair of Political Science,
trained a brilliant group of graduate students who have transformed the fields
of Cultural and Ethnic Studies, History, Politics, and Social Theory. He
published three more books, numerous articles, delivered lectures all over the
world, earned honors and accolades for his scholarship and teaching, and
continued to write and mentor after his retirement in 2010. Festschrifts have
been put together in his honor; key academic journals have dedicated special
issues to his scholarship; major conferences have been held to critically
engage his ideas—most recently, the extraordinarily successful “Confronting
Racial Capitalism: The Black Radical Tradition and Cultures of Liberation,”
organized by Ruth Wilson Gilmore at the CUNY Graduate Center in 2014.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">But
this is not the whole story. Cedric never settled down, never grew complacent.
He continued to be his quiet, funny, eloquent, dangerous self; an intellectual
deeply committed to community and struggle.
In 1987, as Chair of Political Science he publicly exposed a CIA agent
appointed as a lecturer in his department and severely downgraded his position.
In 1989, he joined a hunger strike in support of student demands for an Ethnic
Studies requirement at UCSB. In 1994, he organized a student team to document
the history of Santa Barbara’s Black community. And in 1997, he published Black
Movements in America.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">A
small, immensely readable narrative covering four centuries, Black Movements
was more than a synthesis pitched to undergraduates. Robinson makes an original
argument that Black movements have been guided by two distinct political
cultures–an individualistic culture that sought acceptance, recognition, and
assimilation, and a “communitarian” culture that sought autonomy and embraced
democratic principles, Afro-Christian ethics, and “a political culture that
distinguished between the inferior world of the political and the transcendent
universe of moral goods.” The latter, he suggested, was more widespread, more
inventive, held more promise, and was driven largely by Black women.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Regrettably,
Robinson’s 2001 text, An Anthropology of Marxism, fell entirely beneath the
radar. An brilliant exegesis on the history and roots of socialism in Europe,
prefaced by an equally brilliant essay by sociologist Avery Gordon, Robinson
demonstrates that most streams of socialist thought were not only distinct from
Marxism but preceded his era by centuries. The book directly challenges Perry
Anderson’s various attempts at historicizing Marxism by reminding us that
varieties of socialism predate capitalism—they, too, were responses to the
stagnation of the feudal order. He opens up the discussion about what socialism
is, and what kind of futures various socialisms might have imagined.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">On
first glance, his last book, Forgeries of Memory and Meaning: Blacks and the
Regimes of Race in American Theater and Film Before World War II (2007), may
appear to mark a significant departure from his previous work. This is partly true, given the book’s
prodigious archival research into the sources of early film and theater. It is
a stunning achievement. On the other hand, Cedric has been writing about film
since the 1970s. More importantly, Forgeries bears a resemblance to Black
Marxism in that it is much more than what is advertised in the title. It is not
simply a study of film and race; it is a history of the reconstitution and
reconstruction of racial regimes in the modern era, the consolidation of modern
whiteness, and resistance to these regimes in the U.S. Cedric takes us back to Elizabethan England
and the reconstruction of The Moor in Othello, to early modern science, to the
incredible convergence of motion picture technology, the consolidation of
finance capital, and the rise of Jim Crow. In a magnificent chapter on D. W.
Griffiths “Birth of a Nation,” he reveals 1915 as a crucial turning point in
the formation of a new racial regime, and Griffith’s purported “masterpiece”
played the critical role in consolidating and circulating old racial
fabulations and new fictions in the process of capitalist expansion. But the
scramble to prove black inferiority and buttress white racial democracy was no
cakewalk. As Forgeries consistently reminds us, racial ideology must be
constantly manufactured and therefore always rests on shaky grounds. This is the power of film: it “educates” the
public through forgeries and fraudulent histories, through representations that
erase more than reveal. But like all class tools, it can be a weapon of
revision and restoration. Forgeries was conceived as the first of two
volumes—the second slated to cover the second half of the 20th century.
Tragically, aside from a few scattered articles, this part of the work shall
remain unfinished.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">In
2013, Cedric addressed the Critical Ethnic Studies conference in Chicago. He
only spoke for ten minutes, mostly extemporaneously. Choosing his words
carefully, he spoke in his customary slow and deliberate style, expertly
pausing to allow his subtle humor to catch hold of the audience. He was as
dangerous as ever. “Critical Ethnic Studies is not really about the academy,”
he intoned. It was about the people who demanded we be here, the dispossessed,
the incarcerated, the underhoused, underemployed, undocumented, the people who
sacrificed for us and who the state sacrifices for capital. He warned of the
moral catastrophe we face if we succeed in the academy while those who demanded
that we be here suffer premature death, in the streets or behind bars. Racial
capitalism must be dismantled.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">But
then he pivoted, perhaps channeling his grandfather, Mr. Winston Whitehead. He
began to speak wistfully about the spiritual and communitarian traditions in which
he was raised. “One of the things I was exposed to was this immense notion of
the possible through the construction of the notion of faith. So Christian
faith trained me to be able to believe in, to anticipate, something coming into
being that was not in being. That’s called by the Greek word, ‘Utopia,’ which
means the good society. It also means no society, no such place. That gave me a
framework for looking at what others, before me, had imagined was possible in
their lifetime. And that’s why it was so important for me to look at the notion
of radicalism from the vantage point of slaves. . . . According to some
scholars, the slaves. . . [had] no ambitions, except to perhaps live or perhaps
to die. They had experienced social death. Well that’s nonsense. Because they were something more than was
what was expected of them, they could invent, manufacture, conspire, and
organize way beyond the possibilities.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 150%;">Cedric
J. Robinson spent a lifetime believing and demonstrating that we could invent,
manufacture, conspire, and organize way beyond the possibilities. He left
behind a body of work to which we must return constantly and urgently. He left
behind a brilliant assemblage of students, formal and informal, willing to
confront racial capitalism and wrestle with difficult questions. And he left an
extraordinary family – a daughter Najda, a grandson Jacob, and the
indefatigable Elizabeth, without whom there would be far fewer possibilities.</span>Reading Frantz Fanon Here & Nowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03552708300555707437noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6569690007877179636.post-87903818933654062572016-06-17T12:24:00.003+02:002016-06-17T12:29:04.329+02:00Frantz Fanon: Conflicts and Feminisms by Tracy Sharpley-Whiting<span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 150%;">By Gorata Chengeta</span><br />
<div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;">In her book, Tracy
Sharpley-Whiting (1998) appraises the feminist arguments about Frantz Fanon’s
work. In sum, her argument is that Fanon faces the cliché of being “damned if
you do, damned if you don’t”, because (as she shows) he could be accused of sexism
whether or not he wrote explicitly about women’s marginalization (1998, p.74).
In this essay, I will explore Sharpley-Whiting’s main arguments and relate
these discussions to developments in intersectional feminism.</span><br />
<a name='more'></a><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;">The author’s main defense
of Fanon’s work is that Fanon’s words have been misread or misinterpreted as
generalizations. Sharpley-Whiting, in a few occasions makes the argument that
Fanon’s psychoanalysis of women of colour was an analysis of those who had
internalized racism, not all women of colour (1998, p.36). For instance, she
highlights that Capecia, who is the focus of many feminists’ critiques of
Fanon, was “duped” – thus, she argues that Fanon studied Capecia as an example
of the type of coloured woman he was speaking about, not as an example of all
women of colour (1998, p. 36, p. 38 & p. 42). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;">In a further analysis of
the arguments which frame Fanon as a misogynist, based on his discussion of
Capecia, Sharpley-Whiting elucidates how Fanon was accurate in his analysis.
Instead of focusing on Fanon’s choice to interrogate the writing of a black
woman, the author argues that instead we should interrogate Fanon’s argument.
Here, she argues that the crux of Fanon’s critique is that, on a psychological
level, Capecia shows the internalization of racism by a black woman. The claim
of blackfemmephobia charged against Capecia is evidenced in Sharpley-Whiting’s
discussion of how she describes Lucia, but also in other instances where
Capecia talks about herself (1998, p. 43). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;">The second main critique
Sharpley-Whiting (1998) makes of feminist criticisms of Fanon looks at the
claim of myth-making, in regards to women’s roles in the Algerian revolution,
particularly in A Dying Colonialism. According to Helie-Lucas, Fanon’s framing
of the role of women in the Algerian revolution amounts to myth-making because
he overstates its impact in fundamentally shifting the woman’s role in the
Algerian society (1998, p. 57). Here, it is argued that gender hierarchies
still existed within the liberation struggle, even though women were included.
This critique also premised on the fact that after the liberation struggle,
women were “shuttled back into the kitchen” (1998, p. 57). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Another important point
made by Algerian feminists is that the level of autonomy women gained within
the struggle was limited (more so than Fanon acknowledged). For instance, it is
argued that the coercive element of women using the veil in order to further
the struggle for liberation has often been overlooked (1998, p. 61). Such
arguments are tied to the impact that the struggle for a national culture
played in the development of post-independence Algeria. Particularly, it is
highlighted that women in Algeria faced the burden of having to be the
custodians of national culture after independence (1998, p. 58). Helie-Lucas
(in Sharpley-Whiting: 1998, p. 59) writes,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Women are supposed to
raise sons in the faith and traditional moral standards and to teach the
language of the forefathers. Women should be bound by tradition, while men had
some access to modernity.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;">For these reasons, it is
argued that women’s roles have not been changed by the revolution: rather that
“women were used by the revolution as tools” (el-Saadawi in Sharpley-Whiting:
1998, p. 59). Crucial here, is the acknowledgement that participation in a
liberation struggle does not, by default, win women’s rights (despite the
transformations in gender roles which occur during the struggle) (Gadant in
Sharpley-Whiting: 1998, p. 21). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;">In my view,
Sharpley-Whiting does not make a strong enough case against the arguments
presented. However, I agree with her that Fanon is “at most, optimistic”.
Although I think the arguments citing Fanon’s “myth-making” deserve merit,
given that he died before he could analyze the events of post-independence
Algeria, I also think that his interpretation of the Algerian independence
moment is a fair assessment of what he witnessed at the time.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;">I find the claim of
myth-making important, on the basis that the claim evaluates the impact of
Fanon’s writing in perceptions of the Algerian war (countering
misrepresentations). However, I do not think that the claim of myth-making can
be credibly used as evidence of Fanon’s sexism. The matter of Fanon being
sexist, in my view, is a separate matter to that of how his work has
(debatably) misrepresented a historical narrative. In addition, in line with
Sharpley-Whiting (1998, p. 73), I think it is important to separate Fanon’s
intention - which was in actual fact, not to present a “definitive, complete
historical picture on the Algerian” revolution - with the impact of his work, which I think is
influenced by other people (mis)reading it as a historical account of the war. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Another important theme
in Sharpley-Whiting’s analysis is that of Fanon as Feminist. At the core of
this issue is whether or not Fanon can be categorized as a feminist. The author
responds that it is more important to look at the “feminist dimensions” of
Fanon’s work, because of the contestations about the definitions of feminism
(1998, p.24). For me, one of the most important dimensions of feminism is the
recognition of women’s (or people’s) autonomy and agency. Based on
Sharpley-Whiting’s work, I would now like to explore Fanon’s contributions in
relation to intersectional feminism. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;">One of the strengths of
Fanon’s work, as pointed out by Sharpley-Whiting, is his recognition of
gender-based hierarchies (1998, p. 33 & p.71). In addition however, his
work also shows a nuanced recognition of women’s agency. The author shows that
in his evaluation of Capecia, he recognizes her agency, more so than his
criticizers (ironically), who frame her as being under economic duress (1998,
p. 39). In his discussion of the Algerian family, his analysis of the
transformation in traditional modes of behaviour also emphasizes his
understanding of agency. In his criticism of colonial feminism, he again shows
an understanding of how this discourse is re-inscribing the idea that Algerian
women lack agency (1998, p. 68). In his arguments, it is clear that Fanon
advocates for the recognition of every person as a full human being. Hence, his
work is crucial for intersectional feminists who are working towards a new
humanity/humanism: a feminism which moves beyond the liberation of (white,
middle-class, able-bodied, heterosexual) women. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Additionally, I also
believe that Fanon’s contributions to psychiatry should be modeled into
intersectional feminist praxis. One of the criticisms of contemporary feminism
is that it has failed to acknowledge the plight of people with mental illnesses
or disabilities. As such, in recent times, ableism within the feminist movement
has become a talking point (Whitestone: 2015). As other texts have shown, Fanon
was committed to psychiatric care which recognized the sociogenic factors of
illness – meaning that he did not view his patients as problem-people and
rather, emphasized the role of structural oppression in mental illness. Here,
we see that based on his understanding of structural oppression, Fanon’s work
fits well into intersectional feminism, especially since, as advocates such as
Blahovec (2015) have stated, feminism and disability rights are two sides of
the same coin. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;"><b>Reference list:</b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Blahovec, S., 2014. 4
<i>Reasons That Feminism and Disability Rights Are Two Sides of the Same
Coin</i>. Accessed online 20 May 2015 from
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sarah-blahovec/four-reasons-that-feminis_b_6160774.html
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Sharpley-Whiting, T.
1998, <i>Frantz Fanon: Conflicts and Feminisms</i>. Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield
Publishers. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Whitestone, S. 2015, <i>How
Mainstream Feminism Continues to Perpetuate Ableism (And How We Can Change
That)</i>. Accessed online 20 May 2015 from
http://everydayfeminism.com/2015/01/how-feminism-perpetuates-ableism<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
Reading Frantz Fanon Here & Nowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03552708300555707437noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6569690007877179636.post-13188792524652943332016-06-15T15:51:00.000+02:002016-06-17T15:51:46.127+02:00Political violence threatens an already battered democracy<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Raymond Suttner, <i><a href="http://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2016-06-15-op-ed-political-violence-threatens-an-already-battered-democracy">The Daily Maverick</a></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;">When I joined the
liberation struggle led by the ANC/SACP alliance in the late 1960s, it entailed
support for armed struggle. Until then I had been a liberal without the benefit
of any exposure to the ANC and its allies, which had been absent from public
politics in the aftermath of the Rivonia arrests.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;">I then abandoned my
reading of Martin Luther King Jr and Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi, whose
conceptions of morality and care for the well-being of other human beings had
inspired me. I did not abandon their injunction to combat indifference to
“evil”, or remove their works from my bookshelf. But I did not see them as
relevant to a life in which I had taken a course that entailed the use of force
to combat and bring down the apartheid regime. I did not romanticise armed
struggle, but saw it as a necessary choice with which I wanted to associate
myself.</span></div>
<a name='more'></a><o:p></o:p><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 150%;">It is true that the ANC
adopted armed struggle when all other options had failed. But one has the sense
in some of the writings of Nelson Mandela, and even in the older Mandela
writing Long Walk To Freedom, that he did not elevate nonviolence to be a
principle in its own right and an unconditional good. In differentiating his
position from that of Chief Albert Luthuli, he said violence and nonviolence
were purely tactics for him, while nonviolence was a principle for the chief.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Mandela devoted his later
period in prison and his post-prison political career to securing peace because
he did appreciate the need to end violence in a situation where people were
dying, and in which there could be no winners. Those who were dying were not
primarily white soldiers, but ordinary black people.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;">While seeking to ensure
peace, Mandela and the government he led after 1994 did not devote much
attention to establishing the principle of nonviolence. They did little to
ensure that it was recognised as a necessary condition for social well-being.
Nor was it prominent in people’s consciousness in the period after 1990, even
though it ought, constitutionally, to be one of the foundations of our lives.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Conditions at the time
did make it difficult to be unequivocal about nonviolence. The unbanning of the
ANC in 1990 did not signify any will on the part of the apartheid regime to
ensure peace or freedom of political activity. Its official and unofficial
repressive forces continued to launch attacks against the ANC and a number of
black communities, the ANC’s presumed support base.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;">The elections were held
with violence still occurring in some places. The early years of democratic
rule were in the shadow of potential attacks on the new order. This was shown
when plots against the new democracy were revealed, resulting in the firing of
certain generals.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Consequently, even if an
adequate value was placed on peace and nonviolence, the conditions of the time
were not propitious to propagating nonviolence. To do so may have signified to
those who wished to destabilise the new democracy that the ANC government was
disarming in the face of their threats.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;">One result is that the
principles of nonviolence and peace have never been popularised or adequately
instilled in people’s consciousness. In 2011, the year of the 50th anniversary
of Chief Luthuli’s Nobel Peace Prize and also of the formation of MK, almost
all attention was devoted to recalling the heroism of MK. Luthuli and his
message of peace and nonviolence received practically no attention.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;">I think it is necessary
to advance nonviolence today as an unconditional good and unconditional
principle. That does not mean pacifism. Force is sometimes justified, notably
in the face of an armed attack. But violence is only justifiable in exceptional
conditions where a limited resort to force becomes necessary to eliminate armed
attack or similar threats to the well-being of human beings. The
unconditionality of the principle of nonviolence is restored once the danger is
removed. Resort to violence is a conditional exception to a universally
applicable principle.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;">It is important to stress
nonviolence because any act of violence against another human being
extinguishes that person’s subjective agency, his or her capacity to act as an
independent human person. Violence extinguishes the subjective qualities that
are essential to the human character of the Other, against whom violence is
wreaked. The universality of respect for free human beings and a free humanity
is thereby denied.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Chief Luthuli and
Communist leader Moses Kotane had been less willing to embark on armed struggle
than Mandela, Walter Sisulu and others, but ultimately agreed to the formation
of MK as a limited exception to the principle of nonviolence. In Luthuli’s
case, he conceded a limited exceptional condition where state violence made the
ANC’s departure from nonviolence a temporary necessity. Kotane’s resistance had
been based initially on reluctance to abandon the terrain of peaceful political
activities, but he became persuaded that that space had practically been
eliminated by the violence of the apartheid regime.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;">When Mandela, one of the
founders of MK, later bent every effort to secure a negotiated settlement that
was intended to end the violence and also deliver the vote for all, the
tripartite alliance of the time supported him. Ensuring that peace prevailed
was a foundation stone of freedom.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;">The understanding of the
freedom that was sought was universal. It was not meant to apply only to some,
but to all. Where a person spoke a language that was less widely spoken than
another did not mean that she or he should be entitled to fewer rights. The
same applied to all ethnic groups, to people of whatever origin. Notions of
Zulu ethno-centricism – as in Jacob Zuma’s depiction as “100% Zulu” during his
2005/6 rape trial – ran counter to the foundations of mutual and equal respect
that are essential to the democratic order. All people were meant to enjoy all
the freedoms on an equal basis in the constitutional democracy being
established.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Likewise, the freedom to
pursue political activities was not intended as a gain only for the previously
suppressed ANC, but as a universal right accessible to all organisations. Any
attack on the freedom to organise by any political organisation, or within any
political organisation, entails an attack on the universal freedom provided for
all.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;">At the time of the first
elections there was considerable conflict deriving mainly from IFP and NP
government-inspired violence against the ANC and ANC-supporting communities,
mainly in then Natal province and on the Witwatersrand. It appears that the
subsequent weakening of the IFP may have seen the gradual absorption of some
IFP warlords into the ANC in KZN. That province (but by no means the only
place) has re-emerged as a site of political violence in the Zuma era. This is
evidenced by attacks and murders related to selection for electoral lists and
more generally against communities and organisations that stand in the way of
what the ANC, its “factions” and the KZN government want. This happens even in
defiance of court orders, as in the provincial government’s actions, including
killings, against the shack dwellers movement Abahlali baseMjondolo.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;">In the present political
climate, students and the EFF sometimes express a willingness to resort to
violence. Sometimes these are buttressed by dubious readings of Frantz Fanon.
It is not always clear that they are in fact saying that they will resort to
violence or when they will do so. But resorts to violence are usually preceded
by periods of ambiguity and it is important for those who value peace to nip
this in the bud.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;">South Africa is already a
very violent country and violence is almost entirely masculine. Emphasising
nonviolence buttresses the struggle for gender equality, and protects all who
fall victim to violent masculinities. The struggle for peace must contest the
notion that being masculine is to be rough and tough.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;">We must banish the
romanticism that continues to attach to violence and militaristic symbolism. An
emancipatory programme is urgent, putting peace and nonviolence at its centre
as conditions that make democratic debate and contestation possible.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
Reading Frantz Fanon Here & Nowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03552708300555707437noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6569690007877179636.post-40332308233576824072016-06-15T14:18:00.000+02:002016-11-05T14:18:35.271+02:00The Racist Dawn of Capitalism
<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<o:OfficeDocumentSettings>
<o:AllowPNG/>
</o:OfficeDocumentSettings>
</xml><![endif]-->
<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<w:WordDocument>
<w:View>Normal</w:View>
<w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom>
<w:TrackMoves/>
<w:TrackFormatting/>
<w:PunctuationKerning/>
<w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/>
<w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>
<w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent>
<w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>
<w:DoNotPromoteQF/>
<w:LidThemeOther>EN-US</w:LidThemeOther>
<w:LidThemeAsian>JA</w:LidThemeAsian>
<w:LidThemeComplexScript>X-NONE</w:LidThemeComplexScript>
<w:Compatibility>
<w:BreakWrappedTables/>
<w:SnapToGridInCell/>
<w:WrapTextWithPunct/>
<w:UseAsianBreakRules/>
<w:DontGrowAutofit/>
<w:SplitPgBreakAndParaMark/>
<w:EnableOpenTypeKerning/>
<w:DontFlipMirrorIndents/>
<w:OverrideTableStyleHps/>
<w:UseFELayout/>
</w:Compatibility>
<m:mathPr>
<m:mathFont m:val="Cambria Math"/>
<m:brkBin m:val="before"/>
<m:brkBinSub m:val="--"/>
<m:smallFrac m:val="off"/>
<m:dispDef/>
<m:lMargin m:val="0"/>
<m:rMargin m:val="0"/>
<m:defJc m:val="centerGroup"/>
<m:wrapIndent m:val="1440"/>
<m:intLim m:val="subSup"/>
<m:naryLim m:val="undOvr"/>
</m:mathPr></w:WordDocument>
</xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" DefUnhideWhenUsed="true"
DefSemiHidden="true" DefQFormat="false" DefPriority="99"
LatentStyleCount="276">
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="0" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Normal"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="heading 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 7"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 8"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 9"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 7"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 8"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 9"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="35" QFormat="true" Name="caption"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="10" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Title"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="1" Name="Default Paragraph Font"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="11" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Subtitle"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="22" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Strong"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="20" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="59" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Table Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Placeholder Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="1" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="No Spacing"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Revision"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="34" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="List Paragraph"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="29" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Quote"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="30" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Intense Quote"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="19" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Subtle Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="21" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Intense Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="31" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Subtle Reference"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="32" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Intense Reference"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="33" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Book Title"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="37" Name="Bibliography"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" QFormat="true" Name="TOC Heading"/>
</w:LatentStyles>
</xml><![endif]-->
<!--[if gte mso 10]>
<style>
/* Style Definitions */
table.MsoNormalTable
{mso-style-name:"Table Normal";
mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0;
mso-tstyle-colband-size:0;
mso-style-noshow:yes;
mso-style-priority:99;
mso-style-parent:"";
mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt;
mso-para-margin:0in;
mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-fareast-language:JA;}
</style>
<![endif]-->
<!--StartFragment-->
<!--EndFragment--><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">By Peter James Hudson, <i><a href="http://bostonreview.net/books-ideas/peter-james-hudson-slavery-capitalism">The Boston Review</a></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">A decade before his assassination at the
hands of a nationalist in 1914, French socialist Jean Jaurès completed a
historical work that radically changed the study of the French Revolution.
Where others had focused on disputes over politics and political ideology,
Jaurès’s four-volume Histoire socialiste de la Révolution française took as its
subject the transformations wrought by an emergent capitalism, foregrounding
irruptions within the French economy. Through a Marxist lens, Jaurès emphasized
the conflict between the ancien régime and the newly empowered bourgeoisie and
excavated from the archives of the revolution the struggles of French workers
and peasants.</span></div>
<a name='more'></a>This article is available at <i><a href="http://bostonreview.net/books-ideas/peter-james-hudson-slavery-capitalism">The Boston Review</a></i>.<o:p></o:p>Reading Frantz Fanon Here & Nowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03552708300555707437noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6569690007877179636.post-83979644164022153942016-06-14T15:46:00.000+02:002016-06-17T15:46:40.242+02:00Africans in India<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Camalita Naicker, <i><a href="http://www.theconmag.co.za/2016/06/14/africans-in-india/">The Con</a></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;">I am an African. A South
African Indian to be more precise. A few years ago, after much research and
determination, my father, almost 60 years old at the time, managed to locate
the indenture number of one of his maternal grandmothers. This identification
number, given to indentured labourers who boarded ships to work in the
sugarcane fields of the British colony of Natal in south-eastern Africa in the
1860s, allows one, who is lucky enough to find it, to trace the village where
an ancestor came from, and the port at which she must have left her homeland.
The village was in a rural area near Madras.</span></div>
<a name='more'></a><o:p></o:p><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 150%;">My mother’s ancestors, as
far as we know, came to South Africa from Nepal. The story goes that her
grandfather was a Gorkha solider for the British army who was given land near
Durban and grouped, under colonialism and apartheid, as Indian. A more precise
history is yet to be discovered.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;"><b>Living the Indian life</b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Last year, when I got a
scholarship to study abroad, I chose to attend Jawaharlal Nehru University
(JNU) in Delhi for a semester for political rather than social or cultural
reasons. It was also an opportunity to visit India for the first time as a
South African with links to India.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Arriving in India was
quite an experience. From the first moment, I registered inquisitive looks,
confused stares and general curiosity from auto drivers, street vendors, or
shopkeepers and later landlords and classmates. At first, many insisted on
speaking to me in Hindi. When I mentioned that I was from South Africa, the
usual response, and one I would become very accustomed to was, “But madam, you
look Indian.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;">It was true, I looked
Indian. As soon as I realised I would get less stares and inquiries if I went
to Delhi’s Sarojini Nagar market and bought some clothes, used the few words I
remembered from watching Bollywood movies, and learnt the Indian nod, I pretty
much got away with being treated like a local. This meant taking auto-rides and
buying goods at uninflated prices, buying the ticket for Indians at monuments,
which was cheaper than the one for foreigners, and being allowed into some
temples or mosques for Indian nationals only, something that my non-Indian
looking, non-South African, partner was not able to do.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;">So it was not surprising
that I came to overhear all kinds of conversations that those who had forgotten
I came from a different continent engaged in freely around me.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;">In the classroom of a
labour studies professor at JNU, whose course I dropped soon after, it was not
unusual for him to use the refrain, “even in Africa…,” frequently. For
instance, “Even in Africa more people use toilets than we do.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;">It became apparent, on
attending a few more of his classes that Africa was the lowest denominator
against which progress and modernity could be measured. It was also not
uncommon for many students to have conversations with me, which they assumed
were progressive, about Africa and Africans that were based on crude colonial
stereotypes of Africans as being close to nature, having a good sense of rhythm
or even, and possibly the most colonial, having big penises.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;">A blinkered view<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;">While many of the
students at JNU had an impressively extensive knowledge of their own colonial,
independence and post-independence cultural, political, social and religious,
and regional histories, as well as knowledge of western theory and philosophy,
and were committed to an idea of Left politics that took ideas like South-South
solidarity seriously, their knowledge of African social, political and cultural
histories as well as present realities was limited.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Moreover, knowledge of the
Indentured Labour System, and the thousands of people from poor agricultural
castes in India who were rounded up and put on ships to work on plantations in
Africa, the Caribbean or Fijian Islands was absent among many.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;">I found this surprising
given the various ways in which the history of slavery, the experiences of
African and Indian diasporas, and the work of intellectuals of the Indian
diaspora in Africa, like Mahmood Mamdani and Issa Shivji to name a few, have
contributed to the African radical tradition.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Moreover, the historic
1955 Bandung Asian-African Conference, widely considered the antecedent to the
Non-Aligned Movement, focused particularly on how these two continents could
relate to each other in a postcolonial future. More locally, there are several
historic as well as present similarities and relations between the African
National Congress and the Indian National Congress that allow for shared
experiences.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Yet, I soon began to
realise that for many Indians, my being South African was an aberration – a
detail that they quickly erased from their minds, choosing rather to focus on
the colour of my skin, which was brown and not black, and therefore more
acceptable.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;"><b>The price of ignorance </b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;">It is nothing new, even
for those in South Africa and elsewhere, to know that Indians are generally
obsessed with skin colour, preferring to use skin-lightening creams or
bleaching products rather than remain dark-skinned.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;">However, it is an
entirely different reality when it comes to ways in which black people are
treated and rendered as “the other” in Indian society.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;">The violence that has
been meted out to black people living in India is not just motivated by their
preference for light skin, but rather by a set of deeply colonial racist tropes
in which black people are the dangerous, criminal, hyper-sexual, and immoral
others who disrupt the idea that many in India have of an imagined cultural
homogeneity, that is fiercely policed.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;">It also presents African
people living in India as a new phenomenon that has created a culture-clash,
and ignores the many communities of Indians of African descent who have lived
in India for centuries, and the many generations that are linguistically and
culturally part of their communities.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;">When I was in Delhi,
during the India-Africa summit last year, it was presented as an entirely new
attempt to forge relations, including the cringe-worthy moment when the Indian
Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, presented African heads of states with Indian
garments, in apparent ignorance of the familiarity North and West-Africans have
with fabrics from India from the 4th century.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;">In addition, the
flourishing of African rulers, traders, musicians and artisans between the 14th
and 17th centuries in the territory that would come to be known as India is an
oft hidden history.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 150%;">One cannot, however, tell
this to the two or three policemen who regularly show up to collect bribes and
instill fear at small places like the African Kitchen in South Delhi, where a
Cameroonian woman makes delicious plantain and fish for the Africans in the
area who want a bit of home cooking while they watch the football. They are
made to feel like foreigners, whose mere existence is offensive.</span>Reading Frantz Fanon Here & Nowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03552708300555707437noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6569690007877179636.post-16446149963776853532016-06-03T10:27:00.000+02:002016-06-03T10:30:02.970+02:00David Theo Goldberg: "On the question of the postracial".<center><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/M19LWGu3qdQ" width="560"></iframe></center>
<br />
<a name='more'></a><center><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/TQWVrzE2sMY" width="560"></iframe></center><br />Reading Frantz Fanon Here & Nowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03552708300555707437noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6569690007877179636.post-41400399161659727462016-05-28T11:20:00.000+02:002016-05-28T12:31:32.737+02:00Grant Farred on Soweto 1976<center>
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/yCF0a-lkMwY" width="560"></iframe></center>
Reading Frantz Fanon Here & Nowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03552708300555707437noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6569690007877179636.post-72342318757637530812016-05-27T11:27:00.000+02:002016-05-28T11:28:46.512+02:00Raymond Suttner What is ethical politics?<center>
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/iPqv3iOeCX8" width="560"></iframe></center>
Reading Frantz Fanon Here & Nowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03552708300555707437noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6569690007877179636.post-76230367262839336802016-05-19T10:46:00.000+02:002016-08-29T13:08:18.869+02:00'Frantz Fanon: Conflicts and Feminism' - a review<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">by Wairimu
Muriithi <b> </b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Tracey Denean Sharpley-Whiting, in her book <i>Frantz Fanon: Conflicts and Feminisms </i>(henceforth
<i>ConFem</i>) (1998), provides a
feminist-centred response to feminist critiques of the revolutionary doctor and
theorist, a meta-feminist critique, if you will. Like Lewis Gordon in <i>What Fanon Said </i>(published 17 years
later, in 2015), Sharpley-Whiting challenges notable feminist works on Fanon,
mainly from the academy, by positing them as misreadings, misinterpretations,
oversimplifications and/or even uninformed. The text’s engagements range from
three main feminist frameworks – liberal Euro-American lit-crit feminism, Algerian
nationalist feminism and radical U.S. Black feminism – to a closing call to
post-modern US academic feminists to (re)commit to “Fanon’s radically humanist
profeminist consciousness” (1998: 24).</span></div>
<a name='more'></a><br /><o:p></o:p>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> Sharpley-Whiting
appreciates feminist scholar bell hooks’ engagement with Fanon, recognising it
for its refusal to accept the binaries that have created a tendency to “dismiss
his relevance to feminism and indict his thoughts as not simply ‘sexist’ nor
masculinist or phallogocentric, a substantially more accurate assessment, but
misogynist” (1998: 90). She is therefore not unwilling to concede that Fanon
has shortcomings, or even to discuss them, but to show how relevant his work is
to “post-movement feminist liberation theory and praxis” (1998: 1). As such,
Fanon certainly cannot be read through the Western first and second waves of
feminism, with their blatant lack of commitment to anti-racism – like French
feminism in Algeria during colonisation – and must be carefully engaged with as
important theory for Black radical thought and postcolonial feminisms. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> Sharply-Whiting
references hooks’ rejection of “energetic[ally] setting up Fanon as anathema to
feminist resistance politics, as fundamentally misogynist” (1998: 89). This,
perhaps, is the problem Fanon’s work has faced over the years. The question, as
was posed to hooks, often seems to be “In what ways was Fanon sexist?”, already
presuming a Black, male patriarch, especially given that “it is rare to seek
hear such condemnation of white male writers” (hooks in Sharpley-Whiting 1998:
90). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> Sharpley-Whiting
notes “[l]anguage was the primary instrument through which Fanon observed
racism and alienation” (1998: 9). It appears to also be the ways in which
Euro-American scholars engaged with Fanon’s work, especially when noting his
predominant use of masculine referents. Not only does the text maintain
“masculinism is categorically different from antifeminism and misogyny” (1998:
11), it is critical of postmodernism’s renunciation, “in the words of Edward
Said, of universal values of truth and freedom for local situations and
language games” (1998: 98). In <i>What Is
This ‘Black’ in Black Popular Culture,</i> Stuart Hall asserted, “blacks are
ambiguously placed in relation to postmodernism as they were in relation to
high modernism […] [it] remains extremely unevenly developed as a phenomenon in
which the old centre/peripheries of high modernity consistently reappear”
(1993: 22). In Fanon’s work, therefore, his ambiguous placement lies in trying
to point to the instances in which his language tends towards the masculine by
absenting the feminine. Put differently, it is typical for feminist writing to
often include the key words, ‘woman/women’, ‘feminism’ and gender neutral or
the two main gender referents – when I am reading on a screen, for instance, I
often conduct a search (Ctrl + F on the keyboard) for these words to determine
the author’s feminist leanings (or lack thereof). But Fanon’s own personal and
political context is often disregarded – he apparently had little social
interaction with women of colour, and no WOC patients – and eliding his
argument for a New Humanism, “profoundly grounded in the belief in ‘[a] social
democracy in which man and woman have an equal right to culture, to material
well-being, and to dignity’” (Sharpley-Whiting 1998: 3).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> Of course,
Fanon’s limited interaction with WOC would be no excuse to be sexist, and much
of his speculations, observations and imperfections would result in limitations
in his thinking about women. For instance, in the chapters in which women are a
primary subject – that is, in chapters where the phrases are not just ‘men and
women’ – he overwhelmingly discusses them in reference to sex and sexuality,
not even to impose any moral values, but in a way that “forecloses his humanism
to the (black) female, whom he presents, in hooks’ words, as “a sexualised body,
always not the body that ‘thinks, ’ but also appears to be the body that never
longs for freedom” (Sharpley-Whiting 1998: 91). This rigidity does not see
women for their own contributions, and weaknesses (to disavow the myth of the
strong Black woman), outside of a perpetual external sexualisation; it is
easily the same rigidity that ties a woman’s body to the nation-state as bearer
of a nation and carrier of its culture. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> In my
reading of <i>The Wretched of the Earth</i>,
I note Fanon’s negligible specificity on women’s liberation, but also that his
general rejection of colonisation and its after effects is <i>already </i>anti-misogynist and pro-woman because of the inherently
patriarchal nature of colonialism. His tendency towards the transcendental
could arguably be read as too optimistic, especially when it takes for granted
that “women must demand that their liberation, their needs, and their specific
oppressions be clearly addressed and incorporated into national liberation
movements from the outset” (Sharpley Whiting 1998: 59); but it is an optimism
that was also informed by the transitions he was witnessing first-hand during
the Algerian Revolution, any such transitions (and more) that keep many women
hopeful and moving. In any case, Sharpley-Whiting’s counter-critiques –
agreeable or otherwise – make it clear that any preoccupation with locating
Fanon as a feminist thinker runs the very real risk of dictating feminist
liberation by “totalising feminist paradigms” (1998: 91). The question ought to
be, ‘How can Fanon’s thoughts – on love, on violence, on mental health, etc. –
be <i>useful </i>to feminist liberation?’;
the answer to which is bound to produce more comprehensive answers for a
revolutionary theory and praxis today that reaches for that new humanism.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<b><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Bibliography:<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<b><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br /></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Hall, Stuart. "What is this" black" in black popular
culture?" <i>Social Justice</i> 20.1/2<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">(51-52 (1993): 104-114.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #1a1a1a; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Sharpley-Whiting</span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #1a1a1a; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;">, T. D., <i>Frantz
Fanon: Conflicts & Feminisms</i>. Oxford:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #1a1a1a; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 1998.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
Reading Frantz Fanon Here & Nowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03552708300555707437noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6569690007877179636.post-70743016322064152342016-05-18T14:28:00.000+02:002016-05-18T14:28:21.784+02:00Rumba In Kinshasa - Politics and music in the Congo<center>
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/aMeWu3DzwRo?list=PLNAlnQ4hvLtRXrqmneDy23h-6hmXR5GnL" width="560"></iframe></center>
Reading Frantz Fanon Here & Nowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03552708300555707437noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6569690007877179636.post-69250534939902650262016-05-17T14:42:00.001+02:002016-05-18T14:28:37.335+02:00Sylvia Wynter: No Humans Involved - An Open Letter to My Colleagues <div style="display: block; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 12px auto 6px auto;">
<a href="https://www.scribd.com/doc/312894174/No-Humans-Involved-an-Open-Letter-to-My-Colleagues-by-SYLVIA-WYNTER" style="text-decoration: underline;" title="View No Humans Involved an Open Letter to My Colleagues by SYLVIA WYNTER on Scribd">No Humans Involved an Open Letter to My Colleagues by SYLVIA WYNTER</a> by <a href="https://www.scribd.com/user/223381695/TigersEye99" style="text-decoration: underline;" title="View TigersEye99's profile on Scribd">TigersEye99</a></div>
<iframe class="scribd_iframe_embed" data-aspect-ratio="1.2941176470588236" data-auto-height="false" frameborder="0" height="600" id="doc_29560" scrolling="no" src="https://www.scribd.com/embeds/312894174/content?start_page=1&view_mode=scroll&access_key=key-hWI6r2s2WnaNKJTiasBa&show_recommendations=true" width="100%"></iframe>Reading Frantz Fanon Here & Nowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03552708300555707437noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6569690007877179636.post-21201713275178259662016-05-17T08:30:00.000+02:002016-05-17T08:30:04.814+02:00That Area of Experience That We Term the New World: Introducing Sylvia Wynter's Black Metamorphosis<center>
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/u8gGAJd4eSc" width="560"></iframe></center>
Reading Frantz Fanon Here & Nowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03552708300555707437noreply@blogger.com