A DISTINCT FORM OF VIOLENCE, DRIVEN BY INSTINCT

The way in which Fanon discusses the process of decolonization and the colonial situation is refreshing. It is not blanketed in descriptions of endlessly complex processes which give way to the injustices of colonization and why decolonization is thus, an inevitable movement. It instead, seems to me to be a text which is raw and unfiltered. In the chapter “On Violence”, Fanon’s thoughts reveal his stream of consciousness as he shifts chaotically from discussing the mentality of the colonizer to the fundamental condition of antagonism which underlies the colonial situation. In the same token, Fanon’s thoughts and feelings are also translated onto the page in a raw and bare manner, which are not cloaked under the pretence of rational, strategic thinking but rather reveal a much more startling truth.

For Fanon, colonization has been characterized by one constant feature which has come to define its essence: violence. He speaks of the “order” that the colonized world sought to establish, and how this order was made possible through incessant, continuous and relentless violence. The tool with which this violence was exercised is what Fanon refers to as “law and order” bodies which took the form of “barracks” and “police officers”. Hence, the establishment of the colonial situation from its very onset has been one that has been defined by violence. When Fanon speaks about decolonization, he terms it as a movement which bears within it the intention of bringing about complete “disorder”. This disorder which Fanon refers to however, to me, seems to be one that is not a blind, senseless form of aggression against oppressors, but is rather something which comes about as an instinctual reaction to the colonized. Decolonization is described as a process which “fundamentally alters being”. This term reveals that for Fanon, decolonization as a response to the colonial situation was not merely a systematic movement brought about to revolutionize society and remove an element which had oppressed the colonized entirely. Rather, it was an instinctual response of the colonized which engaged with their consciousness on a fundamental, basic human level. Thus, the violence which is referred to is not a violence that is characterized solely by a need to defend oneself or seek revenge, but is rather a process that engages with the basic human desire to be free, and to be able to exist independently without being defined in relation to anyone or anything else. In order to achieve this disorder, it is necessary to be willing to “smash every obstacle” encountered. The colonized must commit to the process of transforming the condition of their existence completely. Thus, in my opinion, Fanon’s sees violence in the colonial context as an instinct which the human body of the colonized employs as a method which it needs in order to survive and more simply, in order to be able to exist freely as human being.

Fanon sees the world of the colonizer and the world of the colonized as two “antagonistic” forces which exist in a dichotomy that cannot be reconciled. There is no possible solution that exists in which both the colonizer and the colonized can co-exist. And since this possibility does not exist, the alternative arises as the only way out of the nightmare of colonization. To get rid of the colonized. The best way to do this is to respond to the colonizer in the same language which he understands and has practiced thoroughly throughout the colonizing mission: the language of violence.

It is important to note that throughout my reading of Wretched of the Earth, Fanon’s explanation of violence did not come across as one which was plagued by a need to seek revenge for the injustices of the colonizer. He is angry, but his anger seems to be the kind of anger that the human body feels as an impulsive reaction to wrongdoing. This particularly stood out to me in the text as Fanon continuously describes the condition of the colonized as one which disturbs his/hers very being, and hence decolonization, by attaining freedom, must come across as the complete alteration of ones being. Fanon’s anger, which to me seems to be the central character in the text, is a distinct kind. It is not entirely vengeful, nor completely blind to reason. It is simply the reaction of the human being to the injustices imposed upon the human being. Like his writing, the anger in the text is bare, naked and is not cloaked under any form of pretence.