On Anger and its Origin

At the risk of sounding far too vague and maybe also ridiculous, I'd like to wonder if anger is the main takeaway from Fanon. I'd like to wonder if anger is the only start and end we see in his work. Even after contextualising Fanon and writing, would it not be unfair to see mostly anger? I feel it would be a disservice. I feel that while there is anger, justifiable anger in his writing, there is also heavy grief that is the seed for said violence. A sense of unbridled rage and frustration laden with the most burdensome of grievances.

This grief is one over what the human being has been reduced to, what they expect to be reduced to in the future, somehow all tied together with the unshakeable belief that if human being can change human being (forcefully), maybe we can “create another” . Anger features no doubt in Fanon’s work, in fact this is what it is mainly characterised by. But where Fanon says to “seize this violence as it realigns itself” he also talks of how “this threatening atmosphere of violence and missiles in no way frightens or disorients the colonised. We have seen that their entire recent history has prepared them to “understand” the situation”. It is especially with this "understanding" identified by Fanon where I speak of grief. Does this recognition itself not seem like one that would bring on grief like no other. Grief at the acceptance of misery and turmoil by the colonized. Grief that a condition such as this was precedented for the colonized. Fanon's anger and violence do not exist in vacuum. They are the result of a grief accumulated over far too long, and one that seems insurmountable. 

Fanon writes that the colonized "live in a doomsday atmosphere and nothing must elude them.” He is under no illusions as to what the colonized are subject to-he couldn’t possibly be. But there seems (to me at least) a way with his words that denote an initial exasperation and recognition when coming to terms with the condition of the colonized. This resignation reaches the point where the colonized “complains to no one”. The colonized has accepted his "insignificance" and this acceptance has driven Fanon to a violence fuelled by grief. Fanon is careful where he does not want this dejectedness to turn into compliance. Instead of turning grief into acceptance, Fanon transforms it into violence. One that enables the colonized man to liberate himself “in and through violence”. From having to understand grief that underlies Fanon's frustration and anger, we are made to understand that “the work of the colonized is to imagine every possible method for annihilating the colonist”. This is how I see Fanon’s grief manifesting. I do not think he arrived to the conclusion of violence as easily as it may seem. His violence is one that is rooted in the grief of the colonized being treated as less than human, and this violence “emboldens them, and restores their self-confidence”. That is why it is important. It is important because the anger and violence born of grief will set the colonized free, and this freedom will take them anywhere and everywhere. 

Lastly, it would not hurt to see what else goes on with this anger and violence. These two do not exist on their own, but side by side with hope and fierce optimism. If anger and violence originated from grief, the culmination of all these will be in hope. The hope that "we must make a new start, develop a new way of thinking, and endeavour to create a new man".