To equate one violence with another

“The violence which governed the ordering of the colonial world, which tirelessly punctuated the destruction of the indigenous social fabric, and demolished unchecked the systems of reference of the country's economy, lifestyles, and modes of dress, this same violence will be vindicated and appropriated when, taking history into their own hands, the colonized swarm into the forbidden cities”

Sometimes, language fails to capture reality. In On Violence, Fanon expounds, at length, the nature of the violence of colonization and that of decolonization. My issue here is twofold; I don’t think the word “violence” in its normal usage effectively conveys the scope of Fanon’s use of the word, which I argue is distinct in a few key ways and hence, not the “same violence” as Fanon puts it. Another issue arising from this is that it creates an implicit equivalence between the violences.

The linguistic connotations that give the word “violence” its nature involve two things: that it is something that acts in opposition to another force and that it is deconstructive (in that you physically destroy something). The former is obviously true in Fanon’s context. Fanon’s violence in decolonization, however, is important in that it is a constructive force rather than a deconstructive one. It’s true that this violence involves actual physical force:

“The adherents of the colonial system discover that the masses might very well destroy everything. The sabotage of bridges, the destruction”.

However, for Fanon, violence has effects in that it changes the person who enacts the violence, and not just the person it is enacted upon.

“At the individual level, violence is a cleansing force. It cleanses the colonized of their inferiority complex, of their passive and despairing attitude. It emboldens them, and restores their selfconfidence. Even if the armed struggle has been symbolic, and even if they have been demobilized by rapid decolonization, the people have time to realize that liberation was the achievement of each and everyone and no special merit should go to leader.”

In this sense, violence is important in that it is also a healing force rather than just a harmful one. It does so by affecting the colonized in the manner that you might describe a powerful spiritual or psychological experience would. It is beyond a physical force, it also bolsters your ability to perceive the colonized world your own suffering despite the apparent brainwashing effects of colonization. To be clear, he does not argue that the violence is necessarily the starting point for the colonized hostility towards the colonizer, but violence is the necessary instrument that crystallizes the nature of that hostility

Note that in Fanon’s description of the violence of colonization, violence is never described as something that changes or affects the colonizer in any way; his Western ideals of enlightenment used to boost his twisted sense of individualism and racism would have existed anyways. The colonized is changed after the violence, a “new person” is created. The colonization of violence never changed the white man who enacted it, it merely destroyed black skin. 

Fanon is cognizant of this, a close reading of the exact language he uses to describe the two kinds of violence is very telling in this regard. He understands that the uses of the violence by the two actors are very different as to their context.

“In colonial regions, however, the proximity and frequent, direct intervention by the police and the military ensure the colonized are kept under close scrutiny, and contained by rifle butts and napalm”

Colonization violence for Fanon, is primarily a tactic. It isn’t a practice of creation, it is something used to enforce something that already exists (explicitly the borders in his description of the Manichaean world). It is literally something you do.

Fanon never treats the violence of the colonized like this. He conceptualizes it as being something akin of both a practice (in the cleansing practice mentioned above) but also as a resource and as something that is acted upon instead of an act.

“What are the forces in the colonial period which offer new channels, new agents of empowerment for the violence of the colonized?”

Violence is, hence, something he wants to empower rather than empower by. He treats it as something precious in that it be nurtured and protected besides being used strategically to further the goals of a decolonization movement. It is not a tactic, but a resource.

But it is not the kind of violence that even Sartre dumbs it down to being. Given its nature as a force that acts upon he who enacts it, and as a resource rather than a tactic, this isn't just "violence". It's something more powerful and more vital to the decolonization movement than mere physical destruction can ever be. Language fails us.