Frantz Fanon

Frantz Fanon (1925–1961) was perhaps the preeminent thinker of the 20th century on the issue of decolonization and the psychopathology of colonization. His works have inspired anti-colonial liberation movements throughout the world for the past forty-two years.

Life

Martinique and WWII

Fanon was born on 20 July 1925 on the Caribbean island of Martinique, then a French colony and now a French département. He was born into a mixed family background of African slaves, Tamil indentured servants and a white man. The family were relatively well off for Martinicans but far from a middle class background. They could however afford the fees for the all black Lycee Schoelcher.

Related Topics:
1925 - Martinique - French colony - Département

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After France fell to the Nazis in 1940, French naval troops were blockaded on Martinique. Forced to remain on the island, French soldiers became "authentic racists". Many accusations of harassment and sexual misconduct arose. The treatment of the Martinique people by the French Army was a major formative influence on Fanon, as it cemented the feelings of alienation and his understanding of the realities of racism. At the age of eighteen, Fanon fled the island and travelled to Dominica to join Free French Forces. He later enlisted in the French army and saw active duty in France, notably in the bloody battles af Alsace. In 1944 he was wounded in battle and received the Croix de Guerre medal. His unit was not allowed to cross the Rhine as the regiment was whitened.

Related Topics:
Nazi - France - 1944

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In 1945, after recovering from his wounds Fanon returned home to Martinique, a decorated war veteran. His return to Martinique lasted only a short time. While there, he worked for the parliamentary campaign of his friend and mentor Aimé Césaire, who would be the greatest influence in his life. Although it is often argued that Fanon was never fully a communist, Césaire ran on the communist ticket as a parliamentary delegate from Martinique to the first National Assembly of the Fourth Republic. Fanon stayed long enough to complete his baccalaureate and then returned to France where he took up the study of medicine and psychiatry. He was educated in Lyon where he also studied literature, drama,and philosophy. He attended Merleau-Ponty's lectures and studied psychiatry under the radical Catalan, Francois de Tosquelles, qualifying as a psychiatrist in 1951; he practised psychiatry in France and (from 1953) in Algeria. He was chef de service in Blida-Joinville, Algeria, where he stayed until his resignation in 1956.

Related Topics:
1945 - Veteran - Aimé Césaire - Communist - Fourth Republic - Lyon - Psychiatrist - 1951 - Algeria - Blida-Joinville

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France

While in France he wrote his first book, Black Skin, White Masks, an analysis of the impact of colonial subjugation on the black psyche. This book was a very personal account of Fanon?s experience being black: as a man, an intellectual, and a party to a French education.

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Algeria

Fanon left France for Algeria, where he had been stationed for some time during the war. He secured an appointment as a psychiatrist at Blida. It was there that he radicalised methods of treatment and care. In particular, he initiated socio-therapy which connected with his patients cultural background. He also trained his nurses and interns. Following the outbreak of the Algerian revolution in November 1954 he joined the FLN (Front de Libération Nationale) in early 1955 as a result of contacts with Dr Chaulet. (As a side note, he discusses in depth the effect of the torture of Algerian "terrorists" in his writings; torture that still has political ramifications in France as some alleged and confesed torturers (for example, Général Paul Aussaresses) still enjoy social preeminence, and Algerian victims still cry for justice. This discussion of the effects of torture appears in The_Wretched_of_the_Earth.)

Related Topics:
Front de Libération Nationale - Général Paul Aussaresses - The_Wretched_of_the_Earth

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Fanon made extensive trips across Algeria, but mainly in the Kabyle region, to study the cultural/psycholgical life of the Algerian. His lost study of "The marabout of Si Slimane" is an example of this work. These trips were also a means for clandestine activities, noticeably in his visits to the ski resort of Chrea which hid an FLN base. By summer 1956 he wrote his famous "Letter of resignation to the Resident Minister", and made a clean break with his French assimilationist upbringing and education. He was finally expelled from Algeria in January, 1957, and the "nest of fellaghas " at Blida hospital was dismantled. Fanon left for France and subsequently travelled secretly to Tunis. He was part of the editorial collective of "El Moudjahid" for which he wrote up to the end of his life. He also served as Ambassador to Ghana for the Provisional Algerian Government, and attended conferences in Accra, Conakry, Addis Ababa, Leopoldville, Cairo and Tripoli. Many of his shorter writings from this period were collected posthumously in the book Toward the African Revolution. In this book Fanon even outs himself as a war strategist; in one chapter he discusses how to open a southern front to the war and how to adequately run the supply lines.

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Death

On his return to Tunis, after his exhausting trip across the Sahara to open a Third Front, Fanon was diagnosed with leukemia. He went to the Soviet Union for treatment and experienced some remission from his illness. On his return to Tunis he dictated his testament The Wretched of the Earth. When he was not confined to his bed, he delivered lectures to ALN (Armée de Libération Nationale) officers at Ghardimao on the Algero-Tunisian border. He made a final visit to Sartre in Rome and went for further leukemia treatment in the USA. He died in Washington, D.C., on December 6 1961 under the name of Ibrahim Fanon. He was buried in Algeria, after lying in state in Tunisia. Later his body was moved to a martyrs (chouhada) graveyard at Ain Kerma in western Algeria. Fanon was survived by his wife, Josie, their son, Olivier and daughter, Mirielle.

Related Topics:
The Wretched of the Earth - December 6 - 1961

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