The Wretched of the Earth

by Frantz Fanon

The proposed explanation, which is now taught as part of the curriculum, seems in the last analysis to be as follows: the configuration of the North African’s brain structure accounts for the indolence of “the native,” his mental and social inaptitude as well as his virtual animal impulsiveness. The criminal impulsiveness of the North African is the transcription of a certain configuration of the nervous system into his pattern of behavior. It is a neurologically comprehensible reaction, written into the nature of things, of the thing which is biologically organized. The idleness of the frontal lobes explains his indolence, his crimes, his thefts, his rapes, and his lies. And the conclusion was given to me by a sous-préfet now préfet: “These instinctive beings,” he told me, “who blindly obey the laws of their nature must be strictly and pitilessly regimented. Nature must be tamed, not talked into reason.” Discipline, tame, subdue, and now pacify are the common terms used by the colonialists in the territories occupied.