The Wretched of the Earth

by Frantz Fanon

It was once all so simple with the bad on one side and the good on the other.

They cry treason, but in fact the treason is not national but social, and they need to be taught to cry thief.

Violence alone, perpetrated by the people, violence organized and guided by the leadership, provides the key for the masses to decipher social reality. Without this struggle, without this praxis there is nothing but a carnival parade and a lot of hot air. All

emerges from a universalist, neoliberal confusion to arrive, sometimes laboriously,

derive historically from the incapacity of the national bourgeoisie in underdeveloped countries to rationalize popular praxis, in other words their incapacity to attribute it any reason. The characteristic, virtually endemic weakness of the underdeveloped countries' national consciousness is not only the consequence of the colonized subject's mutilation by the colonial regime. It can also be attributed to the apathy of the national bourgeoisie, its mediocrity, and its deeply cosmopolitan mentality.

congenital incapacity to evaluate issues on the basis of the nation as a whole, the national bourgeoisie assumes the role of manager for the companies of the West and turns its country virtually into a bordello for Europe.

This bourgeoisie especially in the aftermath of independence, has no scruples depositing in foreign banks the profits it has made from the national resources.

Their mistake, our mistake, under the pretext of combating Balkanization, was not to take into consideration that pre-colonial factor of territoriality. Our mistake was not to give enough attention in our analyses to this factor, exacerbated by colonialism, but also a sociological fact which no theory on unity, however commendable or appealing, can eliminate.

Colonialism will attempt to rally the African peoples by uncovering the existence of "spiritual" rivalries.

Colonialism shamelessly pulls all these strings, only too content to see the Africans, who were once in league against it, tear at each other's throats.

we must understand that African unity can only be achieved under pressure and through leadership by the people, i.e., with total disregard for the interests of the bourgeoisie.

The single party is the modern form of the bourgeois dictatorship—stripped of mask, makeup, and scruples, cynical in every aspect. Such a dictatorship cannot, in fact, go very far. It never stops secreting its own contradiction.

it discovers the need for a popular leader whose dual role will be to stabilize the regime and perpetuate the domination of the bourgeoisie. The bourgeois dictatorship of the underdeveloped countries draws its strength from the existence of such a leader.

Tbh, it's useful here too.

In the underdeveloped countries, however, the leader represents the moral force behind which the gaunt and destitute bourgeoisie of the young nation decides to grow rich.

far from establishing himself as the promoter of the actual dignity of the people, which is founded on bread, land, and putting the country back into their sacred hands, the leader will unmask his inner purpose: to be the CEO of the company of profiteers composed of a national bourgeoisie intent only on getting the most out of the situation.

Obama. Other presidents too, but his whole image is closely aligned with the idea of a man of the people, works for freedom, words of inspiration...

Once protected, the national economy is now literally state controlled. The budget is funded by loans and donations.

He helps to curb the growing awareness of the people. He lends his support to this caste and hides its maneuvers from the people, thus becoming its most vital tool for mystifying and numbing the senses of the masses.

The peasant who continues to scratch a living from the soil, the unemployed who never find a job, are never really convinced that their lives have changed, despite the festivities and the flags, however new they might be.

Only the party in name, emblem, and motto remains. The organic party, designed to enable the free circulation of an ideology based on the actual needs of the masses, has been transformed into a syndication of individual interests.

the only role of the former party, now reduced to a skeleton, is to immobilize the people.

In these poor, underdeveloped countries where, according to the rule, enormous wealth rubs shoulders with abject poverty, the army and the police force form the pillars of the regime;

to convey to those starving the Congolese people is that God will punish them: "If there is no room in your heart for the people under you, there will be no room for you in the house of God." It is obvious that the national bourgeoisie is little troubled by such denunciations.

As we have seen, the national bourgeoisie of certain underdeveloped countries has learned nothing from history. If it had looked closer at Latin America it would have no doubt identified the dangers awaiting it.

But the truth is that the bourgeois phase in the history of the underdeveloped countries is a useless phase. Once this caste has been eliminated, swallowed up by its own contradictions, it will be clear to everyone that no progress has been made since independence and that everything has to be started over again from scratch.

What makes a bourgeoisie is not its attitude, taste, or manners. It is not even its aspirations. The bourgeoisie is above all the direct product of precise economic realities.

The bourgeoisie of the underdeveloped countries is a bourgeoisie in spirit only. It has neither the economic power, nor the managerial dynamism, nor the scope of ideas to qualify it as a bourgeoisie.

first and foremost must nationalize the tertiary sector.

I think he means education and intellectual ideas here.

But it is evident that such a nationalization must not take on the aspect of rigid state control. This does not mean putting politically uneducated citizens in managerial positions.

means organizing democratically the cooperatives for buying and selling. It means decentralizing these cooperatives by involving the masses in the management of public affairs. All this obviously cannot succeed unless the people are politically educated.

The political education of the masses is meant to make adults out of them, not to make them infantile.

For the people the party is not the authority but the organization whereby they, the people, exert their authority and will. The less confusion there is, the less duality of powers, the more the party can fulfill its role as guide and the more it will become a decisive guarantee for the people.

it is not content merely to stay in touch with the masses. The party must be the direct expression of the masses. The party is not an administration with the mission of transmitting government orders. It is the vigorous spokesperson and the incorruptible defender of the masses.

The more the people understand, the more vigilant they become, the more they realize in fact that everything depends on them and that their salvation lies in their solidarity, in recognizing their interests and identifying their enemies. The people understand that wealth is not the fruit of labor but the spoils from an organized protection racket.

The land belongs to those who work it.

realized that work is not a simple notion, that slavery is the opposite of work, and that work presupposes freedom, responsibility, and consciousness.

People must know where they are going and why. The politician should be aware that the future will remain bleak as long as the people's consciousness remains rudimentary, primary, and opaque.

The search for truth in local situations is the responsibility of the community.

Women shall be given equal importance to men, not in the articles of the consitution, but in daily life, at the factory, in the schools, and in assemblies.

National service can be civilian or military, and in any case every able-bodied citizen should be able to join his fighting unit at a moment's notice to defend the freedom of the nation and its civil liberties.

because any hint of a caste consciousness should be eliminated.

The front line against hunger and darkness, the front line against poverty and stunted consciousness, must be present in the minds and muscles of the men and women. The work of the masses, their determination to conquer the scourges that for centuries have excluded them from the history of the human mind, must be connected to the work and determination of all the underdeveloped peoples. There is a kind of collective endeavor, a common destiny among the underdeveloped masses.

tribulations. If nationalism is not explained, enriched, and deepened, if it does not very quickly turn into a social and political consciousness, into humanism, then it leads to a dead end.

For an act to be authentic, one has to be a vital part of Africa and its thinking, part of all that popular energy mobilized for the liberation, progress and happiness of Africa.

Each generation must discover its mission, fulfill it or betray it, in relative opacity.

colonialism's inability to transform itself into a nonpartisan aid program.

I concede the fact that the actual existence of an Aztec civilization has done little to change the diet of today's Mexican peasant.

colonized intellectuals' shared interest in stepping back and taking a hard look at the Western culture in which they risk becoming ensnared. Fully aware they are in the process of losing themselves, and consequently of being lost to their people, these men work away with raging heart and furious mind to renew contact with their people's oldest, inner essence, the farthest removed from colonial times.

Reclaiming the past does not only rehabilitate or justify the promise of a national culture.

This effort to demean history prior to colonization today takes on a dialectical significance.

Taking away the language from indigenous children. Stories can no longer be passed down by generation. And the familial connection is damaged.

Colonialism, little troubled by nuances,

Understatement