The Wretched of the Earth

by Frantz Fanon

The people and every militant should be conscious of the historical law which stipulates that certain concessions are in fact shackles. If there is no attempt at clarifying this it is surprising how easy it is for the leaders of certain political parties to engage in nameless compromise with the former colonizer. The colonized must be made to see that colonialism never gives away anything for nothing. Whatever gains the colonized make through armed or political struggle, they are not the result of the colonizer's good will or goodness of heart but to the fact that he can no longer postpone such concessions. Moreover, the colonized subject must be aware that it is not colonialism which makes the concessions but him. When the British government decides to grant the African population a few more seats in the Kenyan Assembly it would be impudent or foolish to think that the British government has made any concessions. Isn't it obvious that it is the Kenyan population who has won the concessions? The colonized people, and those who have been stripped of their possessions, must lose the mentality they have had up till now. The colonized, at the most, can accept a concession from the colonial authorities, but never a compromise.