wretched-of-the-earth-frantz-fanon

232THE WRETCHED OF THE EARTHCOLONIAL WAR AND MENTAL DISORDERS233is bitterly fought over. The strongest birds gobble up all the grainwhile the less aggressive grow visibly thinner. Any colony tends tobecome one vast farmyard, one vast concentration camp whereonly law is that of the knife.In Algeria, everything has changed since the war of nationalliberation. The entire reserves of a family or metcha can be offeredto a passing company ofsoldiers in a single evening. A familycan lend its only donkey to carry a wounded fighter. And whenseveral days later the owner leams the animal was gunned downby a plane he will not sling curses or threats. Instead of questioningthe death of his donkey he will anxiously ask whether thewounded man is safe and sound.Under a colonial regime, no crime is too petty for a loaf ofbread or a wretched sheep. Under a colonial regime, man's relationshipwith the physical world and history is connected tofood. In a context of oppression like that of Algeria, for the colonized,living does not mean embodying a set of values, does notmean integrating oneself into the coherent, constructive developmentof a world. To live simply means not to die. To existmeans staying alive. Every date grown is a victory. Not the resultof hard work, but a victory celebrating a triumph over life. Stealingdates, therefore, or allowing one's sheep to eat the neighbor'sgrass is not a disregard for property rights or breaking the law ordisrespect. They are attempts at murder. Once you have seenmen and women in Kabylia struggling down into the valley forweeks on end to bring up soil in little baskets you can understandthat theft is attempted murder and not a peccadillo. The sole obsessionis the need to fill that ever shrinking stomach, howeverit demands. Who do you take it out on? The French aredown on the plain with the police, the army and their tanks. Inthe mountains there are only Algerians. Up above, Heaven withits promises of an afterlife, down below the French withfirm promises of jail, beatings and executions. Inevitably, youstumble up against yourself. Here lies this core of self-hatred thatcharacterizes racial conflict in segregated societies.The criminality ofthe Algerian, his impulsiveness, the savageryof his murders are not, therefore, the consequence of how hisnervous system is organized or specific character traits, but thedirect result of the colonial situation. The fact that the Algerianpatriots discussed this issue, that they were not afraid to challengethe beliefs inculcated in them by colonialism, that they understoodeach was a screen for the other and in reality they werecommitting suicide by pitting themselves against their neighbor,was to have an immense impact on the revolutionary consciousness.Once again, the colonized subject fights in order to put anend to domination. But he must also ensure that all the untruthsplanted within him by the oppressor are eliminated. In a colonialregime such as the one in Algeria the ideas taught by colonialismimpacted not only the European minority but also theAlgerian. Total liberation involves every facet of the personality.The ambush or the skirmish, the torture or the massacre of one'scomrades entrenches the determination to win, revives the unconsciousand nurtures the imagination. When the nation inits totality is set in motion, the new man is not an a posterioricreation of this nation, but coexists with it, matures with it, andtriumphs with it. This dialectical prerequisite explains the resistanceto accommodating forms of colonization or windowdressing. Independence is not a magic ritual but an indispensablecondition for men and women to exist in true liberation, inwords to master all the material resources necessary for aradical transformation of society.. -~~"T"~_