]On Retranslating Fanon, Retrieving a Lost Voice I suppose I met .Frantz Fanon when I went to Africa, toSenegal in 1968 as an English teacher. At <strong>the</strong> age <strong>of</strong> twenty-threeI was a naive young Englishman leading a sheltered life who wasabout to discover <strong>the</strong> meaning <strong>of</strong> underdevelopment and colonization.My vision <strong>of</strong> Africa was nil and I had as much insightinto Senegalese society as a brochure at a travel agent. Rereadingsome <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> notes I made at <strong>the</strong> time I appeared to be moreinterested in finding a fan, buying a mopedment than what was on around me.textbooks I had to usesnow or<strong>of</strong> at three aftemoonreached forty degrees Celsius seemedit took me two years <strong>of</strong> teaching to put two and two toge<strong>the</strong>rand confront <strong>the</strong> issues <strong>of</strong> underdevelopment and colonization.My political consciousness was aroused and I returnedhome with more questions than answers: one <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong>m being,What on <strong>earth</strong> am I doing here? to paraphrase Bruce Chatwin.Eight years after independence Senegal still had all <strong>the</strong> trappings<strong>of</strong> a French colony and Dakar was a compartmentalized world,which Fanon described so vividly in <strong>the</strong> opening chapter on violencein The Wretched <strong>of</strong><strong>the</strong> Earth.241
242 ON RETRANSLATING FANON, RETRIEVING A LOST VOICEThis was <strong>the</strong> world 1 was destined to work in, live in, and playin, and <strong>the</strong> o<strong>the</strong>r sector, <strong>the</strong> "native" sector, could only beglimpsed through <strong>the</strong> windows <strong>of</strong><strong>the</strong> embassy's chauffeur-drivencar or perhaps when we strayed on our mopeds into areas wherefriends working for <strong>the</strong> American Peace Corps used to live. Andwhep. at embassy receptions or dinner parties <strong>the</strong> conversationwould inevitably revolve around "<strong>the</strong>m," <strong>the</strong> o<strong>the</strong>rs, it was, asFanon says, <strong>of</strong>ten couched in zoological terms, referring to <strong>the</strong>odors, <strong>the</strong> stink, <strong>the</strong> hordes, <strong>the</strong> swarming, seething, sprawlingpopulation vegetating under <strong>the</strong> sun.The year was 1968 and, true to <strong>the</strong> assimilation <strong>of</strong> a Frenchcolony, Senegal mimicked <strong>the</strong> events <strong>of</strong> May 1968 in France.Except <strong>the</strong>y lasted for an entire year and both school pupils anduniversity students deserted <strong>the</strong>ir classrooms in a vague attemptto ~hange <strong>the</strong> order <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong>ir world and forge ahead with a genuinedecolonization. But this was no revolution in <strong>the</strong> Fanoniansense and <strong>the</strong> students were content merely to sit and wait, instead<strong>of</strong> "blowing <strong>the</strong> colonial world to smi<strong>the</strong>reens" and creatingan agenda for total disorder. Just south <strong>of</strong> Senegal's border,inGuinea, Sekou Toure's resounding "No" to France, which metwith admiration and applause from Third World revolutionaries,~vidently had little chance <strong>of</strong> repeating itself in Senghor'sSenegal.My second encounter with Fanon must have been on my returnto France in 1971. One year before Britain joined <strong>the</strong> Commop.Market 1 was not only forced to apply for a work permit,but also undergo a series <strong>of</strong> medicals, mandatory for immigrantsfrom nonmember European Union countries. Most <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> immigrants,<strong>of</strong> course, were from North Mrica, and Algeria in particular.And it was here 1 witnessed that very special relationship,based on humiliation and contempt, that exists between <strong>the</strong>French and <strong>the</strong> Algerians. We were all made to line up in front<strong>of</strong> a nondescript building near <strong>the</strong> boulevard peripherique andonce inside, submitted to a series <strong>of</strong> humiliating medical examinationsthat would allow us to apply for a work permit at ano<strong>the</strong>rON RETRANSLATING FANON, RETRIEVING A LOST VOICE 243line at <strong>the</strong> Paris Prefecture. It was obvious that all <strong>the</strong> cliches about<strong>the</strong> Algerian's criminal impulsiveness, his indolence, his <strong>the</strong>fts, hislies and rapes, which had been inculcated into <strong>the</strong> French bureaucrats'minds before, during, and after <strong>the</strong> Algerian war, rose to <strong>the</strong>surface and treatment was dealt out accordingly. There was a longway to go before that colossal task, described by Fanon, <strong>of</strong> reintroducingman into <strong>the</strong> world, a man in full, could be achievedwith <strong>the</strong> crucial help <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> European masses who still ralliedbehind <strong>the</strong> position <strong>of</strong><strong>the</strong>ir governments and media on colonialIssues.My third encounter with Fanon came with my many visitsto Martinique and Guadeloupe, <strong>the</strong> island contexts that were toshape and mold <strong>the</strong> young Fanon. The sheer assimilation toFrance's cultural, educational, and political penetration not onlyturned him into a French intellectual (The New York Review <strong>of</strong>Books in 1966 described him as a "Black Rousseau ... His callfor national revolutions is Jacobin in method, Rousseauist inspirit, and Sartrian in language-altoge<strong>the</strong>r as French as canbe.") but also forced him to question and challenge <strong>the</strong> verynature <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> colonized subject. The alienation <strong>of</strong> his blackskinned,white-masked fellow islanders made him realize that ifcolonialism was not fought and defeated, <strong>the</strong>n <strong>the</strong> islands <strong>of</strong>Martinique and Guadeloupe would disappear, swallowed up by<strong>the</strong> tide <strong>of</strong> assimilation. He somehow sensed that <strong>the</strong> bravado <strong>of</strong><strong>the</strong> Martinicans was a lot <strong>of</strong> hot air, that <strong>the</strong>y would never riseup against <strong>the</strong>ir colonizers and he'd do better to put his ideasinto practice in <strong>the</strong> French departement <strong>of</strong> Algeria where <strong>the</strong>men had <strong>the</strong> guts <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong>ir convictions. On his return from hisfinal visit to Martinique in 1951, Alice Cherki (Frantz Fanon:Portrait, Paris: Editions du Seuil, 2000) quotes him as saying, "Imet more milquetoasts than men." Commenting on <strong>the</strong> tragicevents <strong>of</strong> 1959 in Martinique to his friend Bertene J uminer whilein Tunis, he told him: "Let <strong>the</strong>m pick up <strong>the</strong>ir dead, rip <strong>the</strong>irinsides out and parade <strong>the</strong>m in open trucks through <strong>the</strong> town ....Let <strong>the</strong>m yell out: 'Look what <strong>the</strong> colonialists have done!' But....____..t..~\F"' ·d,-l.i"
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OTHER WORKS BY FRANTZ FANON PUBLISH
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