wretched-of-the-earth-frantz-fanon

IiiPREFACEPREFACEliiiit is through this mad rage,desire to kill us, and themuscles, afraid to relax, that they become men. It iscolonist, who wants to turn them intoagainst him. Still blind and abstract, hatred isThe master provokes it because he to deaden theirhe fails to break it because his interests stop him halfway. Thefalse "natives," therefore, are still humans owing to the powerand powerlessness of the oppressor that are transformed into thenatives' stubborn rejection of their animal condition. As for therest, the message is clear. They are lazy, of course they are: it's aform of sabotage. Sly and thieving: What did you expect? Theirpetty thieving marks the start of a still unorganized resistance.And if that is not enough there are those who assert themselvesthemselves with their bare hands against the guns;others tum into men by killing Euroareshot: the sacrificemasses.Terrified, yes. At this newnalized by the colonized as aonly the fear they feelrepression, but also the fear thatoutlaws and martyrsown fury inspires inThey are trapped between our guns, which are pointing atand those frightening instincts, those murderous impulses,emerge from the bottom of their hearts and that they don'tways recognize. For it is not first of all their violence, it is ours,on the rebound, that grows and tears them apart; and the firstreaction by these oppressed people is to repress this shamefulanger that is morally condemned by them and us, but that is theonly refuge they have left for their humanity. Read Fanon: youwill see that in a time of helplessness, murderous rampage is thecollective unconscious of the colonized.This repressed rage, never managing to explode, goes roundin circles and wreaks havoc on the oppressed themselves. In orderto rid themselves of it they up massacring each other, tribesbattle one against the other since they cannot confront the realenemy-and you can count on colonial policy to fuel rivalries;the brother raising his knife against his brother believes he isdestroying once and for all the hated image of their commondebasement. But expiatory victims do not satisfy their thirstto stop themselves from marchingis to become our accomplices: theprocess they are rejecting will be speeded upown InItIative. Under the amused gaze of the colonist,they protect themselvesreviving awesome old myths, at other timesmeticulous rituals. The colonized, therefore, inshuns his deep desires by inflicting on himself odd ritesmonopolize him at every moment. They dance: that keeps themoccupied; it relaxes their painfully contracted muscles, andwhat's more, the dance secretly mimes, often unbeknownst tothem, the No they dare not voice, the murders they dare notcommit. In some regions they use the last resort: possession. Whatwas once quite simply a religious act, an exchange between thebeliever and the sacred, has been turned into a weapon againstdespair and humiliation: the zars, the ioas, the Saints of Santeriapossess them, take control of their violence and squander it intrances ending in exhaustion. At the same time their idols protectthem: in other words the colonized protect themselves fromgoing one step better with religious alienendresult of having accumulated twocertainchoses, therefore, tired of being insulted dav in and dav out. thehallucinating individual suddenly gets itan angel's voice complimenting him; this doesn'ting, but at least it gives him a break. It is a means of defensethe end of their story: the personality dislocates and the patientis a case for dementia. For a few rigorously selected unfortunates,there is that other possession I mentioned earlier: Western culture.In their shoes, you might say, I would prefer my zars to the