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Frantz Fanon COMPILED BY LEO ZEILIG FOREWORD BY MIREILLE FANON-MENDÈS- FRANCE Haymarket Books Chicago, Illinois © 2014 Human Sciences Research Council First published 2014 as part of a series of titles named Voices of Liberation. This edition published in 2016 by Haymarket Books P.O. Box 180165 Chicago, IL 60618 773-583-7884 www.haymarketbooks.org [email protected] ISBN: 978-1-60846-164-6 Extracts from Black Skins, white masks reproduced with permission from © Éditions du Seuil, 1952. Excerpts from The Wretched of the Earth by Frantz Fanon, English translation copyright © 1963 by Présence Africaine. Used by permission of Grove/Atlantic, Inc. Any third party use of this material, outside of this publication, is prohibited. Extracts from Studies in a Dying Colonialism and Studies in a Dying Colonialism reproduced with permission from Monthly Review Press. Images supplied by Archives Frantz Fanon/IMEC and Leo Zeilig. Copyedited by Peter Lague Typeset by Nicole de Swardt Cover design by Nicole de Swardt and Georgia Demertzis Cover photo by Archives Frantz Fanon/IMEC Trade distribution: In the US, Consortium Book Sales and Distribution, www.cbsd.com In Canada, Publishers Group Canada, www.pgcbooks.ca In the UK, Turnaround Publisher Services, www.turnaround-uk.com All other countries, Publishers Group Worldwide, www.pgw.com This book was published with the generous support of Lannan Foundation and Wallace Action Fund. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication data is available. Dedicated to Pierre Chaulet and David Macey ‘Sans la reconnaissance de la valeur humaine de la folie, c’est l’homme même qui disparaît’ FRANÇOIS TOSQUELLES, L’ENSEIGNEMENT DE LA FOLIE (1992) ‘Without the recognition of the human value of madness, it is man himself who disappears.’ (THESE WORDS WERE THE PSYCHIATRIC PRINCIPLE THAT GUIDED FANON’S WORK.) CONTENTS Acknowledgements Acronyms The life of Frantz Fanon Foreword by Mireille Fanon-Mendès-France PART 1: HIS LIFE Why revisit Fanon? Inside Martinique: Racism, war and France Black Skin, White Masks Learning radical psychiatry: Saint Alban Algeria: Resistance and repression The Front de Libération Nationale, activism and psychiatry Exile in Tunisia – through France Year Five of the Algerian Revolution The Wretched of the Earth Endgame PART 2: HIS VOICE Black Skin, White Masks From Chapter 7: The Negro and Recognition From Chapter 8: By Way of Conclusion Studies in a Dying Colonialism Chapter 1: Algeria Unveiled Chapter 3: The Algerian Family The Wretched of the Earth Chapter 1: Concerning Violence Chapter 3: The Pitfalls of National Consciousness Chapter 6: Conclusion Toward the African Revolution From Section I: The Problem of the Colonised From Section III: For Algeria From Section IV: Toward the Liberation of Africa From Section V: African Unity PART 3: REFLECTIONS ON FANON AND HIS LEGACY Interviews: Pierre Chaulet, Nigel Gibson and David Macey Knowing Fanon: Pierre Chaulet Studying Fanon: Nigel Gibson Writing the biography: David Macey Unpicking Fanon’s legacy: Lessons and possibilities: Leo Zeilig Fanon’s revolutionary culture and nationalism: Hamza Hamouchene Select Bibliography ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I read Frantz Fanon’s final, greatest book The Wretched of the Earth, when I was living in Dakar in Senegal. I was working at the country’s main university, named after historian Cheikh Anta Diop. The university, like the country, seemed to be in an advanced state of collapse. The students I taught studied hard, but knew they would struggle to find work after graduation. The promises of independence forty years before, which had briefly offered the continent the prospects of real freedom, development and an escape from poverty, had been cruelly lost. For much of the continent, the dreams of African unity and socialism had crashed on the rocks of national liberation. Reading Fanon in my small study at the university, with the overhead fan slicing into the thick, humid air, was a revelation. Fanon described the failures of liberation and decolonisation; he described the degeneration of the leaders of the struggle for independence, a group he labelled a caste of profiteers, who took control of the new states. With astonishing, even prophetic foresight, he spoke of the national bourgeoisie, that avid and voracious class who would turn national liberation into a curse and a burden. In my slightly fevered reading of Fanon, I would find myself flipping to the first pages of the book to check the date of publication. How was it possible for someone to write with such sheering, disarming insight about postcolonial power and failure in 1961? During those weeks I was witness to something else in Dakar. In 2000 the Socialist Party, which had held power since independence in 1960, was defeated in a peaceful, democratic election. Before the elections it was students, many of whom I taught, who had mobilised behind the movement for political change. This was a national mobilisation that pulled in school and university students with the poor and the working class calling for political liberation. With the election of Abdoulaye Wade there was going to be an end to corruption, poverty and underdevelopment. Wade was to prove a cruel and terrible disappointment, but the movement brought to me the realisation that, despite the defeat of the radical promises of independence the continent was still rocked by boisterous, extraordinary protest movements that contained the potential for transforming the world. As I continued to read Fanon, moving on to his second book, written in 1959 during the Algerian Revolution, I found a writer who captured the empowerment – or mutation, as Fanon would write – of ordinary people involved in political struggle. Using irresistible language, Fanon spoke about how an oppressed people were recerebralised in the process of changing their conditions. The anvil of revolution could restructure consciousness, reversing an oppressed people’s long-held sense of inferiority and self-doubt. Here was Fanon as a champion of revolutionary change. I decided to investigate the circumstances of his life and write about this incredible man. In the course of my research I discovered that, although Fanon wrote for the oppressed and poor of the Third World, he understood that real liberation could only be secured if it were accompanied by political and economic transformation across the world, north and south. Fanon was an internationalist. Independence, for him, was the indispensable first stage of a global struggle for human emancipation, for a new humanism. In 1961 he cautioned his readers, those who had fought for and won this liberation, telling them that they must wage a ceaseless struggle against the national bourgeoisie, before this class could lay their hands on the spoils of the new nation. My investigations led me to meet an extraordinary array of generous people who devoted much time to this project. Some, like Pierre and Claudine Chaulet, were Fanon’s close friends, his struggle brothers and sisters. Others have written brilliantly about his life and legacy. I met Fanon’s leading biographer, David Macey, in Leeds, a year before he died. We spent the day talking about Fanon. An edited extract of the interview is included in this volume. David and I exchanged cigarettes and talked about Negritude, Algeria, postcolonialism. It was a heady, moving delight to be in David’s company, a man of such gentle erudition, insights and kindness. This book is dedicated to Pierre and David, both of whom died before I could finish the work. Many other friends, comrades and colleagues have helped develop my understanding of Fanon. Ian Birchall, historian and socialist, has been a companion since the start of the research in my attempt to understand Algeria, Fanon and the French left. For me he has long been a model of an engaged, determined and brilliant researcher, writer and activist. Fanon’s daughter, Mireille Fanon-Mendès-France was patient and generous with her time, agreeing to meet me in France and to write the Foreword for this collection. Her work on her father’s legacy is deeply embedded in an understanding of the continued relevance of his work. Others need to be mentioned: Andy Wynne, Kim Wale, Gillian Zeilig, Maurice Caplan, Martin Evans, Hamza Hamouchene, Philip Murphy, Lila Chouli. While I was working in Algiers I was inspired by conversations and interviews with veterans of the Algerian war against the French, particularly Miraoui Smain and Moutif Mohamed.