French psychologist and theorist of colonialism, born in Martinique. He studied medicine and psychiatry in Lyon, where his experiences as a black intellectual led him to study the effects of racism and colonization. His analysis of the Algerian struggle for independence, Les Damnés de la terre (1961), has become the inspiration for freedom causes throughout the Third World.
Frantz Fanon (July 20, 1925 – December 6, 1961) was a Martinique-born French author and essayist.
Life
Martinique and WWII
Fanon was born on the Caribbean island of Martinique, then a French colony and now a French département.
After France fell to the Nazis in 1940, Vichy French naval troops were blockaded on Martinique. The abuse of the Martinican people by the French Army was a major influence on Fanon, as it reinforced his feelings of alienation and his disgust at the realities of colonial racism. At the age of eighteen, Fanon fled the island and traveled to Dominica to join the Free French Forces. He later enlisted in the French army and saw service in France, notably in the battles of Alsace. When the Nazis were defeated and Allied forces crossed the Rhine into Germany -- along with photo journalists -- Fanon's regiment was "bleached" of all non-white soldiers and Fanon and his fellow black soldiers were sent to Toulon instead.
In 1945, Fanon returned to Martinique. Although Fanon never professed to be a communist, Césaire ran on the communist ticket as a parliamentary delegate from Martinique to the first National Assembly of the Fourth Republic. Fanon stayed long enough to complete his Baccalaureate and then went to France where he studied medicine and psychiatry. After qualifying as a psychiatrist in 1951, Fanon did a residency in psychiatry under the radical Catalan, Francois de Tosquelles, who invigorated Fanon's thinking by emphasizing the important yet often overlooked role of culture in psychopathology. After his residency, Fanon practiced psychiatry in France for another year and then (from 1953) in Algeria. In retrospect one might wonder why Fanon spent over 10 years in the service of France, but his servitude to Frances army (and his experiences in Martinique) fueled Black Skin, White Masks. For Fanon, being colonized by a language had larger implications for one's consciousness: "To speak . Speaking French means that one accepts, or is coerced into accepting, the collective consciousness of the French. j
France
While in France, Fanon wrote his first book, Black Skin, White Masks, an analysis of the effect of colonial subjugation on the human psyche. This book was a personal account of Fanon’s experience of being a black man, an intellectual with a French education rejected in France by the French because of his skin colour.
Algeria
Fanon left France for Algeria, where he had been stationed for some time during the war.
In The Wretched of the Earth, Fanon later discussed in depth the effects on Algerians of torture by the French forces. The fact that some French paratrooper units engaged in torture has had political repercussions in France, where those alleged to have engaged in torture enjoy an amnesty for the "events."
Fanon made extensive trips across Algeria, mainly in the Kabyle region, to study the cultural/psychological life of Algerians. Fanon left for France and subsequently traveled secretly to Tunis. In this book Fanon even outs himself as a war strategist;
Death
On his return to Tunis, after his exhausting trip across the Sahara to open a Third Front, Fanon was diagnosed with leukemia. He died in Bethesda [Maryland, US], on December 6, 1961 under the name of Ibrahim Fanon. Fanon was survived by his wife, Josie, their son, Olivier and daughter, Mireille.
Work
Although Fanon wrote Black Skin, White Masks while still in France, most of his work was written while in North Africa. It was during this time that he produced his greatest works, Year 5 of the Algerian Revolution (later republished as A Dying Colonialism) and perhaps the most important work on decolonization yet written, The Wretched of the Earth. In it Fanon analyzes the role of class, race, national culture and violence in the struggle for national liberation. Both books established Fanon in the eyes of much of the Third World as the leading anti-colonial thinker of the 20th century. Fanon's three books were supplemented by numerous psychiatry articles as well as radical critiques of French colonialism in journals like, Esprit and El Moudjahid. As a result, Fanon has often been portrayed as an advocate of violence.
His participation in the Algerian FLN (Front de Libération Nationale) from 1955 determined his audience as the Algerian colonized.
Influence
Fanon has had an inspiring impact on anti-colonial and liberation movements. Of these only Guevara was primarily concerned with Fanon's theories on violence; for Shariati and Biko the main interest in Fanon was "the new man" and "black consciousness" respectively. Fanon's influence extended to the liberation movements of the Palestinians, the Tamils, the Irish, African Americans and others.
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