Decolonization In The Wretched Of The Earth By Frantz Fanon

Divide and conquer, a technique used by European countries to take land and start to make it their own. These European countries thought it was virtuous to have these Native people, whose land was just taken from them, learn western ways. In today’s terms, this is called colonization, and in Fanon, Frantz’s novel, The Wretched of the Earth (1961), he described colonialism and the different aspects to promote decolonization. Frantz Fanon, who was born in Martinique, came from a lower class family and received a colonial education. He described the psychology of the colonized and their path to liberation in a Marxist framework. The Wretched of the Earth conveys the idea of decolonization, which is the act of removing colonizing in numerous ways.

“For the last can be the first only after a murderous arid decisive confrontation between the two protagonists. This determination to have the last move up to the front, to have them clamber up (too quickly, say some) the famous echelons of an organized society, can only succeed by resorting to every means, including, of course, violence.” (Fanon 3) This violence was portrayed in numerous ways; force, physiological, and radicalism. The main idea was force alone will not bring about decolonization. Fanon had many complex ideas on violence in The Wretched of the Earth. His first main idea of violence was force meets force; soldiers and officers controlled colonialism and held it in place. Force from the colonizer must be met with force from the colonized. The colonized must use violence to reject this force from the colonizer. Also, to establish colonialism, force was required. Violence was the way to set up colonies for the European countries, those countries used the violence to obliterate the ways of life of the native people. The colonists came and took over third world countries, and most natives wanted to end the colonialism. They wanted independence. The only way they could do that was through violence, and that violence bonded the natives to create a chain for independence. Independence however was not a quick war, it was a progression, a process for liberation, and

It brought about national awareness to the natives, because people were fighting back. Not only did the violence bring about national awareness but it brought about pain and suffering. Many natives endured the struggles of the violence and developed mental disorders along with other health issues. The natives were standing up for themselves, and by doing so decolonization was taking place. As these revolutions took place, the power of the colonizers faded. Parties formed to take the place of the once powerful leaders of the colony; the national liberation groups and the bourgeoisie. The national liberation groups were the natives, who in fact faced the hardships and knew about the struggles in colonialism. These people were the workers and peasants, the people who were seeking a new society. On the other hand, there were the bourgeoisie, the intellectuals, the educated people in the European schools, the group that merely wanted to replace the existing body. Fanon suggested the national liberation groups, the peasants, take over power because of their vast knowledge of what not do in colonialism. The vast numbers on their side was another point Fanon states for these natives to take over. Yet, the bourgeoisie took over