Wretched of the Earth

Wretched of the Earth by Frantz Fanon explores the roles of violence, class, and political organization in the process of decolonization. Within a Marxist framework, Fanon theorizes and prophesizes the successes and failures of independence movements within colonized nations. He exalts the proletariat as a revolutionary class that is first to realize the necessity of violence in the removal of colonial regimes. Yet the accomplishment and disappointments of the proletariat are at the hand of men. Fanon neglects women in terms of the proletariat’s wishes and efforts. In spite of this exclusion, Fanon nonetheless develops a theory that could apply to the proletariat as a whole, women included. For although Fanon failed to acknowledge women’s role in a post-colonial society, his theory of the revolutionary proletariat applies to Egypt’s lower class women.

In order to expand upon Fanon’s theory of the proletariat it is important to explore the provided theory in depth. Fanon established the proletariat as the class that lacked ownership of the means of production and only attained means of subsistence through the selling of the labor or power for a wage. Individuals who compose the proletariat and peasantry are often the subjects of colonial economic policies. These policies strangled the colonized nation’s economy and only serve to increase the wealth of the colonizers. For this reason there is much resentment and jealousy among the oppressed. For this reason the peasants and proletariat are the most radically revolutionary and violent: “The underprivileged and starving peasant is the exploited who very soon discovers that only violence pays.” Through the establishment of this principle, Fanon is able to explore the notion that dec...

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...proached Reginald Wingate, the British general, to express their hopes for a meeting with the British government about independence. The denial of their request caused the nationalist movement to become militant. In an effort to regain control over the movement, British officials began arrests and deportations. After the death of Hamidah Khalil, “a woman of the people,” women began a series of protests. As opposed to the organized protests of upper-class women, lower-class women rose up in protest far more spontaneously. British soldiers fired upon these women injuring or killing many. Throughout 1919, Egyptian women of all classes contributed to the protests in the streets. Lower-class women showed a particular degree of militancy, which involved the cutting of telephone wires, the disruption of railway lines, and the attacks on prisons to free their comrades.