"Frantz Fanon’s approach to violence and its effects on the individual is uniquely guided by his lived experience. Fanon was born and raised as a colonial subject in the Antilles. He then undertook medical school and psychiatric training in France. Fanon was later an employed psychiatrist in Algeria, where he later eventually joined the revolution against the French. Fanon’s outlines both the potentialities and negative aspects of violence. His most famous and controversial remarks are those around the cathartic and self-actualising affect that violence can have on a colonial subject. However, these are often taken out of context, because Fanon is certainly not an advocate of gratuitous violence. In this brief paper, I will outline the Fanonian approach to the effects of violence on an individual, both negative and positive.
"...In other words, colonial rule is maintained through violence and repression. Fanon strongly emphasises that colonial rule ‘is the bringer of violence into the home and into the mind of the native’ (1963: 38). Fanon even asserts that violence is the ‘natural state’ of colonial rule (1963: 61). This violence derives from the racialised views that the coloniser has about the colonised subjects. The coloniser often inscribes the colonised subject with ideas of backwardness and a lack of empathy and rationality. The colonial subject is therefore ‘dehumanized’ by colonialism to such an extent that ‘it turns him into an animal’ (Fanon, 1963: 42). It then becomes natural for the coloniser to deploy violence in the colonial context, because the dehumanised colonial subject will not respond to anything else.
"For the colonial subject, freeing themselves of colonialism thorugh violence can be a cathartic experience. In Black Skin, White Masks, Fanon introduces the idea of ‘collective catharsis’. Collective catharsis is describes as ‘[i]n every society, in every collectivity, exists – must exist – a channel, an outlet through which the forces accumulated in the forms of aggression can be released’ (1952: 145). Catharsis is translatable from Ancient Greek as, ‘to purify, cleanse or purge’ (Oxford Dictionary of Critical Theory, 2010: 78-79). Aristotle used this term to describe a situation where there are feelings of pity and fear which are then relieved by an intervening event (Aristotle, 1996: Ch 6). For Fanon, this term is inextricable from the colonised subject’s experience of violently ridding themselves of colonial rule (1963: 42). The violence is the intervening event which is able to remove their feelings of self-loathing which have been internalised after constant repetition from the colonial power. The colonial subject is also able to restore their self-esteem and control over their political life. Accordingly for the Algerians, violence is cathartic insofar as it allows them the restore the sense of self which was destroyed by colonialism.
"This cathartic violence, also allows an individual to reclaim their humanity. Fanon eloquently describes the effect that this has:
Thus the native discovers that his life, his breath, his beating heart are the same as those of the settler. He finds out that the settler’s skin is not of any more value than a native’s skin; and it must be said that this discovery shakes the world in a very necessary manner…for if, in fact, my life is worth as much as the settler’s, his glance no longer shrivels me up nor freezes me, and his voice no longer turns me into stone (1963: 45).
"The physical act of violence perpetrated by the revolutionary reminds them of the humanity that they share with their colonisers. Sartre’s introduction to Wretched of the Earth he usefully described the process of colonial revolution as ‘man recreating himself’ (1963: 19). It also provides a sense of physical, mental and metaphysical ‘freedom’ (Fanon, 1963: 86). Fanon suggests that ‘violence … frees the native from his inferiority complex and from his despair and inaction; it makes him fearless and restores his self-respect’ (1963: 94). So revolutionary violence is not just cathartic, but it also allows the colonial subjects to recreate themselves or restore the way that they were prior to colonialism. It allows the colonised person to resume a free and self-determining existence.
"Violence also has the ability rectify mental health problems. In the preface to Wretched of the Earth, Sartre usefully summarises Fanon’s analysis of violence and situates it within medicalised discourse by stating that ‘The native cures himself of colonial neurosis by thrusting out the settler through force of arms’ (1963: 21). To explain this, Fanon draws upon examples from his psychiatric practice. Fanon notes that the colonial context and the ‘systemic negation’ of the colonised subject over a sustained period of time forces them to question their identity by asking themselves ‘[i]n reality, who am I?’ (1963: 252). Fanon later suggests that Algeria is a ‘favourable breeding ground for mental disorder’ as a consequence of colonial rule and ideology (1963: 251). Fanon suggests a category of psychiatric illnesses called ‘psychosomatic disorders’, which stem from the colonial context (1963: 289). The symptoms of these disorders include ulcers, menstrual pain, hair whitening and others (Fanon, 1963: 291-292). These disorders demonstrate the way that ‘it is not necessary to be wounded by a bullet in order to suffer from the fact of war in body as well as in mind’ (Fanon, 1963: 290). For Fanon, revolutionary violence has a therapeutic effect as he sees patients freed from some of these symptoms following revolutionary violence. In this way, Fanon views violence as a ‘cleansing force’ (1963: 94). Accordingly Fanon suggests that violence is able to provide a cure to some of the mental illness of the colonial subjects.
"Violence also has the ability rectify mental health problems. In the preface to Wretched of the Earth, Sartre usefully summarises Fanon’s analysis of violence and situates it within medicalised discourse by stating that ‘The native cures himself of colonial neurosis by thrusting out the settler through force of arms’ (1963: 21). To explain this, Fanon draws upon examples from his psychiatric practice. Fanon notes that the colonial context and the ‘systemic negation’ of the colonised subject over a sustained period of time forces them to question their identity by asking themselves ‘[i]n reality, who am I?’ (1963: 252). Fanon later suggests that Algeria is a ‘favourable breeding ground for mental disorder’ as a consequence of colonial rule and ideology (1963: 251). Fanon suggests a category of psychiatric illnesses called ‘psychosomatic disorders’, which stem from the colonial context (1963: 289). The symptoms of these disorders include ulcers, menstrual pain, hair whitening and others (Fanon, 1963: 291-292). These disorders demonstrate the way that ‘it is not necessary to be wounded by a bullet in order to suffer from the fact of war in body as well as in mind’ (Fanon, 1963: 290). For Fanon, revolutionary violence has a therapeutic effect as he sees patients freed from some of these symptoms following revolutionary violence. In this way, Fanon views violence as a ‘cleansing force’ (1963: 94). Accordingly Fanon suggests that violence is able to provide a cure to some of the mental illness of the colonial subjects.
"Despite seeing potentiality in violence, Fanon does not think that violence should be used lightly or as an end unto itself. Fanon also documents the dangerous and negative effects of violence. The initial and most obviously negative aspect of violence is the physical harm that it inflicts upon people. In all of Fanon’s works, the physical and human cost of violence is made present. Expressing frustration he notes that ‘[w]hen the native is tortured, when his wife is killed or raped, he complains to no one’ (Fanon, 1963: 92). As Fanon views violence as the currency of colonialism, it becomes an omnipresent feature of daily life for the colonial subject (Fanon, 1963: 61). The true horror of daily violence was ever present to Fanon as a psychiatrist in the largest psychiatric hospital in Algeria. The physical violence which pervades colonialism is exacerbated by the structural violence of the colonial system which sees the ‘systematic negation’ of the colonial subject’s humanity (Fanon, 1963: 250). Fanon recalls numerous examples from his practice of physical and mental trauma which was caused by the colonial context."
Comments
Post a Comment