On Violence is the first section of the 1961 book written by Frantz Fanon called The Wretched of the Earth. In this section, Fanon undertakes to analyze the specificities of violence within the context of decolonization. He tries to answer the following question.
What are the negative and positive aspects of violence? Fanon himself was born and raised as a colonial subject under the rule of France in the archipelago of Antilles. His relationship with the powers of colonization is therefore acutely felt and extremely personal.
Fanon describes decolonization as a historical process where two contradicting powers meet each other face to face, the colonizer and the colonized. The colonizer, for Fanon, is the one who brings violence in the home and into the mind of the native. In fact, Fanon thinks that violence is the defining characteristic or the natural state of the colonial rule. is not always physical, it often manifests itself as a form of cultural discrimination or outright dehumanization of the native subject. The very psyche of the colonized subject is successfully fabricated by the colonizer who tries to shape an animal out of the colonized.
Correspondingly, when the colonized subject is rendered non-human, colonizers are left, in their effort to control the non-human, with a single option. Constant physical violence For Fanon, therefore, the process of decolonization really is about the creation of new men Through active participation in decolonization, native people can bring about a new generation of men with a new language and a new humanity But how does violence fit into all of this? As we mentioned, violence is the natural state of the colonizer's rule Therefore In order to liberate themselves, native people have to find an outlet through which the forces accumulated in the forms of colonizers'aggression can be released.
This is what Fanon calls the collective catharsis, which describes native people's experience of violently obliterating the colonial rule. By virtue of this decolonizing violence, the colonized subject can reclaim the new generation of men, a new world. language and a new humanity.
The humanity that once had been denied to the colonized subject can be regained, according to Fanon, by engaging in revolution. Fanon says, Violence frees the native from his inferiority complex and from his despair and inaction. It makes him fearless and restores his self-respect. Most importantly, by engaging in liberation, the colonized subject discovers his own self-worth. that his life, his breathing, and his heartbeats are the same as the colonists.
The colonized subject discovers that the skin of a colonist is not worth more than the natives. Fanon clarifies, however, that violence can never be pursued without a clear political goal. Violence, which may bring about liberation, also leaves behind untreatable physical and mental problems. Revolutionary violence may in fact leave native people ruthless and stateless. Fanon is determined to describe violence as equally harmful to both the colonizer and the colonized.
For Fanon, there is no reason why the violence that destroyed the indigenous fabric should not result in vindication and appropriation of such violence when the colonized finally swarm into the forbidden cities.