When you examine at close quarters the colonial context, it is evident that what parcels out the world is to begin with the fact of belonging to or not belonging to a given race,a given species.
In the colonies, the economic substructure is also a superstructure.The cause is the consequence; you are rich because you are white,you are white because you are rich.
This is why Marxist analysis would always be slightly stretched every time we have to do with the colonial problem…
In the colonies, the foreigner coming from another country imposed his rule by means of guns and machines.In defiance of his successful transplantation,in spite of his appropriation,the settler still remains a foreigner.
It is neither the act of owning factories,nor estates, nor a bank balance which distinguishes the governing classes.The governing race is first and foremost those who come from elsewhere,those who are unlike the original inhabitants, ‘the others’.(Fanon:1967)
No conversation about the black condition, oppression, liberation or decolonisation is complete without reference to Fanon or his incisive and epoch shaping ideas.
Today marks the 100th anniversary of the birth of Frantz Omar Fanon.
Over time, Fanon’s ideas have become an important resource with which Black people (across the world) have been able to deepen their understanding of the nature of black being.
However, Fanon’s ideas have not only fulfilled the purpose of theoretical clarity but have also inspired Black people to act against their oppressors and for them to establish revolutionary movements and take up arms.
There is, therefore, a sense in which Fanon’s ideas inspired those who encountered them to always understand the dialectical relationship between thinking and acting on that which you are thinking about.
Like many people who grew up in the Black Consciousness Movement (BCM) in South AfriKKKa, Fanon was a natural staple for me.
His influence is palpable in the ideological textures of many Black revolutionary movements and philosophy studies in think tanks and academic institutions across the world.
His works like ‘The Wretched Of The Earth’ (written during his last days in 1961), ‘Black Skin, What Masks’ (written at age 28), ‘Toward The Afrikan Revolution’ and ‘Dying Colonialism’, formed the core political study curriculum of the Black Consciousness movement in South AfriKKKa and the Black Panther Party in AmeriKKKa
Fanon’s work is so influential that it has been and continues to be translated into as many languages as possible, globally.
Like many black consciousness/pan afrikanist activists, his ideas have and continue to fascinate me and shape my understanding of black being.
One of the things that continue to fascinate me in my investigation of Fanon is his brief but impactful friendship with another Afrikan liberation great, Patrice Emery Lumumba.
Fanon and Lumumba met in the late 1950s through Kwame Nkrumah, when they were attending the All African People’s Conference in Ghana.
They were instantly drawn to each other and struck up a friendship. Upon learning of Lumumba’s assassination, Fanon wrote:
The imperialists have decided to kill Lumumba.They did.They decided to form legions of volunteers.They are already in place…Let us never forget: it is our fate, to all, that is being played in Congo.
This an extract from Fanon’s article titled ‘Lumumba’s Death: Could We Do Otherwise?’, written several weeks after Lumumba’s assassination.
In this article, Fanon provides a penetrating analysis of Lumumba’s importance to the Afrikan revolution, the events that may have led to Lumumba’s assassination and the meaning of his brutal death.
The full text appears in Fanon’s ‘Toward The African Revolution (1967)’ and the ‘Patrice Lumumba: Voices of Liberation’ (2013) series by Leo Zeilig.
Fanon died several months after Lumumba’s assassination, which hurt him deeply.There are striking similarities in the life stories of Fanon and Lumumba.
Fanon and Lumumba were born in the same month (July) and year (1925) and died in the same year (1961).
This year, Fanon and Lumumba would have been celebrating their 100th birthdays. Fanon was 36 at the time of his passing.
His body of work continues to enhance our understanding of the nature of black being and to inspire black rebellion (cognitive and practical).
His work continues to provide us with unparalleled clarity on such philosophical themes as ontology, consciousness, existentialism, phenomenology, coloniality, decolonisation, liberation, psychopathology, violence, black consciousness, pan afrikanism, anti-black racism and anti-blackness.
Not only as an incisive and indefatigable thinker and writer, but also as a revolutionary and guerrilla figher in the Algerian Revolution, Fanon made a significant contribution to the fight against the globalised terror of white supremacy.
However, Fanon’s greatest contribution is perhaps in the fact that, as Black people, he imbued us with the cognitive confidence not just to re-imagine consciousness but also to reimagine our being and the world.
I am don’t think it will be possible to be provide an exhaustive account of Fanon’s contribution to the project of ushering in a completely new set of human relations, wherein we as Black people will as exist as completely self determining beings.
Fanon has bequeathed to us a legacy of original, independent, and incisive thought, without which the attainment of what Biko calls a ‘free self’ is not possible. For all he has done for us, we owe Fanon an incalculable debt of gratitude.
Veli Mbele kaSompisi is an Afrocentric essayist and cofounder of Mutapa Afrocentric Dialogues
