[Debate] CLR JAMES, FRANTZ FANON AND THE MEANING OF LIBERATION

[Neville Adams]

On the contrary we have to rescue Fanon from the post- structuralist
clutches of Bhabha, and others of similar theoretical ilk because, as
another commentator puts it, their analyses 'result in the evisceration of
Fanon's texts: they excise the critical normative, yes, revolutionary
humanist vision which informs his account of the colonial condition and its
aftermath....(and)...deprives us of the weapons with which to confront some
of the urgent questions of the post independence world: questions of class,
ethnicity, gender, of democracy and human rights...."

 

Neville

 

From: debate-list-bounces at fahamu.org [mailto:debate-list-bounces at fahamu.org]
On Behalf Of peter waterman
Sent: 18 April 2012 09:26
To: Debate is a listserve that attempts to promote information and analyses
of interest to the independent left in South and Southern Africa
Subject: Re: [Debate] CLR JAMES, FRANTZ FANON AND THE MEANING OF LIBERATION

 

Interesting thought, Riaz!

P




On Wed, Apr 18, 2012 at 10:02 AM, Riaz K Tayob <riaz.tayob at gmail.com> wrote:

Thanks for this... I like the issues below, although Bhabha gives some other
Fanonian insights...

On 2012/04/17 05:49 PM, grinker at mweb.co.za wrote: 

And yet, for all his seeming disdain for European culture, for his all
insistence that European ideas have helped enslave the non-European world,
Fanon also accepted that, 'All the elements of a solution to the great
problems of humanity have, at different times, existed in European thought'.
The problem was that 'Europeans have not carried out in practice the mission
which fell to them.' The Third World will have to 'start a new history of
Man', a new history that, while not forgetting 'Europe's crimes', will
nevertheless 'have regard to the sometimes prodigious theses which Europe
has put forward'.

In one sense, then, Fanon aligns himself with L'Ouverture and James.
European thought contained within it 'all the elements of a solution to the
great problems of humanity' but Europeans could not, or would not, combine
those in thought and transform them into concrete reality. In another sense,
though, he strides down a different course.  Fanon is not simply ambiguous
about European thought, but sees it as positively destructive of black
culture and psychology.

Throughout his life, Fanon juggled with these two elements of his worldview.
After his death, separatist groups, third world movements, students of
post-colonial studies - all turned Fanon into an intellectual icon. But they
did so largely by deprecating the universalist aspect of his thought in
favour of the claim that the culture of the colonizer alienates the
colonized from his own national culture.


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