Frantz Fanon
French psychiatrist and political philosopher from Martinique (1925 to 1961), a founding thinker of postcolonial studies, best known for The Wretched of the Earth and Black Skin, White Masks.
From the book The Wretched of the Earth21 korrents
Frantz Fanon did not write this page.
We collected these quotes from things they published elsewhere, and every quote links to where it was said. They have no account here and have not endorsed this site. Quotes are word for word; the short line under each one is our own restatement, not their wording. Their own site. Is this you? Claim it or ask us to remove it. Or tell us what is wrong here.
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Their wordsNational liberation, national reawakening, restoration of the nation to the people or Commonwealth, whatever the name used, whatever the latest expression, decolonization is always a violent event.
↗The Wretched of the Earth (Grove Press, 2004 edition; tr. Richard Philcox)books.google.com All 21 from this book
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Their wordsDecolonization is truly the creation of new men.
↗The Wretched of the Earth (Grove Press, 2004 edition; tr. Richard Philcox)books.google.com All 21 from this book
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Their wordsThe cause is effect: You are rich because you are white, you are white because you are rich.
↗The Wretched of the Earth (Grove Press, 2004 edition; tr. Richard Philcox)books.google.com All 21 from this book
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Their wordsTo destroy the colonial world means nothing less than demolishing the colonist's sector, burying it deep within the earth or banishing it from the territory.
↗The Wretched of the Earth (Grove Press, 2004 edition; tr. Richard Philcox)books.google.com All 21 from this book
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Their wordsBut it is obvious that in colonial countries only the peasantry is revolutionary. It has nothing to lose and everything to gain.
↗The Wretched of the Earth (Grove Press, 2004 edition; tr. Richard Philcox)books.google.com All 21 from this book
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Our reading
The starving, exploited peasant is the one who very soon discovers that only violence pays
Their wordsThe underprivileged and starving peasant is the exploited who very soon discovers that only violence pays.
↗The Wretched of the Earth (Grove Press, 2004 edition; tr. Richard Philcox)books.google.com All 21 from this book
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Their wordsViolence can thus be understood to be the perfect mediation. The colonized man liberates himself in and through violence.
↗The Wretched of the Earth (Grove Press, 2004 edition; tr. Richard Philcox)books.google.com All 21 from this book
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Their wordsAt the individual level, violence is a cleansing force. It rids the colonized of their inferiority complex, of their passive and despairing attitude. It emboldens them, and restores their self-confidence.
↗The Wretched of the Earth (Grove Press, 2004 edition; tr. Richard Philcox)books.google.com All 21 from this book
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Their wordsThe violence of the colonized, we have said, unifies the people.
↗The Wretched of the Earth (Grove Press, 2004 edition; tr. Richard Philcox)books.google.com All 21 from this book
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Their wordsEurope is literally the creation of the Third World. The riches which are choking it are those plundered from the underdeveloped peoples.
↗The Wretched of the Earth (Grove Press, 2004 edition; tr. Richard Philcox)books.google.com All 21 from this book
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Their wordsBut it soon becomes clear that this impetuous spontaneity, which is intent on rapidly settling its score with the colonial system, is destined to fail as a doctrine.
↗The Wretched of the Earth (Grove Press, 2004 edition; tr. Richard Philcox)books.google.com All 21 from this book
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Their wordsThis is why we must understand that African unity can only be achieved under pressure and through leadership by the people, i.e., with total disregard for the interests of the bourgeoisie.
↗The Wretched of the Earth (Grove Press, 2004 edition; tr. Richard Philcox)books.google.com All 21 from this book
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Their wordsIn the underdeveloped countries a bourgeois phase is out of the question.
↗The Wretched of the Earth (Grove Press, 2004 edition; tr. Richard Philcox)books.google.com All 21 from this book
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Their wordsNobody has a monopoly on truth, neither the leader nor the militant. The search for truth in local situations is the responsibility of the community.
↗The Wretched of the Earth (Grove Press, 2004 edition; tr. Richard Philcox)books.google.com All 21 from this book
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Their wordsIf nationalism is not explained, enriched, and deepened, if it does not very quickly turn into a social and political consciousness, into humanism, then it leads to a dead end.
↗The Wretched of the Earth (Grove Press, 2004 edition; tr. Richard Philcox)books.google.com All 21 from this book
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Their wordsEach generation must discover its mission, fulfill it or betray it, in relative opacity.
↗The Wretched of the Earth (Grove Press, 2004 edition; tr. Richard Philcox)books.google.com All 21 from this book
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Their wordsNational consciousness, which is not nationalism, is alone capable of giving us an international dimension.
↗The Wretched of the Earth (Grove Press, 2004 edition; tr. Richard Philcox)books.google.com All 21 from this book
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Their wordsLet us leave this Europe which never stops talking of man yet massacres him at every one of its street corners, at every corner of the world.
↗The Wretched of the Earth (Grove Press, 2004 edition; tr. Richard Philcox)books.google.com All 21 from this book
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Their wordsBut what we want is to walk in the company of man, every man, night and day, for all times.
↗The Wretched of the Earth (Grove Press, 2004 edition; tr. Richard Philcox)books.google.com All 21 from this book
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Their wordsFor Europe, for ourselves and for humanity, comrades, we must make a new start, develop a new way of thinking, and endeavor to create a new man.
↗The Wretched of the Earth (Grove Press, 2004 edition; tr. Richard Philcox)books.google.com All 21 from this book
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Their wordsSo comrades, let us not pay tribute to Europe by creating states, institutions, and societies that draw their inspiration from it. Humanity expects other things from us than this grotesque and generally obscene emulation.
↗The Wretched of the Earth (Grove Press, 2004 edition; tr. Richard Philcox)books.google.com All 21 from this book
The line under a date fills as the words age, a quarter at a time: past a month, six months, a year, and three years. Empty means said within the last month; full, more than three years ago. It says when, not whether it still holds — a change of mind is marked on the claim itself.
Dashed means we only know the words existed by that date; they may be older.