Some people (lol me) benefit from more structured discussions!
Let’s use this post to share questions as top level comments. I’m going to re-post some of the questions I had from this post and also from the lists of more generic book club questions found in this post. Anyone who has read/listened to the chapter should feel welcome to respond to any question. You don’t need to be an expert or to “know” the answer. Use this space to work out your own thoughts. This is valuable to your comrades!
Please feel free to post your own, and don’t be shy! We are here to learn and discuss. It’s okay to not get it all and you can’t learn if you don’t ask 💖
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I don’t really understand the discussion of myths of the colonized as “inhibitions for his aggressiveness”. I understand the suggestion that these traditions can make the colonizer seem less all imposing, and that working collectively (as demanded by these myths) have real benefit to the struggle. But beyond that I feel like I am missing something. Can anyone explain? Is this mostly related to Fanon’s background as a psychiatrist and what he observed in the course of his work?
He goes on to speak about dance and how it is an outlet but that it is abandoned in during the struggle for liberation and what remains is violence directed towards colonialism.
There is this sentence, and then I feel like the subject changes:
The challenge now is to seize this violence as it realigns itself. Whereas it once reveled in myths and contrived ways to commit collective suicide, a fresh set of circumstances will now enable it to change directions.
Can anyone explain the conclusion here?
I think those are ideas driven by his background as a psychiatrist, yes. They do echo Marx’s “Opium of the masses” - religion or, here, superstition, as a pacifier. In that sense Fanon explains how those beliefs serve an integral part in upkeeping the status quo, how they detract from the material conditions of those people and the real oppression they’re suffering from.
The conclusion, I believe, is that belief can only impede the reversal of violence for so long before it reaches its end. There is a time where it isn’t enough, when the oppressed do rise up. So that ritual catalyst for violence or sexual desire or whatever else isn’t needed and dissolves.
Wow, thanks Mosquibee! That was really helpful.
I didn’t really understand the last few pages of the chapter. Colonized people are owed what was stolen from them. This I understand. But I am not understanding how
So the capital, deprived of reliable outlets, remains blocked in Europe and frozen. Especially as the capitalists refuse to invest in their own country. Returns in this case are in fact minimal and the fiscal pressure disheartens the boldest.
The situation in the long-term is catastrophic. Capital no longer circulates or else is considerably reduced. The Swiss banks refuse funding and Europe suffocates. Despite the enormous sums swallowed up by military expenditures, international capitalism is in desperate straits.
Am I not understanding this simply because it did not happen? What did happen instead?
I also understand that the third world did not form autocracies, which Fanon described as another threat.
It is our duty, however, to tell and explain to the capitalist countries that they are wrong to think the fundamental issue of our time is the war between the socialist regime and them. An end must be put to this cold war that gets us nowhere, the nuclear arms race must be stopped and the underdeveloped regions must receive generous investments and technical aid. The fate of the world depends on the response given to this question.
I don’t understand what threat existed that investment and technical aid to former colonies could save the world?
Does the author make a call to action to readers—individually or collectively? Is that call realistic? Idealistic? Achievable? Would readers be able to affect the desired outcome?
How does the reading relate to anarchy? Is the piece immediately relevant for anarchists, or do we have to read the anarchy into it, and how do we do so? If we attempted to fit this reading into an anarchist tendency/tendencies, where would it fit in? What provocations, tactical considerations, or conceptual weapons can anarchists glean from this text?
Does the author—or can you—offer solutions to the problems or issues raised in the book? Who would implement those solutions? How probable is success?
What kind of emotions or thoughts does the text provoke within you? What do you agree with and what do you disagree with? What do you find seductive, and what do you find terrifying? How do your own experiences, positions, and affects diverge from those presented in the text? Why?
Does the author—or can you—draw implications for the future? Are there long- or short-term consequences to the problems or issues raised in the book? If so, are they positive or negative? Affirming or frightening?
