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Preface

No pedagogy which is truly liberating can remain distinct from the oppressed by treating them as unfortunates and by presenting for their emulation models from among the oppressors. The oppressed must be their own example in the struggle for their redemption.

—Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed (1970)¹

I first read Frantz Fanon in Gaborone, Botswana, when I was twenty-two. At the time my nascent professional ambitions had centered on ecology and environmental studies. Though I had heard Fanon’s name before, this period was the first occasion that I engaged his work seriously. I still have the used copy of The Wretched of the Earth I borrowed (and never returned), and, quite honestly, it gave the impression of being dated at the time. Reading it in southern, as opposed to north, Africa made its politics appear geographically distant. Its fervor for decolonization and Third World revolution seemed displaced after the end of the Cold War.

This initial impression soon transformed into a striking realization. A short distance away, South Africa was emerging from its remarkable democratic transition, only eighteen months into the postapartheid period. With Botswana a key frontline state during the antiapartheid struggle, Gaborone had been a base of operations for the Umkhonto we Sizwe (the MK, or “Spear of the Nation”)—the military wing of the African National Congress and the South African Communist Party—in addition to providing a cross-border refuge for numerous activists fleeing the violent brutality of South Africa’s white minority regime during its final decades. In retrospect, I can imagine my beaten, secondhand edition of The Wretched of the Earth being in the possession of any number of people involved in the political struggle further south. Fanon’s work had been banned by the apartheid government, but, smuggled clandestinely into the country, it inspired a generation of activists, most significantly Steve Biko and the Black Consciousness Movement, which drew from Fanon to articulate and resist the psychological oppression of racism. The ideas embedded in Fanon’s writing retained an enduring vitality and mobility of influence beyond his own political circumstances during the mid-twentieth century—a recurrence of meaning that continues to the present. Indeed, since that distant time in Botswana, his work has powerfully informed two preceding book projects of my own, one portraying the rise of the Third World and the second deconstructing colonial legacies that still inhabit the present. A key incentive for pursuing this biography has been to revisit ideas that have proved so formative in my own life.

This book serves as an introduction to Fanon and, ideally, a preface for further engagement with his thought. Its primary aim is to encourage firsthand reading of his work for the uninitiated. Given the diverse breadth and sophistication of the existing secondary literature and the practical limitations of this book series, this intellectual biography does not claim comprehensiveness of factual detail or omniscience over how to interpret Fanon’s writing—an impossible undertaking in this setting. Instead, it highlights key themes and, when appropriate, stresses underdeveloped ones. Inevitably, it bears the imprint of my own interpretations and thinking too. I encourage additional reading to do justice to his work and its meanings for a range of audiences.

Three features are worth mentioning at the outset. First, this book stresses a historical contextualization of Fanon’s work. Without question, Fanon’s reputation precedes him. Yet knowledge of his arguments is frequently based on assumption, rather than on careful reading. Indeed, Fanon’s thought is far more nuanced—and pragmatic—than many of his admirers permit. Moreover, Fanon is often used as an entry point for understanding Martinique and Algeria, whereas I firmly believe the histories of Martinique and Algeria should be entry points for understanding Fanon. This empirical approach is not intended to diminish the life of his ideas. Instead, it is meant to emphasize Fanon’s acute sensibility toward the world around him and his unique ability to translate its broader repercussions.

Second, unlike many existing studies, several chapters perform a basic walkthrough of his books to provide readers with a clear, if abbreviated, sense of their structure, language, argumentation, strengths, and weaknesses. This book seeks to balance Fanon’s life and the voice found within his texts. This expository approach may seem prosaic, but it stands in contrast with many critical assessments that focus on particular ideas, specific essays, and even individual aphorisms, while neglecting the cul-de-sacs, the repetition, as well as the broader narrative structures that frame his analyses—in addition to the historical contexts that chronologically shaped his insights.

Third, this book draws attention to a distinct ethic found in Fanon’s politics and writing—what I call radical empathy—that is touched upon in the epigraph by Paulo Freire, a Brazilian activist-intellectual deeply influenced by Fanon. Despite Fanon’s privileged middleclass upbringing and elite education, his arguments are ultimately marked by persistent consideration for oppressed people and communities: identifying with their experiences, learning from their example, and using such knowledge to pursue political change. This principle of humane recognition is Fanon’s most enduring lesson—one still resonant that deserves renewed notice in our politically fraught era.

A number of people helped with this project. I thank Gillian Berchowitz for her initial invitation and for her persistent editorial reassurance. Jerry Buttrey, Jeffrey Byrne, Sharad Chari, Judith Coffin, John Comaroff, Fred Cooper, Yoav Di-Capua, John Drabinski, Sarah Duff, John Gibler, Nigel Gibson, Barbara Harlow, Neville Hoad, Isabel Hofmeyr, Priya Lal, James Le Sueur, Dan Maga-ziner, Minkah Makalani, Kris Manjapra, Marc Matera, Achille Mbembe, Walter Mignolo, Sarah Nuttall, Philippe Peycam, David Scott, Todd Shepard, Jon Soske, Cirila Toplak, and Françoise Vergès provided answers, conversation, and comments on portions of the manuscript. I am immensely grateful. I started this project while a visiting fellow at the Institute for Historical Studies at the University of Texas at Austin. I thank its then director, Julie Hardwick, as well as Jeremi Suri for their warm support. A grant from the government of India provided financial support at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. I completed this book while a Sheila Biddle Ford Foundation Fellow at the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research at Harvard University. I extend unqualified gratitude to Bradley Craig, Krishna Lewis, Abby Wolf, and, not least, Henry Louis Gates Jr. for time, assistance, and encouragement that proved indispensable toward the end.

Finally, a word about the dedication. This book is not a typical work of scholarship. It has been motivated by a set of political and moral convictions. While I was completing penultimate revisions, Michael Brown was killed in Ferguson, Missouri, on August 9, 2014, and the police officer who shot him, Darren Wilson, was exonerated of wrongdoing several months later, on November 24. This case is a world apart from Frantz Fanon’s, and police should not be universally construed as hostile. Yet, to my mind, this tragedy speaks to the continued dehumanization of black and other racial minority communities in some quarters, and the recurrence of violence toward such communities as a result—matters that Fanon grappled with during his lifetime. I remain troubled by this situation. This book is dedicated, in this spirit, to the memory of Brown, Amadou Diallo, Eric Garner, Oscar Grant, Trayvon Martin, and Tamir Rice—a few among many.