Frantz Fanon by Lee Christopher J.;

Author:Lee, Christopher J.; [Lee, Christopher J.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Ohio University Press
Published: 2015-07-15T00:00:00+00:00

Figure 5.2 Frantz Fanon (third from left) and FLN/ALN leaders in Oudja, Morocco, late 1950s. The exact date is unconfirmed but is likely 1959, when Fanon is known to have visited Morocco. The persons to his left and right are also unconfirmed, though it is possible the man to his immediate right is Houari Boumédiène (1932–1978), who was stationed at Oudja and later succeeded Ben Bella as president of Algeria. The person to Fanon’s far right is possibly Krim Belkacem (1922–1970), who served as a minister of defense and foreign minister within the GPRA. Permission granted and copyright owned by Fonds Frantz Fanon/IMEC.

This diplomatic turn paralleled the formation of a new French government by Charles de Gaulle. De Gaulle rose to power following the collapse of the Fourth Republic, which broke down as a result of growing dissent over Algeria.23 Yet, despite the potential threat posed by this government, the GPRA received diplomatic recognition from a number of African and Asian countries, perhaps China most significantly. A Third World bloc had emerged since the start of the revolution—particularly with the 1955 Asian-African Conference held in Bandung, Indonesia, which an FLN delegation attended unofficially. This conference had influenced the internationalism of the Soummam Declaration, and its emergent Third Worldism supported the Algerian cause as another struggle against the remnants of Western imperial rule in Africa and Asia.24 “From Bandung to Cairo to Accra, all the Afro-Asiatic peoples, all the oppressed of yesterday bear, support, and increasingly assume the cause of the Algerian Revolution,” Fanon contended, citing the significance of the Bandung meeting. “It is absolutely not exaggerated to say that, more and more, France will have two continents against her in Algeria.”25

Fanon, however, equally anticipated emerging dangers—specifically neocolonialism in its different guises. The old formula of “Africa, France’s restricted hunting ground” was gradually being superseded.26 Attentive to a set of Cold War politics that was quickly reshaping a receding imperial landscape, Fanon noted how the United States, while distancing itself from France, sought to orchestrate this new order of great power influence. In his article “Letter to the Youth of Africa” (1958), Fanon further warned of African leaders who sought to negotiate with colonial powers, rather than commence struggle. With the proposal of a new French Community conceived by de Gaulle to replace the French Union (established in 1946) on the immediate political horizon in September 1958, Fanon accused Felix Houphouët-Boigny (1905–1993), future president of Côte d’Ivoire, of playing “the role of straw-man for French colonialism. . . . Mr. Houphouët-Boigny has become the traveling salesman of French colonialism and he has not feared to appear before the United Nations to defend the French thesis.”27 Houphouët-Boigny had promoted a continued relationship between France and Francophone Africa. Fanon’s turn against certain African elites—specifically those Francophone African leaders, including Léopold Senghor, who joined the French Community following the referendum in September 1958—prefigures later arguments found in The Wretched of the Earth.

Indeed, several essays from 1958 that are more conceptual in focus indicate Fanon’s search for a programmatic take on what should be done.

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