Latest news with #WhiteMasks
Daily Maverick
12-08-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Maverick
Frantz Fanon: A revolutionary life explored in Adam Shatz's compelling new biography
The Rebel's Clinic is a wonderful work of research, connection and then storytelling. It creates a composite picture of Fanon, his lives (plural) and his afterlife, the man and his milieu and how he eventually became one of the primary colours that defined that milieu. I bought The Rebel's Clinic, The Revolutionary Lives of Frantz Fanon (Head of Zeus, 2024), by accident — proof for me that sometimes 'must read' books have a way of finding their way to you even if you don't intend it. So it wasn't a waste of money. Fanon was Africa's Che Guevara, and as much of an enigma. Like Guevara, as well as being trained in medicine and leaving a riveting history of revolutionary skirmishes, his legacy includes a substantial body of written work and ideas. Two works in particular, Black Skins, White Masks (1952) and The Wretched of the Earth (1961) are still essential reading for those who campaign for racial equality and freedom. Quoting snippets of Fanon remains de rigueur on the left. 'Each generation must, out of relative obscurity, discover its mission, fulfill it, or betray it,' is a quote one still hears fairly frequently. But I wonder how many of those who quote from Fanon's writings really know the life — and times — of the man from whence those words came? Adam Shatz's meticulous political biography can change that. After reading its 380+ pages the words that came to my mind to summarise Fanon and his age of revolutionaries are commitment, complexity and contradiction, mingled with admiration at the way history plays cruel tricks with humankind and society, proving — to quote another oft-used platitude — that 'History repeats itself, first as tragedy, then as farce.' (Karl Marx.) The Rebel's Clinic is a wonderful work of research, connection and then storytelling. In doing so it creates a composite picture of Fanon, his lives (plural) and his afterlife, the man and his milieu and how he eventually became one of the primary colours that defined that milieu. It's neither hagiography or take-down: it shows us a man continually wrestling with identity and mission from his youth in Martinique, grappling with complexity, but nonetheless taking the right side of justice — sometimes to the cost of the integrity of his own beliefs. There's an eddy off the main current of Fanon's life that has bearing on contemporary laments about wholesale degeneration of Africa's liberation movements once they were in power. What do we say of the good men and women, who are incorruptible and self-sacrificing, but who — in what they consider to be the best interest of the revolution — stay silent in the face of early signs of political intolerance or moral corruption. Fanon, for example, chose to overlook the murder of FLN leader Abane Rabane by his own comrades; he closed his mind to the theocratic threads within the movement that would manifest much later; he turned his back on Patrice Lumumba, because support for Lumumba had become inconvenient geopolitically at a point when the FLN was gaining support from the US. In this regard, although I doubt this aspect will be much commented on, The Rebel's Clinic becomes a very real depiction of the difficult decisions and choices that have to be made in the thick of real life and death struggles. Not that many people, it seems, pass that perilous test. In South Africa, I think of Chris Hani's revolt before the ANC's Morogoro conference, or the fate of the Marxist Workers' Tendency of the ANC. Larger than his short life Flowing from the research of Shatz, Fanon's life proves to be much larger than I imagined. It's the story of an age, as much as an individual; the biography of a sensitive struggling soul, buffeted about by ideas and people, and the soul's transformation in response to the intellectual and political currents that raced through him. I must admit I had no idea of his life story: born in former French colony of Martinique in the Carribean; leaving home at the age of 18 to fight with the Free French forces against facism at the end of World War 2; stung by rejection and racism in post-war France; changing the paradigms of treatment and psychoanalysis as a psychiatrist; moving to Algiers to practice psychiatry and joining the liberation struggle; then, exile from his adopted country in Tunis; becoming the FLN's envoy to Africa at the height of Nkrumahism; witness to the betrayal of Patrice Lumumba; instigator of a fruitless but brave attempt to open a corridor from West Africa to Algiers to smuggle weapons; and his very early death from leukemia 'in the country of the lynchers' (the US) at the age of 36. In telling Fanon's story The Rebel's Clinic also offers fresh insights into the Algerian people's uprising against France, in which Fanon was a freedom fighter and became a recognised leader of the FLN. This struggle was a definitive point in the twentieth century struggle against colonialism. Many years ago, my activist upbringing included watching the 1966 film, The Battle of Algiers, depicting three decisive years in the FLN's struggle for independence; its outstanding cinematography make it perhaps one of the most realistic depictions of an anti-colonial uprising and the savage response it elicited from a wounded France. In the definitive history of that struggle, historian Alexander Horne called it A Savage War of Peace, and given that conflict's historical significance it's strange how little it is remembered or studied by activists today. After all, Algiers was the fulcrum in which many of Fanon's beliefs about the struggle against colonialism, and his prescient warnings of revolutions to be betrayed, were formed. Activists ignore history at our peril. But as much as it is about a battle of arms, it is the battle of ideas that really captivated me. In its depiction of Fanon in France at a time when it was leading the world in a ferment of thought, The Rebel's Clinic offers up a captivating recreation of the intellectual and political milieu in which some of the strands of pan-Africanism and anti-colonialism were being forged. In a kind of intellectual ping-pong we see the bounds and rebounds of ideology, the different threads of thought and action. Whether in the rebound or by embrace, Fanon's thinking and practice was shaped by intellectual engagement with people as diverse as the poet-politicians Leopold Senghor and Aimé Césaire; the writer activists James Baldwin and Richard Wright; the revolutionaries Amilcar Cabral and Patrice Lumumba; not to mention Siegmund Freud and all mid-twentieth century thinkers on psychiatry, the original coalface for Fanon's practice of what became known as 'disalienation'. Quite a broth. Iron in the soul His on-off relationship with Jean-Paul Sartre is a sub-plot in itself. In August 1961, as Fanon's leukaemia was worsening, he spent a weekend with Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir in Rome. The conversation that filled their hours together feels like it could provide the raw material for a play by Samuel Beckett. Shatz comments how De Beauvoir 'likened it to a scene from an anti-colonial version of Sartre's play No Exit, whose three characters find themselves locked in a room together for eternity.' 'In Rome, Fanon gave the performance of a lifetime: the monologue of a young, dying black revolutionary, delivered in front of an older white man who shares his convictions yet declines to sever ties with the society he condemns.' A few weeks later Sartre wrote the Preface to The Wretched of the Earth, delivered literally days before Fanon's death. Said Sartre: 'the Third World finds itself and speaks to itself through his voice'. But while that might be seen as a coup for a then relatively unknown writer, according to Shatz, Fanon didn't like it. Finally — in its depiction of the battle of/for ideas The Rebel's Clinic should prompt contemporary social justice activists to appreciate the intellectual work that must underlie activism, the interrogation of ideologies and the search for a critical theory of what is happening in society on which to base strategy and tactics. It should also remind us of the way in which the genesis of truly revolutionary activism is not a superficial process, but often draws its inspiration from writing, culture and even medicine. Shatz, for example, points out how the poet Derek Walcott, from the nearby island of St Lucia, was a contemporary of Fanon's and how, in his early years, 'Martinique's writers — Cesaire above all — would supply him with a vocabulary for thinking about what it meant to be black and colonised in a white-dominated world.' A thought too about how we write! Fanon's writing was dictated to people who were close to him, supporting Shatz's conclusion that 'Fanon's writing, which is often cited by French language rappers, is a record of what were essentially spoken-word performances.' Fanon died of leukemia on 6 December 1961. He was only 36 and a few months old. Like Bob Marley, another Caribbean island boy who 20 years later would die at exactly the same age, by then Fanon had launched ideas about rebellion and freedom that would spread across the world after his death. The passion and urgency that exudes from The Wretched of the Earth (a copy was put into his hands only days before his death) is the passion of a man who knew he was dying and was in a race against time to express his ideas and present an alternative world view. But, says Shatz, when told about one of the first positive reviews, his response was: 'It won't give me back my bone marrow.' Fanon's 100th birthday would have been on 20 July 2025. Had he lived another 50 years, he would have witnessed a domino effect as one 'national bourgeoisie' after another betrayed the freedoms promised by decolonisation in Africa. For me, the Fanon of the future hinges less on his remarkable prescience, than his life's example of determination and fallibility, willing the revolution to succeed and fear of its betrayal. The Wretched of the Earth would certainly not have been his last word. DM
Mail & Guardian
25-04-2025
- Business
- Mail & Guardian
Decolonise the mind to power a green future
Extraction: Among the green minerals is copper, which is mined in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Zambia, South Africa and Namibia. As the global race for critical minerals intensifies, from lithium in Zimbabwe to cobalt in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Africa finds itself, once again, rich in resources but poor in power. Green industrialisation is being touted as the continent's opportunity to move beyond extraction to manufacture green goods. But this opportunity will pass us by if African leadership continues to be held hostage by the psychosocial legacies of colonialism. This is not just about policy. It's about consciousness. Philosopher and anti-colonial thinker Frantz Fanon warned us that colonialism doesn't end when the colonisers leave. It lingers in the psyche. In Black Skin, White Masks, he wrote about how colonised people internalise the logic of their oppressors, aspiring to hold the power of the oppressor, governing in ways that serve global capital rather than their own people. He argues that this becomes a major obstacle to genuine liberation. Across Africa, post-independence elites often reproduce colonial power structures preserving extractive economies, obeying the rules of the global capitalist order and prioritising the needs of foreign investors over their own citizens. As South African analyst William Gumede has pointed out, South Africa remains a 'postcolony', politically independent, but still economically manipulated. The apartheid-era structures of racialised accumulation remain intact, simply rebranded for the global neoliberal order. South Africa, like many other African states, once aspired to become a developmental state, a model that channels state resources, market incentives and civil society mobilisation to uplift the population. But those ambitions have been steadily eroded by a fear of capital flight, the discipline of debt and an elite class too comfortable with the status quo. The result? A state that protects monopoly and financial capital while failing to deliver justice, dignity or economic inclusion for the majority. This mindset is evident in the budget crisis, where the ANC insisted that increasing VAT was the only viable way to raise revenue, while rejecting the option of raising wealth or corporate taxes, citing fears that the wealthy would exploit loopholes or withdraw investment. This fear is not simply political. It is psychological. It is the 'colonial wound' Fanon described, the inability to see ourselves as agents of our own futures. This matters because African green industrialisation is not just about climate. For Africa, it offers an opportunity to break with patterns of extraction that have served external interests, and instead pursue a path that centres sovereignty, justice and economic transformation. Green industrialisation means using Africa's mineral wealth not simply for export, but as strategic leverage to build domestic and regional value chains. This demands that we rethink the logic that underpin industrial development, moving beyond linear models focused on capital gains, and toward approaches that are regenerative, redistributive, circular and socially embedded. Africa's green industrialisation can follow different pathways, from mainstream strategies to transformative ones including decarbonising industries such as construction, infrastructure and renewable energy generation, developing domestic processing and manufacturing capabilities of critical minerals such as in battery technology, public transport systems and energy-efficient appliances tailored to African contexts. Transformative strategies challenge extractivism and embrace ecological, socially owned and circular models. These may include large-scale recycling, repurposing and urban mining of metals and minerals already in circulation to reduce the demand for new extraction; transitioning agriculture and agro-processing away from industrial inputs and fossil fuel dependencies toward agroecological systems that restore soils, enhance biodiversity and build food sovereignty; community and socially owned renewable energy production, ensuring energy transitions serve public needs and are not captured by corporate or elite interests and democratising ownership and decision-making in green industries. If scaled, these efforts can do more than boost national economies, they can transform lives. Locally rooted manufacturing and processing will create jobs, support small businesses and build skills in communities. Cleaner energy systems will lower household energy costs and reduce environmental harm. Most importantly, this shift can create a future where development is people-centred, less dependent on volatile global markets and driven by Africa's needs and capacities. As highlighted in the Alternative Information and Development Centre's report The Controversy of Green Energy: Unmasking Southern Africa's Critical Mineral Sacrifice Zones, the expansion of green energy and green industrialisation, must not replicate the injustices of past and present mining regimes. But none of this is guaranteed. Without a conscious political project, and leaders willing to resist neo-colonial pressures, we risk simply greening the same extractive, unequal and externally-dependent model we've been trapped in for decades. In recent months, US President Donald Trump has proposed sweeping new tariffs. Framed as a strategy to protect American workers and reduce reliance on China, these protectionist measures aim to promote domestic industry, assert US economic sovereignty and reconfigure global trade in favour of American interests. The proposals have not been universally welcomed. Allies and rivals alike have raised concerns, and many economists warn of rising global trade tensions. Yet few countries have the leverage to meaningfully resist or retaliate. Only large power blocs — such as the European Union or China — have the capacity to push back. The rest, particularly in the Global South, are often left managing the ripple effects of such shifts, with limited room to shield their economies from external shocks. This geopolitical asymmetry is further illustrated by recent policy developments in the European Union. The Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM), for example, imposes carbon-related tariffs on imported goods such as steel, aluminium and cement. While presented as a climate policy, The CBAM risks penalising developing countries that lack the resources to decarbonise at the same pace as Europe, which will affect our ability to green industrialise. Instead of supporting low-carbon transitions in the Global South, it is more likely to entrench global trade hierarchies under the guise of climate justice. Similarly, the EU's Critical Raw Materials Act identifies strategic minerals essential for Europe's green transition and sets targets to secure them through domestic extraction and 'strategic partnerships' abroad. African countries are expected to supply these materials under conditions dictated by European industrial needs, not African development priorities as in the case of Namibia's green hydrogen projects. This reinforces an externalisation of ecological and social costs — where Africa provides the inputs for a green transition it is largely excluded from shaping or benefiting from. Yet when African governments adopt similar tools to assert their interests — through export bans, local content requirements, beneficiation mandates or industrial tariffs — they face strong resistance. Institutions such as the International Monetary Fund and World Bank warn of 'market distortions'. Investors threaten divestment. Commentators label such measures 'protectionist' or 'populist', even when they are embedded in democratic development agendas. What emerges is not simply a contradiction, but a structural reality: the rules of global trade and investment are shaped by power, and power determines who can bend or rewrite those rules. When large economies intervene to protect or reindustrialise, it is accepted as strategic. When African states seek to do the same, they are expected to remain 'open' and 'market friendly'. This is why African countries must build the political and institutional power to define their development paths, not by mimicking the West, but by advancing decolonial and redistributive alternatives. Regional solidarity, democratic control over resources and policies grounded in the realities of African economies must be central to that project. To succeed, Africa must delink from exploitative global systems — whether controlled by Washington, Brussels or Beijing — and build robust, pan-African institutions and markets. This means deepening continental trade through the African Continental Free Trade Area, harmonising industrial policies, and investing in shared infrastructure and research systems. But it also means reclaiming ideological ground. Development cannot simply be about GDP growth or investor confidence. It must be about dignity, equality, ecological sustainability and the right of people to decide their own futures. Fanon believed freedom wasn't just about ending colonial rule — it was about freeing the mind. Gumede, echoing this, argued that the path to African emancipation requires 'a self-awareness of the subservient position that the continent occupies in the global matrix of power', and a conscious break from the 'socio-economic and political structures that make exploitation and domination possible'. Africa's green transition won't succeed with leaders afraid to act, to disrupt, to imagine differently. It won't succeed with extractive elites beholden to foreign capital. It will only succeed if we decolonise not just our economies, but our consciousness. And that is the hardest revolution of all. Charlize Tomaselli is a senior researcher at the Alternative Information and Development Centre.
Yahoo
07-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Biopic explores the life and legacy of Frantz Fanon, a century after his birth
Soldier, psychiatrist, philosopher... who was Frantz Fanon? A new film by director Jean-Claude Barny seeks to answer that question in a year that marks a century since the birth of one of the most influential figures in 20th-century anti-colonial thought. Barny, who hails from Guadeloupe, said it was important to understand Fanon's Caribbean culture, his Western culture, his African culture, but also to view him as a man "capable of absorbing all cultures" – and of detaching himself from them too. "I started reading everything I could get my hands on and looking at everything I could about Fanon. I had a kind of [binge] of curiosity, of information, of pedagogy, to be able to understand what I was going to do with it and why," Barny told RFI, ahead of the film's release in French cinemas on 2 April. Born on 20 July 1925, in Fort-de-France, Martinique, Fanon led a colourful life. He was a soldier in the French liberation army fighting the Nazis, then a young doctor in training in Lyon in the 1950s. His exposure to racism in these environments became the basis for his first major book, Black Skin, White Masks, published in 1952. 'Paris Noir' exhibition showcases work made in French capital by black artists In his film Fanon, which took 10 years to make, Barny chose to explore a critical chapter of Fanon's life; his time as head psychiatrist in Blida, a small town in Algeria 45km south-west of Algiers, between 1953 and 1960. Read more on RFI EnglishRead also:The night of rebellion that changed France and Algeria forever'Paris Noir' exhibition showcases work made in French capital by black artistsAlgeria's colonial past still haunts 60 years after independence
