File spoon-archives/postcolonial.archive/postcolonial_1996/96-12-06.070, message 36


From: abhatti-AT-ccs.carleton.ca (akram bhatti)
Subject: Re: Fanon
Date: Thu, 7 Nov 96 20:15:11 EST


Hello to all:
I find the interest in Fanon inspiring. I think one of Fanon points of
many that was not explicitly stated is the continuing reliance, that those
of us involved in the whole "postcolonial" discourse , on Western
categories to articulate postcolonial experiences. Some of them of
migration, dislocation, displacement, the desire to name experience, to
(re)create identity, anti-essentialist thrust of analysis etc...but I
wonder why we continue to use enlightment categories of philosphy and
sociology as our white fathers and mothers of modernism's past. I am not
saying that we can necessarily escape the use of these Western
epistemological categories but if "we" are going to envisage an
alter/native perspective then we need to re-think the categories and
classificatory tools that are at hand. 

I am not sure if the above is all clear but I think Fanon at the level of
the nation-state whereas what is precisely different today, if you like
postcolonial in my opinion, is that the level of critique has to traverse
the global-local which as Stuart Hall stated cannot be "read against the
nation-state template." Fanon is an invaluable "father" for postcolonial
discourse in his brilliance to expose teh "bad" within the colonized ie.,
the Western educated Native elite who become the future colonizers. 

There is much more to say but will entertain discussion by all means.
Fanon asks the Black man what does he want? I think we need to ask
ourselves what does the postcolonial subject want? I know that I am often
wondering at my complete mental reliance on Western categories when I look
to the East so to speak, to speak of the East. Am I really speaking or
simply mimicking more like aping? I am not sure. Well to those that get
to this point sorry about the long email just some thoughts for a Thurday
evening as I (evening) dream about Fanon and wonder about the man and how
to stay "true" to his concerns for the dark side of the world.  


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