From: "Windsor Shampi Leroke" <029LEROK-AT-muse.arts.wits.ac.za>
Date:          Mon, 11 Nov 1996 14:44:59 GMT + 2:00
Subject:       Fanon Discussion


Dear All, 

I want to begin by discussing two issues which I think are important 
in Fanon's analysis of the post-colonial world:

A. FANON AND MARXIST ANALYSIS:

The first is Fanon's brief views on Marx (p.31). 
These views seem to be a critique of Marxist analysis. 
However, it is not clear who Fanon had in mind among his 
contemporaries. Or was it Marx himself?. 
Who were the Marxists of the colonial world between 1952 and 1961? 
I think it is possible to read Fanon in TWE as attempting to 
analyze (post)colonial 
world from non-Marxist categories. 
But is race the only category which Marxism fails to analyze 
adequately? Or is it the peculiar character of the project of human emancipation in the (post) 
colonial world which demands an emphasis on race? 
[I find Fanon's logic underlying his argument of what appears 
to be the primacy of the oppressed natives in decolonization similar to
Marxist's argument on the primacy of the working-class 
as a vehicle of the emancipation of humanity] 
I guess I'm trying to understand what 
could be a social theory of the (post)colonial world 
which is neither Marxist, nor Freudian. I'm not sure 
either if the category of race, as analytical category, 
is preculiar to people from post-colonial world. 
What would be distinctive post-colonial 
categories which would be appropriate for 
the analysis of the diversity of post-colonial societies?

FANON ANDTHE CHARACTER OF COLONIAL DISCOURSE (pp. 32-37)

Fanon discusses three types of colonial discourses, in terms of their formulation 
by the settlers, namely, demonization, manichaeism, and value-system. However, 
he does not relate the conditions under which a shift (not that I'm implying a 
teleological relation to these three types of discourses) from one to the other 
occur. What appears significant is the view that through his/her interaction with 
these colonial discourses, the native "knows" what is happening. 
[On a different note, it appears that the colonized in Fanon's TWE is different 
>from the "mimic man" in Bhabha's The Location of Culture]. 
I like Fanon's critique of "native intellectual". For Fanon, the 
"native intellectual is not central to the emancipatory 
project of the colonial world. Somehow, 
Fanon attributes the "oppressed native" with a notion 
of naturalism - the native does not need to be educated; 
s/he knows from experience; s/he can see through the discourses 
of the settler; further, s/he does not a mediator, in the form of the 
"native intellectual". 
But what then happens to the status 
and role of the "native intellectual"? Why has there 
been so much emphasis on the role of knowledge (by this is meant 
expert knowledge) in 
both the development and liberation of the (post)colonial world? 
Why is it the case that most known figures from the 
postcolonial worlds are intellectuals? 
What was Fanon's experience that led him to view 
the "native intellectual" so negatively?

Any comments?

Cheers,

Windsor



Windsor S. Leroke
Lecturer & Research Associate (SWOP)
Department of Sociology 
University of the Witwatersrand.  
Private Bag 3
Wits
2050.
South Africa.
Telephone: (011) 716-2953/42
Fax:       (011) 339-8163
Email:     029lerok-AT-muse.arts.wits.ac.za.
           029win-AT-cosmos.wits.ac.za.  
           deleuze-AT-hotmail.com


     --- from list postcolonial-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---