Date: Mon, 4 May 1998 17:22:42 -0500 From: Clarisse Zimra <czimra-AT-siu.edu> Subject: Re: Fanon's native A modest suggestion, following Deborah's posted quotes (Wyrick-AT-social.chass.ncsu.edu). She writes: Re Fanon quote-- French: " Le colonise est un persecute qui reve en permanence de devinir persecuteur" (p. 84, ed. Gallimard--excuse my inability to reproduce accent marks on e-mail) English: " The native is an oppressed person whose permanent dream is to become the persecutor" (p. 53, Grove Weidenfield ed, Farrington trans.) To jump on an oid bandwagon, I'd agree that the quote does not do Fanon's justice, and that it is always prudent to find a bi-lingual edition when finessing precise words to assess a writer's intent. Very literally, Frantz is saying "the colonized is a persecuted (person) who dreams/wishes continually/permanently to become persecutor." To translate the French "colonise" as "native" instead of "colonized" destroys the ideological impact: one can be "native" without being "colonized." The semantic slippage should be interesting to post-colonial fiends. Likewise, to translate "persecute" as "oppressed" breaks the parallel on which much of Fanon's Hegelian structures depend, including the mirror-image effect between colonizer and colonized, which he learns from Sartre's "Portrait of the Anti-semit;" namely that the white makes the "nigger" (excuse the unpalatable term) much as the anti-Semite "makes" the Jew. For an expansion of Fanon's argument, you may also wish to turn to Albert Memmi (Tunisian Jew trained in French schools) whose "Portrait du colonise" was translated as "The Colonizer and the Colonized," and much used by the young lions who defined and practiced Black Power. No harm done, though, and no hard feelings. Best, cz >********************************** Clarisse Zimra English and Comparative Studies Member, The Faculty Seminar for Irish and Migration Studies Southern Illinois Univ. at Carbondale 62901-4503 phone messages: 618 453 53 21 (main English office) private line: 618 453 68 13 fax 618 453 32 53 --- from list postcolonial-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
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