• 11 Dec, 2025 *

The Wretched of the Earth is basically like The Communist Manifesto (which I need to read) in that it’s basically a text that is meant to call people to action/arms. It was also written by Fanon on his deathbed while he was somewhat delirious, so there’s a lot of repetition. The first section of the book basically argues that violence is the most important tool in breaking colonialism, and there’s even some lines that basically say that it’s healing and whatever.

This is then directly contradicted by the end of the book, where he spends the entire last section talking about case studies of people who been hurt from the war in French Algeria since he worked as a psychologist during that time. Cases include people who were tortured for no reason, who thus have lost all ability to give a shit and to believe that anything in the world is fair or worth trying for, and also white soldiers who are haunted by nightmares of the people they’ve tortured — yet they refuse to acknowledge that’s the problem and are asking for a cure so they can continue torturing people without any remorse. The whole last section is a look at the impacts of war on the individual, and what I found most interesting. It really gives credence to the whole idea that dehumanizing people forces you to lose your own humanity, especially when the very act of torturing someone takes a lot out of the people doing it too. It really takes a lot to hurt other people, and I almost marvel at the fact that anyone even tries. Do y’all not want peace? Goddamn.

This book forced me to look up the term "phenomenological" like 5 times, so that should give you an idea of how his book is written. It’s a story format that jumps between the individual and the greater scale, written in like, "The oppressed attack their own when they don’t recognize their true enemy. When they do, they realize that the colonist’s time is limited, and they seek to replace the colonists entirely." (extreme paraphrase)

The more sensationalist statements basically come off as, "Get rid of them entirely," but this is then tempered by later statements in the book about what to do post-revolution and nation building etc. There’s some sections that obviously had an effect on Elite Capture by Táíwò because Fanon spends some paragraphs warning about how you can’t let the native bougies take over anything and lead the nation because they have no innovation and are only seeking to copy the colonists. Honestly, this book has just increased my respect for Elite Capture.

Fanon also argues that the true revolutionary potential lies in the rural populations and not the urban ones, and that they must be organized. However, he was only something like 30 when he unfortunately kicked the bucket, so he had no time to study China and can offer no insights on that, even though the Chinese Revolution was probably the most obvious attempt at doing what Fanon was saying. Meanwhile, he was ultimately wrong about French Algeria. I don’t remember the Wikipedia page at this point, but things did not go as he said and I don’t think the rural populations were actively engaged to the degree he wanted. Things didn’t shake out as he wanted either, though he was right about elite capture happening (it wasn’t prevented).

If you read this book, you should skip over the foreword and preface and come back to it only at the very end, because they’re absolutely incomprehensible without making it through Fanon’s text first. That’s where all the googling of "phenomenological" and then forgetting again happened to me, because I bothered to read this book in order. This book has taught me to never read these things first ever again. I spent weeks reading through these initial pages going, Hmm... I may be cooked... and then when I went back after the rest of the text it made 70% more sense.

Notably, this book was confusing to a lot of people so we only had like 6 people show up in book club for it and I did a ton of talking as a result. lmfao.

Oh yeah, the question I gave book club was about what we should think of Fanon’s definition as "national", given that he argues simultaneously that you need a national culture while also that nationalism can only go so far (famous "empty shell" quote).

My question: "National" seems to require an idea of a "nation," but he ends up saying that nationalism isn’t enough and can lead to stuff like racism if it’s not transformed into socialism and humanism. Also related, on page 154, he says that "every culture is first and foremost national," which is an interesting statement. Does a nation require borders, for instance? Are those borders, if so, inherited from colonialism? Or is this more about the material circumstances a group of people have to deal with?

No one in book club had a good answer to this or was really able to follow what my question was getting at. I was writing this with a thought about Indigenous nations and the like, but people instead just ended up talking about how they don’t feel American until they go to their heritage countries and then are like "oh wow I’m so american." I just let this go because only like 3 or 4 people had even finished the book at all (me included) and evidently no one was reading as close as me besides the weird Old Guy who never formulates his thoughts according to a logical path of argument that I can follow.

LIST OF THINGS I WANTED TO TAKE NOTES ON – various quotes and some thoughts, etc. – but then didn’t because I want to move on with my life (Sorry):

• foreward culture of homogeneity
• algerian independence didn’t escape elite capture
• centricity of race
• define oneself beyond what came in the past national consciousness shell; nationalism dead
• beyond capitalism and socialism, basic question of feeding people
• dialectics
• kind mother
• last shall be the first
• relative opacity
• revolutionary terror sliding
• marxists organized proletariat
• "overestimation of peasantry"
• foreward life-in-death
• political / psycho-affective
• state of rage
• violence perfect mediation
• need for a real party that isn’t dictatorship, flee the capital after independence to avoid centralization, set up in the most destitute areas
• separation of party and administration
• get rid of the idea that masses cant govern themselves (western). says that groups can be taught faster than any specific individual
• speak in plain language to them as resorting to academics is exclusionary
• algerian grocer example
• wants all to understand
• go outside the capital / outside the room, not just national organizations
• send youth to fields & schools rather than sports
• decentralized ideas of education (idea flow up and down)
• dignity / humanizing, some notes of elite capture
• "all we need to do is..."
• revolutionary elite but refuse national bourgeoisie
• the army is never a school for war
• women should be given equal importance to men
• national service can be civilian or military, every able-bodied person should be able to join a unit if necessary
• public works should be done by the army to keep them from going into politics
• no professional soldiers or career officers
• national consciousness to social and political
• eat one’s fill in slavery
• every culture is first and foremost national (154) / culture is cut off from reality
• the existence of a nation is not proved by culture but in the people’s struggles
• culture the opposite of custom
• collective thought process 168
• colonialists indigenous style
• developing consciousness is necessary for building a nation past a revolution
• violence finds outlets in nearest parties unless consciousness points at the actual problem (this is like people cussing out customer service representative / ninja mall)
• self-hatred

To the foreward’s credit, it contains the most interesting quotes from this book, many of which are snippeted in my bullet point list. So it is worth reading after you make it through the text. The preface by Sartre, though, eh. Mostly just there to scare white people into paying attention.

#books #nonfiction