Fanon and the Iraqi Other Unmasking the Illusions of Colonialism Jarrod Shanahan

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ISSN: 1540-5699. Copyright by Ahead Publishing House (imprint: Okcir Press). All Rights Reserved.

HUMAN ARCHITECTURE

Journal of the Sociology of Self-

A Publication of OKCIR: The Omar Khayyam Center for Integrative Research in Utopia, Mysticism, and Science (Utopystics)

In the capitalist countries a multitudeof moral teachers, counselors and be-wilderers separate the exploited fromthose in power. In the colonial coun-tries, on the contrary, the policemanand the soldier, by their immediatepresence and their frequent and directaction maintain contact with the na-tive and advise him by means of riflebutts and napalm not to budge. It isobvious here that the agents of govern-ment speak the language of pure force.The intermediary does not lighten theoppression, nor seek to hide the domi-nation; he shows them up and putsthem into practice with the clear con-

science of an upholder of the peace, yethe is the bringer of violence into thehome and into the mind of the native.

Frantz Fanon (

Wretched

38)

While Americas continuously deterio-rating imperial misadventure in Iraq servesas an ideal backdrop for a discussion of thework of Frantz Fanon, the high profile af-forded by the worldwide press to this par-ticular instance of invasion and occupationshould be understood to reflect the unusualgrandeur and hubris with which otherwisestandard policy has been pursued, not theisolated revival and application of long-

Jarrod Shanahan is an undergraduate student at the University of Massachusetts Boston. He is currentlycompleting a B.A. in Political Science and Philosophy.

Fanon and the Iraqi OtherUnmasking the Illusions of Colonialism

Jarrod Shanahan

University of Massachusetts Boston

[email protected]

Abstract: This conversation with Frantz Fanon on the topics of native otherness in colonialistdiscourse and the possibility of effacing this illusory rhetoric begins with a discussion of theAmerican public discourse in its present state, and transport this framework to the time ofFrantz Fanon and the Algerian Revolution. The intent is not to draw a concrete, line-item com-parison between contemporary U.S. foreign policy and media and that of 1950s France, butrather to explore through loose correlations the potential for an overarching theory which com-prehends the relationship between states power elite and populations, and the indigenous pop-ulations of occupied foreign territory, as a story which has repeated itself extensively throughoutthe history of modernity. The decision to mention the ongoing occupation of Iraq in this articlestitle and introduction and scantly within can be considered in this context as an invitation to sus-pend the sort of logistic-heavy and (thereby) restricted thinking behind such popular inquiries asIs Iraq the New Vietnam?, and focus rather on a general comprehension of democratic state appa-ratus as it portrays foreign oppression to a domestic population that retains the power to influ-ence state policy through popular mandate.

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abandoned colonialist notions. State policyin its most violent and inhumane imple-mentation must not be excused as aberra-tion from the norm, but understood as aglimpse of the power configuration in itsmost explicit terms, and a disclosure of themeans to which it is willing to resort in or-der to keep this relationship functioning toits benefit. As in the supposedly excep-tional abuses at Abu Ghraib Prison, wherethe brutalization and sexualized humilia-tion of indigenous Arabs at the hands ofAmerican forces was not a departure fromstate policy but rather a poetic metaphorcapturing its essence, the continuing occu-pation of Iraq and devastation of its peopleis a story not exclusive to its time and place,but the latest chapter in the bloody historyof colonialist policythe spirit of whichhas survived its supposed abandonmentand remained central to global capitalism.

This conversation with Frantz Fanonon the topics of native otherness in colo-nialist discourse and the possibility of ef-facing this illusory rhetoric will begin witha discussion of the American public dis-course in its present state, and transportthis framework to the time of Frantz Fanonand the Algerian Revolution. The intent isnot to draw a concrete, line-item compari-son between contemporary U.S. foreignpolicy and media and that of 1950s France,but rather to explore through loose correla-tions the potential for an overarching the-ory which comprehends the relationshipbetween states power elite and popula-tions, and the indigenous populations ofoccupied foreign territory, as a story whichhas repeated itself extensively throughoutthe history of modernity. It is in this spiritthat oppression and colonialism andtheir derivatives will be used interchange-ably, as the techniques of modern power inthe U.S. are contrasted with French colo-nialism through the eyes of Frantz Fanon.The decision to mention the ongoing occu-pation of Iraq in this articles title and intro-duction and scantly within can be

considered in this context as an invitationto suspend the sort of logistic-heavy and(thereby) restricted thinking behind suchpopular inquiries as

Is Iraq the New Viet-nam?

, and focus rather on a general com-prehension of democratic state apparatusas it portrays foreign oppression to a do-mestic population that retains the power toinfluence state policy through popularmandate.

The reality of Americas role in theworld, and the larger reality of global capi-talism, have been obscured, mystified, andmisrepresented to such an extent that thecitizens of this supposedly democratic na-tion have a minimal grasp of the system inwhich they are dually complicit and en-snared. An examination of any Americanwar since (at the very least) the IndustrialRevolution reveals that policymakers andtheir cohorts in the press intentionally tai-lored distorted and often completely fabri-cated arguments to the general public withhopes of inspiring support for the war, andfrom the perspective of this article, this canbe understood to mean that policymakersfelt that public support based upon thetruth of the matter would have been insuf-ficient to inspire a public mandate for warmaking.

We find the American people, as under-stood by the power elite, to be unconvincedthat the economic interest of the U.S. rulingclass is sufficient cause for foreign interven-tion. If this were not the case, the myriadjustifications for invading Iraq, in all theirflagrant superficiality, would have been un-necessary, and a simple discussion of petro-politics and

stability

in areas of

vital interest

would have sufficed. While establishmentvoices advocating the

manufacture of consent

argue for this mystification on the groundsthat the average citizen lacks the expertiseto properly decide such vital matters of na-tional interest, this perspective treats the ef-

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fect of a successful propaganda structure asjustification for the existence of propa-ganda, ignoring the deliberateness of pub-lic ignorance in the civic realm, andattempting to bewilder with circular rea-soning.

Further, the technological advances ofthe Information Age, in spite of the total-itarian threat they pose, threaten mere

omis-sion

as a tool of state propaganda; thereality of global capitalist policy will soonbe available for all to see, live and in color,and the challenge falls on the oppressivestate to define this insuppressible reality infriendly terms, as its existence can nolonger be concealed. Whether through sat-ellite television or the Internet, the imagesof horror so famously associated with theAmerican publics distaste for the war inVietnam (and calculatingly suppressed inconflicts since) have already begun to rein-troduce themselves to a mainstream audi-ence, and while these populist outlets lackthe rhetorical strength of the establishmentpress discussed below, the power of theseimages is such that words are not requiredto elicit strong emotional reaction. Thisgrowing threat to state illusions requires ofthe state a mastery of the national dis-course, the framing of discussion within apriori structures from which no effectivedissent may be drawn, propaganda in thegrand tradition which has kept free pop-ulations in the dark since the inception ofdemocratic participation. Since images ofgrisly death and wholesale misery willprove increasingly insuppressible, the bur-den on the state will become the definitionof these events, and especially the defini-tion of the human cost of foreign policy ob-jectives.

When state policy entails death andmisery of foreign populations, the aim ofstate propaganda becomes the inferioriza-tion

1

of a victimized population dismissedas unreasoning, fanatical, incapable of self-rule, and above all, completely foreign anddissimilar from the Western citizen. Their

plight becomes an excusable

externality

ofwarfarea life to which they are all too ac-customed, we are toldand their behavioris explained independent of the power dy-namic beneath which they have been madeto suffer; a perspective from which actionseasily explained by the presence of this dy-namic are mystified. The relationship ap-pears before the citizenry of the powerfulstate masked and misrepresented in termsfriendly to the power and flattering of itspolicy. An oppressor easily identified assuch by the oppressed becomes somethingentirely different in the eyes of its domesticcitizenry, who theoretically possess thepower to shape and reform state behaviorshould it be found reprehensible.

To transcend this frameworkthe illu-sory world of the oppressoris to operateoutside the comfortably configured uni-verse of establishment discourse, in whichbenevolence and

right

are presupposed,and his existence is assured. In the case offoreign oppression, the human face of thevictim and his existence is a secret thatthreatens the whole structure of exploita-tion. The discovery of coherence in the na-tives actions, leading to the discovery ofthe natives human struggle, poses a threatto the dynamic the seriousness of whichcan be illustrated by the sheer size andscope of the apparatus in place to keep thisbottle corked tightly. To overcome the ab-straction, depersonalization, mystification,and sheer inferiorization of the foreign na-tive is to comprehend the power structurebehind the colonialists illusions, laying themanifestations of an economy of exploita-tion and misery bare, for the citizenry of theUnited States and similar democracies tofully comprehend as action taken in theirname and drawn from their consent.

The extent to which the American me-

1

Doubtlessly,

dehumanization

is the mostdesirous outcome, but the multiculturalism ofthe 21

st

Century West has made this much moredifficult than it was in more homogenous dayspast.

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dia accurately reflects the affairs of theworld forms the limits of the general con-suming publics understanding. The massmedia become the authority, at any givenmoment for what is true and what is false,what is reality and what is fantasy, what isimportant and what is trivial, writesformer UC Berkeley Dean of Media StudiesBen Bagdikian (xvii). This power falls intothe sole hands of the state in a totalitariansociety, as dissent is simply forbidden bylaw and the state media is the only permit-ted source of information. In a democracylike the United States, the press is cherishedas a safeguard against such tyranny, andthe American press touts its civic necessityto all who listen. However, behind the illu-sion of a vibrant marketplace of ideas, theAmerican public discourse is set within pa-rameters more familiar to a totalitariangovernment than participatory democracy.Constraints on discussion in the media,what Noam Chomsky calls

the bounds of theexpressible

, are defined by a small, elite classof the wealthiest and most powerful peoplein the nation, as concerned with preservingtheir power as any solitary despot (

Illusions

65).Within the boundaries of the business

perspective, democracy is simulated with-out risking the threat true public participa-tion poses to the concentration of powerand wealth in as few hands as their prepon-derance exists today. Where the powerfulare in disagreement, there will be a certaindiversity of tactical judgments on how toattain generally shared aims, reflected inmedia debate (Chomsky,

Consent

lx).Americans concerned with civic responsi-bility can perform the rituals of democraticlife: read the newspaper (especially the na-tions paper of record,

The New YorkTimes

), vote in every election, write con-cerned letters to congressmen about whatare believed to be issues central to the exist-ence of the democracy,

2

all within theframework of simulated democracy orga-nized by the specialized class that actually

runs things. The issue of whether the pow-erful ought to be that way will never passthis model, and no serious discussion of re-form that threatens the American elite orthe means by which its wealth is sustainedwill ever find its way into the mainstreampress. This is not for want of entertainmentvalue or populist appeals, but sheer inex-pressibility from the business perspectiveof Americas corporate owners of the newsand establishment-minded (or merely em-ployment-minded) newspeople.

The assumption that this power of def-inition is abused is not a conspiracy the-ory, but rather a logical consideration ofthe industrys capitalist nature.

3

As mediacritic Eric Alterman soberly concludes: Toignore the power of the money at stake todetermine the content of the news in the de-cisions of these executivesgiven the rolemoney seems to play in every other aspectof societyis indefensibly childish andnave (27). Furthereven in spite of thenear-monopoly of news that has developedin the United States since the early 1980s,including the famous figure of six parentcompanies in possession of the vast major-ity of news outletsthe phenomena isnothing new, but merely the most sophisti-

2

So-called wedge issues serve as morethan divisive agents between political poles;such emotionally charged issues as the legalityof abortion or the legal status of gay couplestake the forefront in political discourse becausethey are of little consequence to the power ar-rangement and therefore may be discussed andshouted about until participants are blue in theface. As long as discussion of such issues re-mains that of individualized and isolated in-stances occurring in a vacuum, and does notexamine the overarching structure of exploita-tion/repression with which they are inextrica-bly tied, it meets the standards of the bounds ofthe expressible and provides useful diversion ofotherwise dangerous activist elements of soci-ety.

3

The assertions of Chomsky, Heman, andothers have been vindicated by events prior toand since the publication of

Manufacturing Con-sent

, which posited the Propaganda Modelagainst which the argument furthered in this ar-ticle can be tested and has been with predictablevindication.

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cated, consolidated, and subsequently, con-spicuous stage in a legacy of thoughtcontrol in Western society. Writes Chom-sky:

An alternative conception of de-mocracy is that the public must bebarred from managing their ownaffairs and the means of informa-tion must be kept narrowly andrigidly controlled. That may soundlike an odd conception of democra-cy, but its important to understandthat it is the prevailing concep-tion[and] has long been, not justin operation, but in theory. (

MediaControl

10)

He traces this notion back to the writ-ing of Walter Lippmann, and his model fora

spectator democracy

in which a special-ized class serves to analyze, execute,make decisions, and run things in the polit-ical, economic, and ideological systems,while the vast majority of citizens, whatLippmann called the bewildered herd iskept away from the real decision-makingand occasionally empowered throughlargely symbolic democratic exercises (

Me-dia Control

16-17). The specialized class isthat of the wealthiest and most powerful inWestern capitalism. In this model, mediaoutlets are granted relatively free reign indealing with issues inconsequential to theinterests of the specialized class, but whentheir most sensitive economic interests areat stake, the parent corporations seldom re-frain from using their power over public in-formationMost say they would never useit. But even if sincerethey ignore history;when certain central interests are at stake,available power will always be used(Bagdikian xxiii, 6). This does not reflectany remarkable professional or ethical fail-ings of these individual companies, butrather the fact of capitalism in America. Thecomplex constellation of wealth/power towhich American media is beholden defines

a clear perspective, and its reification in thesensibilities of a majority of Americans is anobjective that has proven attainable if notalready attained.

The interest of the corporate parents ofAmerican media in pursuing and support-ing a specific agenda abroad, through thenations foreign policy apparatus, is veryreal and can scarcely be understated. Themedia giants, advertising agencies, andgreat multinational corporations have ajoint and close interest in a favorable cli-mate of investment in the Third World,writes Noam Chomsky, and their inter-connections and relationships with thegovernment in these policies are symbi-otic (

Consent

14). The power elite of theUnited States have a tremendous stake inthe nations foreign policy, and when ad-ventures abroad are seen as beneficial to thenations economic interests, it can be ex-pected that elite support will set the agendafor the corporate press. When the countrygoes to war in pursuit of these interests,media not only suspend critical judgmentand investigative zeal, they compete to findways of putting the newly establishedtruths in a supportive light furthersChomsky. Themes and factsincompati-ble with the now institutionalized themeare suppressed or ignored (

Consent

34). This simplification and fabrication of

geopolitical affairs are most often juxta-posed with an intense expression of nation-alism, the socially acceptable derivative ofracism, cultural chauvinism, and xenopho-bia. The goal of such nationalist rhetoricas is seen in the current public discourse,Chris Hedges writes, is to invoke pity forones own. The goal is to show the commu-nity that what they hold sacred is underthreat. The enemy, we are told, seeks to de-stroy religious and cultural life, the veryidentity of the group or state (15). It is hardto imagine citizens convinced of such a pre-text disapproving of any sort of violentremedy. And this is far from the exceptionalactivity of a few renegade corporate bosses;

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rather it is often the nonactivity of the busi-ness perspective in observance.

This business perspective sanctifies capi-talism and ordains aggressive war. Thecomplexities of international relations arepresented in simple, patriotic terms, as apopulace flattered by entitlement and ex-ceptionalism is obliged to protect what itstold are its interests and character. Ameri-can citizens are encouraged to consider theinformation available to them and form in-dependent perspectives, though this posesno real threat to the established order andthe attainment of its ends, as the concentra-tion of money and power in U.S. society issafeguarded through selection of topics,distribution of concerns, framing of issues,filtering out information, emphasis andtone, and by keeping debate within thebounds of acceptable premises (ChomskyConsent 298).

The American flag pin on the televisionnews anchors lapel summarizes this won-derfully; no departure from emotional pa-triotic rhetoric and the definition of eventshanded down by the power elite can be re-alistically expected. So-touted objectivityin this context must be understood to oper-ate from premises established by reaction-ary patriotism. As Dan Rather candidlyadmitted: Look, Im an AmericanAndwhen my country is at war, I want mycountry to win, whatever the definition ofwin may be. Now I cant and dont arguethat that is coverage without a prejudice.About that I am prejudiced (Alterman278). It bears reminding that these are notthe words of someone widely considered apolemical right-wing jingo, but a journalistmost commonly identified as sympatheticto leftist causes. In such anecdotes we findthat the liberal/conservative dichotomyso exhaustingly flouted in the press, muchlike the discussion to which it is applied,says nothing for adherence to the bounds ofthe expressible, which are presupposedinto the configuration. Writes Edward Said:

While it is certainly true that themedia is far better equipped to dealwith caricature and sensation thanwith the slower processes of cul-ture and society, the deeper reason-ing for these misconceptions is theimperial dynamic, and above all itsseparating, essentializing, domi-nating, and reactive tendencies.(Culture 37)

This imperial dynamic demands thebenevolence of its actions as a priori to dis-cussion, and its separating, essentializing,dominating, and reactive tendencies areturned most urgently against the gravestthreat to the oppressors illusions: the na-tive, the Other, the living contradiction ofthe simplification and fabrication that fuelsoppressive foreign policy of democraticstates.

The incorporation of the native, espe-cially the native actively resisting oppres-sive policy, into the oppressors version ofevents is essential, as the clichs of Westerndemocracyfreedom, equality, dignity,self-determination, and so forthcan bereadily drawn by detractors of U.S. foreignpolicy to paint the dynamic as something(to use the timeless chestnut of nationalisticrhetoric that has perhaps slain more dis-senting arguments than appeal to reason)inherently un-American. To prevent thiscomparison, which threatens to portrayforeign resistance movements more in thevein of the Founding Fathers of Ameri-can lore than bloodthirsty terrorists, it isnecessary to obscure the humanity of thenative, the coherence of her actions, and thesimilarity of his basic human existence tothat of the American.

The story of an outmatched resistancemovement facing a torturous oppressorbent on the destruction of national identityand exploitation of a peoples land and re-

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sources is not the likely case that the op-pressive power would bring before thecourt of public opinion back home; suchimagery calls to mind the familiar lore cen-tral to the histories of most states and cul-tures, and this is hardly flattering to themeans and ends of oppressive foreign pol-icy. Frantz Fanon understood this, andwriting from the thick of the Algerian Rev-olution, during which French occupation ofAlgeria became fiercely resisted by Algeri-ans united around a renewed nationalidentity, he described the rhetorical constel-lation upon which the physical power dy-namic rested:

Because for 130 years the Frenchnational consciousness has beenconditioned by one simple basicprincipleAlgeria is Francewetoday find ourselves up against in-stinctive, passionate, anti-historicalreactions, as a moment when a largeproportion of the French people ra-tionally realizes that its interest canbest be served by putting an end tothe war and recognizing an inde-pendent Algerian State. (AfricanRevolution 85; italics added)

The issue of legitimate claim to terri-tory or action in such a conflict is essential,as opposing forces battle to label the otherthe aggressora title central to the doubles-peak of modern warfare in which peace issought by all yet war persists. Fanon un-derstood the ability of powerful interests todefine the national discourse, and even soto the disadvantage of the oppressive na-tions citizenry.

This passage also illustrates what mustbe established firmly before this discussionmay proceed: Despite the popularityFrantz Fanon attained in advocating theuprising of the oppressed as the onlymeans by which their emancipation couldbe achieved, this is a realistic assessmentrather than an absolutist claim. Fanons nu-

merous appeals to the French Left through-out his essays published in Toward theAfrican Revolution suggest4 that he was per-fectly aware that oppressive policy cancease due to pressure from within the of-fending state, but he was certainly notcounting on this to happen and advocatedfiercely against the Algerian people en-trusting their destiny to anyone besidesthemselves, and especially to the colonialistpower.

This pessimism can be attributedlargely in part to the success in France ofwhat we have called the bounds of the ex-pressible in loading the national discourse insuch a way that it could never produce dis-sent sufficient to contradict the colonialistgovernments most basic tenets. WritesFanon in A Dying Colonialism:

The method of presenting the Al-gerian as a prey fought over withequal ferocity by Islam and Francewith its western culture reveals thewhole approach of the occupier, hisphilosophy, and his policy[Theoccupier] presents in a simplifiedand pejorative way the system ofvalues by means of which the colo-nized person resists his innumera-ble offensives. What is in fact theassertion of a distinct identity, con-cern with keeping intact a few

4 Scholarship on this matter is hardly unan-imous, as the most demonstrative writing to thiseffect, published in Toward the African Revolution,was originally written anonymously for ElMoudjahid, a radical publication supportive ofthe Algerian Revolution, and the sincerity ofFanons writing under these circumstances hasbeen the cause of much speculation. Herein,however, these sentiments are taken at face val-ue. Fanon writes in The Wretched of the Earth: Allthe elements of a solution to the great problemsof humanity have, at different times, existed inEuropean thought. But the action of Europeanmen has not carried out the mission which fell tothem... (314). Here we find a variation of thistheme, in which the potential of European intel-lectuals to effect change is lamented as unreal-ized, yet existent.

280 JARROD SHANAHAN


shreds of national existence, is at-tributed to religious, magical, fa-natical behavior (41).

Here we see how the illusory world ofthe oppressive power is constructed. A por-trayal of the Algerian resistance movementindependent of French power interestscould have threatened to shift public opin-ion, which overwhelmingly supported thesuppression of the rebellion from thepremise that it was a defensive war in theinterest of protecting French land. Stories ofsacrifice, loss, and courage in defense of anoble cause and against a brutish oppressorwould have surely called to mind integralcomponents of French national heritagewith which all could identify, and not to thebenefit of the oppressor. The mere idea ofan Algerian national existence would have tobe drawn from outside the bounds of theexpressible, as officially sanctioned dis-course hinged on the undisputed premisethat the land and its inhabitants were unde-niably of French possession, and this wasquite deliberate, as Fanon understood. Fur-ther, this contrastthe limited discourse ofthe oppressor and the living negation of itsnegationsillustrates the explosive poten-tial of contradiction in unmasking the illu-sions of an oppressive dynamic.

As the repressed national culture didnot exist in the French definition of events,the behavior of the rebellious Algerians hadto be explained independent of such a phe-nomenon and flattering of the oppressorsillusory world. Solidarity, cultural renewal,militarism, and the willingness of the na-tives to die in this struggleall easily ex-plained by the presence of an oppressiveforce suffocating an oppressed national en-titywere detached from their obvious cat-alyst and served to the French public aswhole. Exoticism is one of the forms of thissimplification writes Fanon. It allows nocultural confrontation. There is on the onehand a culture in which qualities of dyna-mism, of growth, of depth can be recog-

nized. And against this, we findcharacteristics, curiosities, things, never astructure (African Revolution 35). The isola-tion of individual phenomena, such as thewillingness of the native to face death inconfronting the oppressorperfectly rea-sonable and perhaps laudable in the con-text of an existential struggle for thesurvival of a national identity, or even lifeitselfis used to portray the native popula-tion as tragically inept and inherently in-congruent with civil life. This also promisesthat no threat is posed to the designs of thecolonialist; the absence of a coherent struc-ture acting in opposition to the colonialistsensures that the natives actions never be-tray the existence of an alternative to theoppressive dynamic, which of coursewould violate the sacred a prioris of the co-lonialists undisputed presence and neces-sity.

Deprived in presentation of the obvi-ous catalysts, events speak to the back-wardness, inferiority, and mostimportantly, dissimilarity of the Algeriansto the French. This is of vital importance tothe oppressive democratic power, whosepopulation must be kept in reasonable ac-cord with state policy, and whose conve-nient rhetoric of human rights and equalitycan be turned against its own policy shouldthe safeguards against an accurate publicunderstanding of the power dynamic fail.It is not possible to enslave men withoutlogically making them inferior through andthrough writes Fanon (African Revolution40). The racism that often compliments thisreduction is to be understood in the samecontext. Race prejudice [in the colonialcontext] in fact obeys a flawless logicwrites Fanon. A country that lives, drawsits substance from the exploitation of otherpeoples, makes those peoples inferior. Raceprejudice applied to those peoples is nor-mal (African Revolution 41). Fanon focusesmuch of Concerning Violence on the im-agery of the colonial world as a Manicheanworld divided into compartments, world



cut in twoinhabited by two different spe-cies, and in this creation of the exploitativemaster who has set the native apart fromhimself, what parcels out the world is tobegin with the fact of belonging to a givenrace, a given species (Wretched 40). Thesettler and the native are old acquaintan-ces writes Fanon, [f]or it is the settler whohas brought the native into existence andwho perpetuates his existence (36). Thisconstruction works toward the oppressionof the native, but offers in its superficialitya vulnerability that increases as contradic-tory perspectives emerge.

Confronting the negation of the na-tives humanity sought by the oppressorscarefully crafted discourse with the fact ofits undeniable existence is not the mereconsideration of the biological reality thatthe body of the wealthy Westerner and thatof the impoverished Third World nativeare those of the same species. This point haslong been reluctantly conceded by theWestern power elite, as justification for op-pressive foreign policy has shifted from thebiological inequality found in the junk sci-ence of social Darwinism and its predeces-sors, to the cultural/behavioral inequalityfound in what Edward Said dubbed in hispost-9/11 introduction to Orientalismshabby screeds bearing screaming head-lines about Islam and terror, Islam exposed,the Arab threat, and the Muslim menaceauthored by unqualified and dubiouslymotivated political polemicists workingin the Orientalist tradition (xx). In the sameway that the slave trade, perfectly logical inthe context of global capitalism, was souredby the discovery of the African as a humanwhose familiarity could no longer be ig-nored, so too may the policies of the 21stCentury colonialist find themselves felledby an irreversible glimpse of the nativedrawn from outside the bounds in whichinhumanity ensures continued exploita-tion.

There are those who talk of a so-calledAsiatic attitude toward death, writes

Fanon, of the attempts of his time at apply-ing the mystification we have discussed tothe guerillas of the Vietnam War. But thesebasement philosophers cannot convinceanyoneThe Vietnamese who die beforethe firing squads are not hoping that theirsacrifice will bring about the reappearanceof a past. It is for the sake of the present andof the future that they are willing to die(Black Skin 227). Translucence of this sort isbreathed into the phenomenon of culturalrenewal in the face of oppression, writtenoff by the colonialist as a sign of fanaticism,or backward devotion to the past. WritesFanon:

Well before the political or fightingphase of the national movement,an attentive spectator can thus feeland see the manifestations of newvigor and feel the approachingconflict. He will note unusualforms of expression and themeswhich are fresh and imbued with apowerno longer that of invoca-tion, but rather of the assemblingof the people, a summoning to-gether for a precise purpose(Wretched 243).

Infatuation with the fledgling cause,also drawn upon by the colonialist to fit theoppressors definition of native life, springsto life when imbued with its human reality.Writes Fanon:

Sometimes people wonder that thenative, rather than give his wife adress, buys instead a transistor ra-dio. There is no reason to be aston-ished. The natives are convincedthat their fate is in the balance, hereand now. They live in the atmo-sphere of doomsday, and they con-sider that nothing out to be let passunnoticed (Wretched 81).

Such immersion and dedication to the

282 JARROD SHANAHAN


natives newly invigorated national iden-tity is sought as further evidence of the un-desirable traits with which the colonialistwishes to saddle the resistant population.Writes Fanon:

The passion with which native in-tellectuals defend the existence oftheir national culture may be asource of amazement; but thosewho condemn this exaggeratedpassion are strangely apt to forgetthat their own psyche and theirown selves are conveniently shel-tered behind a French or Germanculture which has given full proofof its existence and which is uncon-tested (Wretched 209).

Finally (though examples are numer-ous5 and may extend to nearly ever facet ofthe colonialists illusory construct of nativelife), the resort to violence is drawn upon asjustification for what is portrayed as the co-lonialists response to native hostility,through a disavowal of the reality of thecause and effect relationship of violence inthe colonial situation. Writes Fanon:

He of whom they have neverstopped saying that the only lan-guage he understands is that offorce, decides to give utterance byforce. In fact, as always, the settlerhas shown him the way he shouldtake if he is to become free. The ar-gument the native chooses hasbeen furnished by the settler, andby an ironic turning of the tables itis the native who now affirms thatthe colonialist understands noth-ing but force. The colonial regime

owes its legitimacy to force and atno time tries to hide this aspect ofthings (Wretched 84).

The colonialists definition of eventscontains the means of its own destruction,as the reality it seeks to obscure speaks toits superficiality when allowed to shinethrough.

Such is the language, drawn from out-side the bounds of the expressible in thediscourse defined by the colonialist, whichdisarms this superficial framework withthe human proof of what it seeks to negate.Definition from outside these bounds pro-vides a human face for the native and thebehavior of the native population. Everynegating mechanism of the colonialistsdefinition of the native becomes a positivetool asserting humanity and coherence inthe struggle against oppression. The re-vival of long-abandoned customs, resur-gences of religious fanaticism, and arenewed national identity is no longer thebehavior of a backward people obsessedwith the past, but the calculated organiza-tion of resistance with what little resourcesthe oppressive power has not yet sup-pressed, intent not on reliving the past butensuring the future. The willingness ofthese militants to die is no longer a markerof their unreason or primitive attitude, butis a badge of honor, much in the way that ithas been throughout the history of Westernwarfare. The native, it is discovered, isquite human and as aware as the oppressorthat the struggle at hand is a matter of lifeand death, not of individuals, but of a peo-ple.

When the human face of the native canno longer be kept secret, the reality of thepower dynamic beneath which an entirepopulation has been made to sufferemerges, and the essence of the responsiblepower becomes clear for its citizenry toface. Colonialism is not a type of individ-ual relations writes Fanon but the con-quest of a national territory and the

5 The transformation of a native populationthrough its struggle against colonialism is a top-ic central to Fanons A Dying Colonialism, whichoffers studies of individual phenomena, andmore generally, to all of Fanons writing, espe-cially On Violence.



oppression of a people: that is all. It is not atype of human behavior or a pattern of re-lations between individuals (African Revo-lution 81). Once it is allowed that thevictims of this policy are people not unlikethe Western citizen, trapped in a situationregulating their activity, and acting much inthe way that anyone would understand-ably and perhaps even laudably behave,this definition may confront the illusoryworld of the oppressive power. The humanface of this relationship hardly flatters theoppressor, and the presence of this powerbecomes visibly what it has known itself tobe all along. Writes Fanon: The colonialsituation is first of all a military conquestcontinued and reinforced by a civil and po-lice administration. In Algeria, as in everycolony, the foreign oppressor looks uponthe native as a marking limit to his dignityand defines himself as constituting an irre-ducible negation of the colonized countrysnational existence (African Revolution 81).The dynamic no longer appears as any-thing but the mere oppression of human byhuman. The invasion of a foreign land by apower bent on exploiting its resources andoccupying its territory by whatever meansattain this end. The inferiorization of thenative is discovered to be a normative ex-pression of a power with as much respectfor human life and dignity as the mainte-nance of authority requires, and no more. Itis from this point, at which the human real-ity of a simple relationship is understood,that the power dynamic may appear freefrom deliberate mystification.

It is through the same revelation thatdemystifies the power dynamic at handthat we may discover an explicit portrait ofthe power configuration. When confrontedwith the human face of the native and thecoherence of his actions, the colonialistsillusions appear at best incomplete and far-cical, and the deliberateness of its construc-tion suggests the calculated concealment ofthe most tangible manifestations of thispower. The dynamic now appears as a sim-

ple relationship of imposed dominationand forced subordination, and the mostextreme means by which the relationship iskept intact emerge as in sharp congruencewith the entire structure, which can nolonger disassociate itself with individualtales of horror. Torture writes Fanon, isinherent in the whole colonial configura-tion (African Revolution 64). Not only is tor-ture perfectly logical in the context of anative population whose dehumanizationis the normative expression of the oppres-sive power, but it fits nicely among the var-ious other tools in the colonialists economyof exploitation and misery, which nowstands bare before all willing to see.

Fanon despised the lie amongst theintellectuals of France at his time that themost sensational means by which the endof the power relationship is pursued can beexcused as unfamiliar aberration indepen-dent of the dynamic they enforce; [t]hemost serious abdication of the French intel-lectuals is having tolerated this lie hewrites. The passion for truth and justicecannot, without challenge, accept suchfraud (African Revolution 67). Torture inAlgeria writes Fanon, is not an accident,or an error, or a fault. Colonialism cannotbe understood without the possibility oftorturing, violating, or massacring. Tor-ture, rather, is an expression and a meansof the occupant-occupied relationship(African Revolution 66). The same standardcan be applied to the agents of the oppres-sive order, whose actions typify thedynamic that they populate. Writes Fanon:

The police agent who tortures anAlgerian infringes no law. His actfits into the framework of the colo-nialist institution. By torturing, hemanifests an exemplary loyalty tothe system. And indeed the Frenchsoldiers can hardly do otherwisewithout condemning French domi-nation. Every Frenchman in Alge-ria must behave like a torturer.

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Wanting to remain in Algeria, thereis no other solution for France thanthe maintenance of a permanentmilitary occupation and of a pow-erful police structure. (African Rev-olution 71)

When the illusions of the colonialiststand unmasked before its democratic citi-zens, talk of accountability is inescapable.One cannot both be in favor of the mainte-nance of French domination in Algeria andopposed to the means that this mainte-nance requires writes Fanon (African Revo-lution 66). For a democratic society, thisimplication is far-reaching.

This is all not to say that the discoveryof the human face of the native in foreignoppression will mark history as a definitiveevent, nor that it promises anything in theway of improving the dire state of todaysglobal scene. (While the possibility of thisrealization spurring a universal under-standing of shared subordination betweenthe native and democratic citizenentirelywithin the realm of possibilities, even toFanon6is tantalizing to say the least, sucha theory may follow but is not pursuedhere.) It is entirely possible that the manu-facture of consent as it has worked towardmystifying the power dynamic of 21st Cen-tury colonialism is no longer necessary, andthat the humanity of the native is and willbe acknowledged by those who continue tosupport exploitative policy. However, whatis sought here is the disarming of the op-pressors illusions in order for the citizensof these supposed democracies to makepolicy decisions free from deliberate ma-nipulation.

Should the sort of policy we have ex-amined be chosen by a wholly cognizantpopulace, so be it. Fanon had much to sayabout the action that should follow.

REFERENCES

Alterman, Eric. What Liberal Media?. Cam-bridge: Basic, 2003.

Bagdikian, Ben. The Media Monopoly. Boston:Beacon Press, 1987.

Chomsky, Noam. Necessary Illusions. Cam-bridge: South End, 1989.

Chomsky, Noam. Media Control. New York:Seven Stories, 2002.

Chomsky, Noam and Edward S. Herman. Man-ufacturing Consent. New York: Pantheon,1988.

Fanon, Frantz. A Dying Colonialism. Translatedby Haakon Chevalier. New York:Monthly Review Press, 1965.

Fanon, Frantz. Black Skin White Masks. Trans-lated by Charles Lam Markmann. NewYork: Grove Press, 1967.

Fanon, Frantz. The Wretched of the Earth. Trans-lated by Constance Farrington. NewYork: Grove, 1963.

Fanon, Frantz. Toward the African Revolution:Political Essays. Translated by HaakonChevalier. New York: Grove Press, 1967.

Hedges, Chris. War is a Force that Gives Us Mean-ing. New York: Random House, 2003

Said, Edward W. Culture and Imperialism. NewYork: Random House, 1993.

Said, Edward W. Orientalism. New York: Ran-dom House, 1978.

6 See: The Algerian War and Mans Libera-tion in Toward the African Revolution.

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Fanon and the Iraqi Other Unmasking the Illusions of Colonialism Jarrod Shanahan

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