Comparing The Wretched Of The Earth And The Battle Of Algiers
Introduction Both in The Wretched of the Earth and The Battle of Algiers we are presented with the harsh reality that is the French colony of Algiers during the post-war period. Both works focus very strongly on the use of violence but both adopt a very different approach in justifying its use. On one hand, The Battle of Algiers presents us with an ever-escalating conflict in which neither of the parties of the conflict seems entirely right. On the other hand, Fanon argues that violence is a catharsis for improvement and the source of a psychological need to recover an apparent sense of self-respect. Both will be analysed in turn before drawing a conclusion that will compare them.
Gillo Pontecorvo’s The Battle of Algiers
The Battle of Algiers …show more content…
is a 1966 film that documents the violent Algerian uprising (1954-1962) against French colonial rule in the city of Algiers. The main character of the film is an Algerian national named Ali La Pointe. He is a wayward and restless youth who adopts radical political and theological opinions whilst incarcerated, eventually becoming one of the leaders of the Front de Libéreation Nationale (FLN). Lieutenant-colonel Mathieu is in charge of the French forces and throughout the movie utilizes his intelligence to adopt strong counter-insurgency measures, fuelled by his Draconian ideals.
The film documents the overwhelming might and methods of the French forces and how the FNL managed to fight back and were able to unite and mobilize the people of Algiers to independence.
The underlying cause of the conflict in the film is the persistent injustice and oppression experienced by the native Arab Algerians through colonialism and occupation. Whilst this injustice is not always explicitly shown to the viewer, its reality is made apparent to us because …show more content…
of:
Firstly, the population is separated into two groups and living spaces. The Arabs are forced to live compressed and impoverished in the “Casbah” (an old, walled-in citadel) whilst the Europeans enjoy the luxuries of living in a modern, well-edified city right next to the sea that has all the avant-garde commodities of a 1960’s metropolis: stores, tall buildings, automobiles, social areas, etc.
Secondly, the type of labour the populations are engaged in. Whilst the Arab population is mainly employed for manual labour, the Europeans have a monopoly over municipal and civil affairs. On the odd chance that an Arab national works with a European, it is always working under their command (i.e: the police Commissioner’s servant). This situation enables the Europeans to develop a strong middle class that excludes Arab nationals entirely.
Finally, injustice is shown through the condescending and arrogant way the Europeans adopt when dealing with Arabs.
The French try to dissuade the Arab population from rebelling by reminding them that France has given them “civilization and prosperity”. Throughout the film, the French refer to the Algerians as “dirty Arabs” and “rats”. The insensitivity of the French settlers is also made apparent in the lifestyle they have imported into the culture.
It is important to note, however, that there is also a blatant and widespread injustice throughout the uprising itself: selective suspension of legal rights and procedures, extensive use of torture, and the murder of relatively innocent individuals who find themselves in the midst of a war they did not choose to partake in. All in all, before and during the uprising, we are presented with a situation in which a group of people does not have equal access to the resources of the State and the inequality is strengthened through an ideology of entitlement and superiority. This leads to violent conflict which itself perpetuates and exacerbates the injustice that is already inherent in the structure of the relationship between the native Arabs and the European settlers
.
Analysing the dynamics of the conflict itself, we find ourselves with a conflict that continuously escalates in the form of a spiral that is part of a contender-defender dynamic of war. A contender-defender model is, in a few short sentences, one in which escalation is caused by one party’s efforts to change their status quo. If party A does not reach its goal through mild and controlled means it is very likely that they intensify their efforts. Party B will usually respond by an escalating use of violence in their defensive protocols. In the motion picture, the Algerian Arabs wanted to overthrow the tyranny of colonialism and establish self-rule. When the French government did not reciprocate their calls for negotiations, the Algerians turned to violent and terrorist tactics.
The conflict spiral model sees escalation as a consequence of increasingly heavier retaliation between the two parties. Because of the Arab Algerians attacks on the police and army personnel, a vicious cycle of violence and death ensues. Because the French retaliated with collective punishment (by blockading the entire Casbah and bombing residential buildings with innocent victims involved), the FLN began bombing civilian concentrated areas. In response to these attacks, the French suspended the legal rights and procedures of Algerian Arabs and called in the paratroopers, an elite counter-insurgency unit who tortured, terrorized (and tried to manipulate) the Casbah population as a whole.
The film ends with the assassination of the FLN leadership. The general and Colonels, satisfied with their work, state: “At heart they are good people. We’ve had good relations with them for a hundred and thirty years … I don’t see why we shouldn’t continue that way.” By 1962, after much bloodshed, the French realized that it was no longer in their best interest to continue to deny the Algerian Arabs their freedom.
Frantz Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth
The Wretched of the Earth, first published in 1961, has been regarded as one of the most widely read of the works written during the post-war period and it has been translated into sixteen languages, reaching well into the international audience.
Written for Algerians seeking independence from France in the 1960s, The Wretched of the Earth is Frantz Fanon's manifesto on decolonization. Fanon exposes the problems of different models of decolonization adopted by countries in Latin America, in which the national bourgeoisie replace the metropolis bourgeoisie and remain dependent on foreign markets and capital after the country is "freed." The masses of the newly created state, however, are unaffected.
In the first section of the book, On Violence, Fanon argues that the solution to the recurrent problems of decolonization can only be realized through a violent uprising of the masses. Fanon arrives at this conclusion by stating that in colony a Manichaean, or dualist, society is born . In other words, a dichotomy is created and the good is pitted against the bad; the white against the dark; the rich against the poor; the indigenous against the foreigner; the ruling class against the others; evil "niggers" and "towel-heads" against humane whites .
This obsolete classification of the population creates a tension that cannot be ignored by those affected. True decolonization, therefore, will put an end this dichotomy and create a society where "the last shall be first" (2-5). However, because colonialism can only made possible through extreme violence and intimidation, Fanon argues that violence is the only language that a colonialist society understands: "colonialism is not a machine capable of thinking, a body endowed with reason. It is naked violence and only gives in when confronted with greater violence" (23).
Fanon cannot come to terms with the idea of attaining independence through peaceful handovers and more moderate means. In other words, negotiation is no substitute for capitulation, and thus cannot spark an effective process of decolonization. He makes the Gramscian observation that only formalities are changed at the negotiating table. .
Fanon accuses colonialist countries of using force to exploit raw materials and labour from colonized countries and their citizens. Attempting to justify their actions, colonialists stereotyped natives as savages and referred to natives’ culture and way of life as “precolonial barbarism”. Colonialists preached that the European society was the ideal for natives to emulate and used violence and divide-and-conquer strategies to keep the natives from uprising. In this sense, Fanon argues that to regain their sense of national identity and self-respect, colonized people must fend off the colonialists employing violent, even terrorist, means. Although he was a psychiatrist, Fanon did not argue that such violence in by itself would be psychologically liberating; he cites cases in which such violence led to psychological degeneration. Despite anticolonial violence being the only way to regain self-respect, such violence is not automatically conscionable or justifiable. Paraphrasing Fanon, rape is not justifiable even if it appears to be the only means for a person to gain a feeling of self-respect. Consequently, it is a mistake to think that Fanon has justified terrorist attacks on the innocent as he continuously advocated for the rejection of the dehumanizing domination of Western culture over the colonies. He claims that Western culture has brought the leaders of the decolonized State to become corrupt by putting their own egotistical needs and own interests far above those of their people and urges ex-colonialist powers to help ease the inequality present in the old colonies, and stop attempting to exploit them.
Following an interpretation of Hegel’s philosophical theory, it is only through a violent insurrection with the purpose of destroying everything touched by colonialism that a new species of man will be created. It is through this struggle that a new national culture will be defined; and not one defined by Western principles, nor a culture that treads back to the indigenous traditions of pre-colonial times, due to the fact that this culture is forever lost because of the degradation and ruin of said culture throughout the process of colonial racism and alienation. For Fanon, the colonised must move forward. Fanon argues that to understand the needs of those born in the colonies, it is necessary to look at history from their perspective. It is difficult for colonialist forces to take part in the revolutionary approach and discuss violence, education, equality and opportunities in the colony. According to Fanon, unless greed leads to altruism in world politics, it seems to be the wretched of the earth can only really be free by the use of force.
It is important to note at this time that Fanon shows that after the process of decolonisation, the national bourgeoisie fill the political posts left behind by the colonists. Thus, the political party becomes a "screen between the masses and the leadership" , and party radicals are neglected as the "party itself becomes an ad- ministration and the militants fall back into line and adopt the hollow title of citizen" .
The national bourgeoisie are defined by a European-based education and culture. They are credited with the founding of political parties tasked with the vital role of giving rise to the country’s future as an independent country. However, the relative social and economic comfort of the national bourgeoisie prevents them from supporting a violent insurrection (which might alter their comfortable situation). He states, “once a party has achieved national unanimity and has emerged as the sole negotiator, the occupier begins his manneuvering and delays negotiations as long as possible” in order to "whittle away" the party's demands . Consequently, as was stated above, the newly freed country is still socially and economically dependent on the original colonial power.
Such a path to decolonization is a hidden form of colonialism, according to Fanon. He argues that prior to decolonization, the "mother country" realizes the inevitability of "freedom," and thus claims proprietary interest on the "capital and technicians and encircling the young nation with an apparatus of economic pressure" . The young, independent nation is pushed into a position that keeps it obliged to maintain the economic channels established by the colonial regime . The national bourgeoisie, in their incomplete and inorganic state, cannot provide the capital or economic guidance necessary for the country to progress, relying heavily on the former colonizers financial aid and advice, that is aimed at maintaining the old forms of dominance and subordination in the colonies .
The desire to end this dependence on colonial powers leads the new country to attempt the impossible and rapidly develop an idealistic, nationalist form of capitalism that is thoroughly diversified for the purpose of economic and political stability. The result is either a dictator deluded by dreams of autarchy , or an iron-fisted authoritarian dictator determined to preserve the status quo .
In conclusion, it is a call to arms, not a scholarly autopsy. In the end, and despite its many contradictions and excesses, The Wretched of the Earth remains a remarkable achievement. The universalism of Fanon's imagination and the forcefulness of his language have given the work an appeal that has already put it in many reading lists. In many ways, the interpretation the reader has of the book itself is influenced by what one makes of Fanon. It is a well-received novel that comes highly recommended for anyone looking to gain a better understanding of decolonization and the neo-bourgeois character of contemporary politics in the post-colonial period. Initially, the Wretched of the Earth was widely hailed as the most passionate and brilliant analysis of the process of decolonization. Rereading the book today, one realizes how much the world has evolved since then: we now see the extent to which Fanon was a man of his times and the extent to which he was a throwback to the Romantic nationalists of the nineteenth century. Far from being the Marx of the African revolution (and there were some who claimed he was just that), Fanon now emerges more clearly as having been its Mazzini. As a final comment, the strength of The Wretched of the Earth rests less on the clarity of its analysis and the strength of its arguments than on the violence and inspiration of its rhetoric.
Conclusion
As a final paragraph, it is submitted that these two works, although they deal, broadly speaking, with the same issues in a similar fashion, they are different in nature. Whilst Pontecorvo shows a conflict that escalates more and more because of the lack of negotiation or communication between both sides, Fanon portrays the underlying need to fight Western dominance so as to regain a sense of self-respect. This distinction is crucial. Pontecorvo presents us with a harrowing tale of ominous acts performed by both sides of a gruesome conflict, whereas Fanon idealises violence as a form of righteous purification of the negative influence European culture has had on Algiers.
Gillo Pontecorvo’s The Battle of Algiers
The Battle of Algiers …show more content…
is a 1966 film that documents the violent Algerian uprising (1954-1962) against French colonial rule in the city of Algiers. The main character of the film is an Algerian national named Ali La Pointe. He is a wayward and restless youth who adopts radical political and theological opinions whilst incarcerated, eventually becoming one of the leaders of the Front de Libéreation Nationale (FLN). Lieutenant-colonel Mathieu is in charge of the French forces and throughout the movie utilizes his intelligence to adopt strong counter-insurgency measures, fuelled by his Draconian ideals.
The film documents the overwhelming might and methods of the French forces and how the FNL managed to fight back and were able to unite and mobilize the people of Algiers to independence.
The underlying cause of the conflict in the film is the persistent injustice and oppression experienced by the native Arab Algerians through colonialism and occupation. Whilst this injustice is not always explicitly shown to the viewer, its reality is made apparent to us because …show more content…
of:
Firstly, the population is separated into two groups and living spaces. The Arabs are forced to live compressed and impoverished in the “Casbah” (an old, walled-in citadel) whilst the Europeans enjoy the luxuries of living in a modern, well-edified city right next to the sea that has all the avant-garde commodities of a 1960’s metropolis: stores, tall buildings, automobiles, social areas, etc.
Secondly, the type of labour the populations are engaged in. Whilst the Arab population is mainly employed for manual labour, the Europeans have a monopoly over municipal and civil affairs. On the odd chance that an Arab national works with a European, it is always working under their command (i.e: the police Commissioner’s servant). This situation enables the Europeans to develop a strong middle class that excludes Arab nationals entirely.
Finally, injustice is shown through the condescending and arrogant way the Europeans adopt when dealing with Arabs.
The French try to dissuade the Arab population from rebelling by reminding them that France has given them “civilization and prosperity”. Throughout the film, the French refer to the Algerians as “dirty Arabs” and “rats”. The insensitivity of the French settlers is also made apparent in the lifestyle they have imported into the culture.
It is important to note, however, that there is also a blatant and widespread injustice throughout the uprising itself: selective suspension of legal rights and procedures, extensive use of torture, and the murder of relatively innocent individuals who find themselves in the midst of a war they did not choose to partake in. All in all, before and during the uprising, we are presented with a situation in which a group of people does not have equal access to the resources of the State and the inequality is strengthened through an ideology of entitlement and superiority. This leads to violent conflict which itself perpetuates and exacerbates the injustice that is already inherent in the structure of the relationship between the native Arabs and the European settlers
.
Analysing the dynamics of the conflict itself, we find ourselves with a conflict that continuously escalates in the form of a spiral that is part of a contender-defender dynamic of war. A contender-defender model is, in a few short sentences, one in which escalation is caused by one party’s efforts to change their status quo. If party A does not reach its goal through mild and controlled means it is very likely that they intensify their efforts. Party B will usually respond by an escalating use of violence in their defensive protocols. In the motion picture, the Algerian Arabs wanted to overthrow the tyranny of colonialism and establish self-rule. When the French government did not reciprocate their calls for negotiations, the Algerians turned to violent and terrorist tactics.
The conflict spiral model sees escalation as a consequence of increasingly heavier retaliation between the two parties. Because of the Arab Algerians attacks on the police and army personnel, a vicious cycle of violence and death ensues. Because the French retaliated with collective punishment (by blockading the entire Casbah and bombing residential buildings with innocent victims involved), the FLN began bombing civilian concentrated areas. In response to these attacks, the French suspended the legal rights and procedures of Algerian Arabs and called in the paratroopers, an elite counter-insurgency unit who tortured, terrorized (and tried to manipulate) the Casbah population as a whole.
The film ends with the assassination of the FLN leadership. The general and Colonels, satisfied with their work, state: “At heart they are good people. We’ve had good relations with them for a hundred and thirty years … I don’t see why we shouldn’t continue that way.” By 1962, after much bloodshed, the French realized that it was no longer in their best interest to continue to deny the Algerian Arabs their freedom.
Frantz Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth
The Wretched of the Earth, first published in 1961, has been regarded as one of the most widely read of the works written during the post-war period and it has been translated into sixteen languages, reaching well into the international audience.
Written for Algerians seeking independence from France in the 1960s, The Wretched of the Earth is Frantz Fanon's manifesto on decolonization. Fanon exposes the problems of different models of decolonization adopted by countries in Latin America, in which the national bourgeoisie replace the metropolis bourgeoisie and remain dependent on foreign markets and capital after the country is "freed." The masses of the newly created state, however, are unaffected.
In the first section of the book, On Violence, Fanon argues that the solution to the recurrent problems of decolonization can only be realized through a violent uprising of the masses. Fanon arrives at this conclusion by stating that in colony a Manichaean, or dualist, society is born . In other words, a dichotomy is created and the good is pitted against the bad; the white against the dark; the rich against the poor; the indigenous against the foreigner; the ruling class against the others; evil "niggers" and "towel-heads" against humane whites .
This obsolete classification of the population creates a tension that cannot be ignored by those affected. True decolonization, therefore, will put an end this dichotomy and create a society where "the last shall be first" (2-5). However, because colonialism can only made possible through extreme violence and intimidation, Fanon argues that violence is the only language that a colonialist society understands: "colonialism is not a machine capable of thinking, a body endowed with reason. It is naked violence and only gives in when confronted with greater violence" (23).
Fanon cannot come to terms with the idea of attaining independence through peaceful handovers and more moderate means. In other words, negotiation is no substitute for capitulation, and thus cannot spark an effective process of decolonization. He makes the Gramscian observation that only formalities are changed at the negotiating table. .
Fanon accuses colonialist countries of using force to exploit raw materials and labour from colonized countries and their citizens. Attempting to justify their actions, colonialists stereotyped natives as savages and referred to natives’ culture and way of life as “precolonial barbarism”. Colonialists preached that the European society was the ideal for natives to emulate and used violence and divide-and-conquer strategies to keep the natives from uprising. In this sense, Fanon argues that to regain their sense of national identity and self-respect, colonized people must fend off the colonialists employing violent, even terrorist, means. Although he was a psychiatrist, Fanon did not argue that such violence in by itself would be psychologically liberating; he cites cases in which such violence led to psychological degeneration. Despite anticolonial violence being the only way to regain self-respect, such violence is not automatically conscionable or justifiable. Paraphrasing Fanon, rape is not justifiable even if it appears to be the only means for a person to gain a feeling of self-respect. Consequently, it is a mistake to think that Fanon has justified terrorist attacks on the innocent as he continuously advocated for the rejection of the dehumanizing domination of Western culture over the colonies. He claims that Western culture has brought the leaders of the decolonized State to become corrupt by putting their own egotistical needs and own interests far above those of their people and urges ex-colonialist powers to help ease the inequality present in the old colonies, and stop attempting to exploit them.
Following an interpretation of Hegel’s philosophical theory, it is only through a violent insurrection with the purpose of destroying everything touched by colonialism that a new species of man will be created. It is through this struggle that a new national culture will be defined; and not one defined by Western principles, nor a culture that treads back to the indigenous traditions of pre-colonial times, due to the fact that this culture is forever lost because of the degradation and ruin of said culture throughout the process of colonial racism and alienation. For Fanon, the colonised must move forward. Fanon argues that to understand the needs of those born in the colonies, it is necessary to look at history from their perspective. It is difficult for colonialist forces to take part in the revolutionary approach and discuss violence, education, equality and opportunities in the colony. According to Fanon, unless greed leads to altruism in world politics, it seems to be the wretched of the earth can only really be free by the use of force.
It is important to note at this time that Fanon shows that after the process of decolonisation, the national bourgeoisie fill the political posts left behind by the colonists. Thus, the political party becomes a "screen between the masses and the leadership" , and party radicals are neglected as the "party itself becomes an ad- ministration and the militants fall back into line and adopt the hollow title of citizen" .
The national bourgeoisie are defined by a European-based education and culture. They are credited with the founding of political parties tasked with the vital role of giving rise to the country’s future as an independent country. However, the relative social and economic comfort of the national bourgeoisie prevents them from supporting a violent insurrection (which might alter their comfortable situation). He states, “once a party has achieved national unanimity and has emerged as the sole negotiator, the occupier begins his manneuvering and delays negotiations as long as possible” in order to "whittle away" the party's demands . Consequently, as was stated above, the newly freed country is still socially and economically dependent on the original colonial power.
Such a path to decolonization is a hidden form of colonialism, according to Fanon. He argues that prior to decolonization, the "mother country" realizes the inevitability of "freedom," and thus claims proprietary interest on the "capital and technicians and encircling the young nation with an apparatus of economic pressure" . The young, independent nation is pushed into a position that keeps it obliged to maintain the economic channels established by the colonial regime . The national bourgeoisie, in their incomplete and inorganic state, cannot provide the capital or economic guidance necessary for the country to progress, relying heavily on the former colonizers financial aid and advice, that is aimed at maintaining the old forms of dominance and subordination in the colonies .
The desire to end this dependence on colonial powers leads the new country to attempt the impossible and rapidly develop an idealistic, nationalist form of capitalism that is thoroughly diversified for the purpose of economic and political stability. The result is either a dictator deluded by dreams of autarchy , or an iron-fisted authoritarian dictator determined to preserve the status quo .
In conclusion, it is a call to arms, not a scholarly autopsy. In the end, and despite its many contradictions and excesses, The Wretched of the Earth remains a remarkable achievement. The universalism of Fanon's imagination and the forcefulness of his language have given the work an appeal that has already put it in many reading lists. In many ways, the interpretation the reader has of the book itself is influenced by what one makes of Fanon. It is a well-received novel that comes highly recommended for anyone looking to gain a better understanding of decolonization and the neo-bourgeois character of contemporary politics in the post-colonial period. Initially, the Wretched of the Earth was widely hailed as the most passionate and brilliant analysis of the process of decolonization. Rereading the book today, one realizes how much the world has evolved since then: we now see the extent to which Fanon was a man of his times and the extent to which he was a throwback to the Romantic nationalists of the nineteenth century. Far from being the Marx of the African revolution (and there were some who claimed he was just that), Fanon now emerges more clearly as having been its Mazzini. As a final comment, the strength of The Wretched of the Earth rests less on the clarity of its analysis and the strength of its arguments than on the violence and inspiration of its rhetoric.
Conclusion
As a final paragraph, it is submitted that these two works, although they deal, broadly speaking, with the same issues in a similar fashion, they are different in nature. Whilst Pontecorvo shows a conflict that escalates more and more because of the lack of negotiation or communication between both sides, Fanon portrays the underlying need to fight Western dominance so as to regain a sense of self-respect. This distinction is crucial. Pontecorvo presents us with a harrowing tale of ominous acts performed by both sides of a gruesome conflict, whereas Fanon idealises violence as a form of righteous purification of the negative influence European culture has had on Algiers.