A Dying Colonialism

Known as a founding father of postcolonial studies, I knew I had to pick up one of Frantz Fanon’s books. This man’s alive and commanding voice, along with the sheer rigor of his analysis, produces a kind of awakening in you. Colonialism is colonialism is colonialism. What has happened in Algeria has happened in apartheid South Africa, is happening in Palestine. Independence is too fantastical of a dream, but it was also so in Algeria.

This is the kind of book that that should be highlighted from beginning to end. I found it quite difficult to annotate given the sheer power of Frantz Fanon’s delivery. You don’t know when to start and when to stop, because you need him to take you all the way through.

And boy was this book a journey. It has you first examine the veil from a bird’s eye view before diving into its fabric: the family and society.

It is striking to see the way Algerians grasped, mended, internalized, and then applied the very tools brought by the colonizer. Radios were a tool by the colonizer only in so far as they can infiltrate and change society from within until they were employed by the revolution. The “unveiling” of the woman was an act of violently uprooting Algeria, only until the woman voluntarily took it upon herself to unveil in disguise. The very French language, which had been impervious to Algeria, was seized and readopted.

This book stands as one of the best books I have ever read. It should have a permanent place on your bookshelf.

Rating:

5/5

Highlights:

"This woman who sees without being seen frustrates the colonizer."

Propoganda poster telling women to unveil themselves. "Aren't you pretty?"

"But we must try to look more closely at the reality of Algeria. We must not simply fly over it. We must, on the contrary, walk step by step along the great wound inflicted on the Algerian soil and on the Algerian people. We must question the Algerian earth meter by meter, and measure the fragmentation of the Algerian family, the degree to which it finds itself scattered."

"It confirmed to me what I had already sensed: that I was not French, that I had never been French. Language, culture—these are not enough to make you belong to a people. Something more is needed: a common life, common experiences and memories, common aims."