Fanon on the Arbitrariness of Using Violence: An Inevitable for Both Colonialism and Decolonization

Introduction

This article aims to illuminate how neither colonialism nor decolonization cannot happen without using violence. However, the concept of violence itself is not defined, interpreted, and understood the same. As South African black people claim to remain languishing under perpetual oppression regardless of South Africa, having declared the halt of apartheid in 1994. However, what brings me to examine Frantz Fanon’s conception of violence is that this article responds to the appeal caused by the puzzle of misinterpretation and misunderstanding on the concept of violence; between the colonizer and the colonized in Africa, the same as it is among scholars particularly here in South Africa. This article helps the colonized people and specifically South African black peoples to think beyond how they should genuinely be decolonized. By employing Fanon’s thinking on violence, the article shows that the concept of violence has a double facet of interpretations. On one hand, violence is used as the major tool of conquest, acquisition, and maintenance of power by the colonizer. To another hand, the same violence that has been implanted by colonizers does not end unto itself hence it has to be claimed and launched back by the colonized subjects in their search for a genuine decolonized world.

In the same perspective, violence that has been primarily fabricated, produced, and invented by colonizers, as the main tool to access and maintain power, is therefore the same violence that has to be used for genuine decolonization to be realized. According to Fanon ([1961] 2017), “Their first confrontation was colored by violence and their cohabitation – or rather the exploitation of the colonized by the colonizer – continued at the point of the bayonet and under cannon fire” (p. 64). Since the first day of the introduction of the project of colonialism, the colonizers have to use violence to conquer other nations.

As colonialism was and is still violent by nature, colonized subjects have therefore to revendicate the same violence while traveling to their self-determination, as Fanon puts it in the following clear words:

The violence which governed the ordering of the colonial world, which tirelessly punctuated the destruction of the indigenous social fabric, and demolished unchecked the systems of reference of the country’s economy, lifestyles, and modes of dress, this same violence will be vindicated and appropriated when taking history into their own hands, the colonized swarm into the forbidden cities. (Fanon, [1961] 2017, pp. 67–68)

Fanon’s concern here is to reveal where the colonized subject’s counter-violence is originating. In fact, because of colonialism, black subjects point fingers at white masters for the creation of racism, discrimination, Blackness, Whiteness, and dehumanization. Decolonization, therefore, intervenes as a mechanism that can recover, restore, repair, and re-honor those who have been seriously touched by the colonial violence. Therefore, this article explores how the two facets of definition for both the violence of the colonizer and counter-violence of the colonized, are transcended to produce a new human world. From such a same perspective, the article argues that colonialism did not follow any path of negotiation, and this justifies that the decolonization movement has to also use counter-violence.

The difference is that the violence of the colonized intends to conquer and colonize while in contrast, the counter-violence from the colonized intervenes as means of self-defense and claims to reach a new human world that honors everyone in the society. At the same point, keeping in mind that colonialism is discriminative by nature and decolonization is a way of unification and integration of all kinds of human beings. Genuine decolonization guarantees an effective social change in opposite to colonialism that creates fear and fear of death and unnecessary divisions in the colonized world. Indisputable is that “Europe, therefore, has hardened the divisions and conflicts, forged classes, and in some cases, racism, and endeavored by every means to generate and deepen the stratification of colonial societies” (Sartre, [1961] 2017, p. 46). While colonizers targeted to create confusions and divisions among the colonized subjects’ communities, authentic decolonization in contrast re-unifies the dispersed colonized subjects.

Decolonization is a fact of reverse and inverse, hence it is verified, approved, and successful when the last has been first—the formerly colonized subjects have reached to their self-determination; and “this determination to have the last move up to the front, to them clumber up the famous echelons of an organized society, can only succeed by resorting to every means, including, of course, violence” (Fanon, [1961] 2017, p. 65). Here, Fanon emphasizes that colonizers gained the world because of violence. He reveals that the colonized subjects have to follow the colonizers’ steps of using violence for them to recover their humanity and to become new human beings. What is relevant is that violence should not only be assessed negatively, hence “Violence may be a way of speaking” (Von Holdt, 2012, p. 127). Likewise, Kebede (2001) asserts that “It is generally admitted that in the specific case of self-defense involving persons or nations, recourse to violence is a legitimate choice” (p. 1).

Firstly, this article is going to discuss Fanon on the dual meaning of the mono-concept of violence. Secondly, the article discusses colonialism and violence. Thirdly, the article illuminates how Fanon justifies genuine decolonization as the result of counter-violence. Lastly, before the conclusion, the article maps the way forward on how all human beings should reach and live a better world, a new world without mastery, discrimination, domination, and slavery.

Fanon on Dual Meaning of Violence

It is important to recognize that referring to Fanon ([1961] 2017), the concept of violence has two opposite facets of definition: the violence of the colonizer and the counter-violence of the colonized. According to Fanon ([1961] 2017), “The violence of the colonial regime and the counter-violence of the colonized balance each other and respond to each other in an extraordinary reciprocal homogeneity” (p. 108). As a point of clarification on how to define or explain the concept of violence, Fanon above justifies that on one hand, there is a violence of the colonizer, and to another hand, the counter-violence of the colonized, and both balance each other.

Before going further with counter-violence, Mbembe (2012), asserts that “in Fanon violence is both political and a clinical concept” (p. 21). Thus, the failure to understand the concept of violence should lead to the misdirection of black subjects in their journey to self-determination. What are the most negative impacts of colonial violence on the colonized? In an attempt to respond to this question, Mbembe (2012, p. 22) exposes:

Colonial violence was phenomenal. It touched both the senses, the psychic, and the affective domains. It was the purveyor of mental disorders, which were difficult to treat and cure. It excluded any dialectic of recognition and was indifferent to any moral argument. Over time it attacked even the most private, innermost areas of subjectivity and ran the risk of depriving the colonized of any mnesic trace.

In essence, in the combat that leads them to genuine decolonization, it is without tolerance that “violence among the colonized will be spread in proportion to the violence exerted by the colonial regime” as Fanon ([1961] 2017) declares and simultaneously justifies that “the greater the number of metropolitan settlers, the more terrible the violence will be” (pp. 108–109). The more the colonizers intensify violence, the more the colonized subjects will proportionally respond (launch back) to the accumulated colonial violence. Counter-violence is a replication of colonial violence, Mbembe (2017) echoes Fanon in maintaining, “For Fanon, there was a categorical difference between the violence of the colonizer and that of the colonized. The violence of the colonized was not ideological, at least not at first. It was the exact opposite of the colonial violence” (p. 165). This confirms that the colonized subjects are not the first launchers of violence but proportionally launch back the colonial violence to the colonizers, who are accused to be the fabricators and makers of the original violence. In this point, colonized are imposed to opt for counter-violence, and “by choosing violence rather than being subjected to it, the colonized subject can restore the self” (Mbembe, 2012, p. 21).

Mbembe is not an orphan to support Fanon’s view on violence, hence Nayar follows their steps in clarifying that the colonized subjects are not guilty of the counter-violence:

Fanon proposes that it is colonial violence and its trauma that leads to the second form of violence – that from the colonized side. The second is the violence of the colonized. This violence is an attempt on the part of the desperate, frustrated, and alienated colonized subject to retrieve a certain dignity and sense of the Self that colonial violence had destroyed. It takes the form of anti-colonial struggles. (Nayar, 2013, p. 70)

In addition, Fanon ([1961] 2017) insists that “As we have seen, the colonized masses intuitively believe that their liberation must be achieved and can only be achieved by force” (p. 95). The colonized subjects have arbitrarily to opt for using force, because; colonialism itself is built, driven, and characterized by violence. Only using force would help the colonized subjects to discover other new possibilities of life—to find an adequate solution for many problems caused by enduring colonialism. However, Arendt (1970) contrasts with Fanon in arguing that “violence and its arbitrariness were taken for granted and therefore neglected; no one questions or examines what is obvious to all” (p. 8). Arendt’s (1970) concern was that violence should cancel politics and that politics and violence have to be separated, a thesis that Fanon does not agree with, hence for Fanon violence and politics are inseparable.

In accord with Fanon and disagreement with Arendt, Bhabha ([1961] 2017, p. 36) disregards Arendt’s position and accused her of being only half right in her reading of Fanon. What remains in absurdity in Arendt’s argument is that “For Arendt, Fanon’s violence leads to the death of politics; for Sartre, it draws the fiery, first breath of human freedom” (Bhabha, [1961] 2017, p. 37). However, Arendt (1970) maintains her position that “Today all these old verities about the relation between war and politics or violence and power have become inapplicable” (p. 9). Both Fanon and Arendt affirm that colonialism is violent, however, what remains a lacuna for Arendt was that she is aware that colonialism is violent, but could not easily understand that any decolonization movements have to be violent as well. Whiteness and White supremacy thrive on both the dehumanization and destruction of Blackness. Thus, this extends a reading of colonialism as more than creating darkness but instead death. In short, Arendt failed to demonstrate the final destination of colonial violence, while both Fanon and Sartre demonstrate that the counter-violence is a reproduction of colonial violence. Having been well convinced by Fanon, Sartre, and Bhabha’s arguments above, Marriott (2018, p. 153) harmonizes with them that

Arendt is, therefore, unable to acknowledge Fanon’s distinction between violence that reproduces racism as capital and the fugitive, less determinate violence that ruins law and the whole administration of the state precisely because it begins in the ruination of black guilt and indebtedness.

As this article intends to bring a clear understanding of the origin of counter-violence, it should be imperative to consider that violence is a fact that cannot end unto itself. The colonial violence is lived and experienced by colonized subjects to the extent that they become familiar and almost normal to it, hence this violence is even socially super structured. Thus, the manifestation of violence is positive not only for the oppressive state but also for the oppressed who are willing to overcome oppression, as Bouka (2017) asserts that “While the bulk of the violence and responsibility lies at the feet of the government, other actors have used violence to achieve their political objectives” (p. 24). When colonized subjects become aware of the impacts of colonialism, at the same time they engage in armed struggle for them to reject colonialism and its apparatuses. Fanon states that:

Since what is scandalous is that violence can be used as a party slogan and the people urged to rise in armed struggle. This issue of violence needs to be given careful consideration. When German militarism decides to resolve its border problems by force, it is no surprise, but when the Angolan people, for instance, decide to take up arms, when the Algerians reject any method which does not include violence, this is proof that something has happened or is in the process of happening. The colonized peoples, these slaves of modern times, have run out of patience. They know that such madness alone can deliver them from colonial oppression. (Fanon, [1961] 2017, p. 95)

Fanon’s concern above shows how opting for armed struggle is conditioned by the colonial situation. The colonized subjects are objectified for ensuring the perpetual running of colonialism. However, Fanon attentions that violence has to be given careful consideration as its finality is unto itself. There is a red line when colonized subjects run out of patience and decide to launch back the received violence to the colonizers. Likewise, Kebede (2001, p. 1) states that

Frantz Fanon provided us with a new legitimation of violence, issuing from the specific case of colonial oppression. Arguing that colonialism is qualitatively different from the previous forms of conquest and subjugation, Fanon recommended violence for reasons surpassing the necessity of self-defense or the removal of the rotten social system. He sees violence as a necessary therapy for a cultural disease brought about by colonial subjugation.

In the struggle for decolonization, a qualified mediator needs to intervene between colonizers and colonized subjects, “violence can thus be understood to be the perfect mediation” (Fanon, [1961] 2017, p. 106). In a few words, as it will be soon detailed in the subheading to come, while colonial violence is separatist of human beings, in contrast, “the violence of the colonized, we have said, unifies the people” (Fanon, [1961] 2017, p. 113). The counter-violence is a must be done and has to be practiced by the colonized subjects who need to be fully decolonized.

Colonialism and Violence

The longue-durée project of colonialism is built and sustained by the continual deaths of colonized subjects who are daily exposed to the human being butchery hence they are not recognized as full human beings. Consequently, Fanon ([1961] 2017) observes firstly that “the colonial world is a compartmentalized world” and secondly and similarly “the colonized world is a world divided in two” (p. 65). This compartmentalization of the colonial world is justified by the fact that for instance in such a world, there are good schools with full facilities for colonizers’ children, which is different from the colonized subjects’ space. Any colonized subject is allowed to stay in the town inhabited by the white masters, except for temporary visits during the day when they come to clean the town and have to go back to their local areas. The colonized world is divided into two henceforth it is inhabited by different species: the colonizers and the colonized subjects, both species characterized by inequality in most modes of living—obvious the white master as a model in everything though his/her arbitrary domination.

Unfortunate is that Fanon ([1961] 2017) signals that what is unfair is that the colonial world is a Manichaean world. It is a world characterized by whiteness and blackness and a Manichaean world hence whiteness stands for good and blackness denotes evil. In a colonial world, whatever the white master says is arbitrarily true while what the colonized subject expresses or proposes is rejected and considered as not valid. The colonial world, therefore, permits only the Euro-North America to be considered as the only human beings who deserve to be inventors, researchers, and discoverers through epistemicide and cognitive empire. As a remedy, “Decoloniality is mobilized to revisit the silences and epistemological violence, an epistemicide that resulted in the globalization of Euro-American knowledge and the displacement of other knowledges” (Sithole, 2016, p. 108). The natives’ thoughts, ideas, and knowledges have been silenced by colonialism which favored Whiteness and reshuffled black epistemologists to find themselves outside of the recognized list of thinkers.

What should be reminded is that “colonialism, as we have seen, is precisely the organization of a Manichaean world, of a compartmentalized world” (Fanon, [1961] 2017, p. 104). This division of the world silences any reality related to black subjects and others who continue to suffer the negative impact of colonial violence. Perceptively, Gibson and Beneduce (2017, p. 64) elucidate that “With the publication of Black Skin, White Masks in 1952, Fanon made clear that general ontologies and theories concerning the human tendency to omit black realities.” Because of colonialism, black ideas and thoughts have been silenced while whiteness has been decorated with glory multicolors. As colonialism denies black subjects’ humanity, black subjects are therefore obliged to ask ontological and teleological questions, “Because it is systematized negation of the other, a frenzied determination to deny the other any attribute of humanity, colonialism forces the colonized to constantly ask the questions: ‘Who am I in reality?’” (Fanon, [1961] 2017, p. 243). Colonialism shamelessly pulls all these strings, only too content to see the Africans, who were once in league against it, tear at each other’s throats (Fanon, [1961] 2017, p. 169).

Colonialism is therefore the pure and worse system that aliments injustice because; “when the colonized subject is tortured when his wife is killed or raped, he complains to no one” (Fanon, [1961] 2017, p. 112). Colonialism worsens enduring sufferings on the side of the colonized subjects, leaving them in a situation where they are physically living but internally and morally dead. Even this physical living is remarked by tortures, cicatrices, and continual illness of these bodies. Sartre ([1961] 2017, p. 49) dares to assert that “Colonial violence not only aims at keeping these enslaved men at a respectful distance, it also seeks to dehumanize them.” After chasing the colonized subjects in the zone of being, colonizers rushed to render null, the being of each colonized subject. By intensifying racism, colonialism creates a world of two zones, one for the colonizers and another for the colonized subjects, keeping in mind that “Slavery and settler colonialism signify subjection, and their operating logic is racism” (Sithole, 2017, p. 342). Central to the colonial discourse and the justification of colonial rule is the hierarchical notion of human races with its blunt promulgation of the superiority of the white race over all other peoples (Kebede, 2004, p. 1).

As a point of amplification, Fanon ([1961] 2017) assumes that “by its very structure colonialism is separatist and regionalist” (p. 113). It assists more in divisionism than in unification as Fanon ([1952] 2008) elucidates, due to colonialism, “The truth is that the black race is dispersed and is no longer unified” (p. 150). However, to another side, despite separation and regionalism implanted by colonialism, “Antiblack racism unites all whites of different classes, ideological and political persuasion, value systems, and normativity” (Tafira, 2015, p. 208). Thus, colonialism unifies all-white masters and severally becomes separatist and regionalist to the colonized subjects, and also creates a state of darkness among colonized subjects. How does colonialism create darkness? It renders blind the colonized subjects to the extent that they cannot see anymore what they were supposed to see and consider as fundamental—they walk in obscurity as Fanon ([1952] 2008) asserts that “Our history takes place in obscurity and the sun I carry with me must lighten every corner” (p. 13). This obscurity that Fanon is concerned with, is colonialism that must be confronted by the sun carried by Fanon, and this sun that must lighten in every corner is the engagement in the practice of the counter-violence, the form of resistance or retaliation. Relevantly, colonialism has to be analyzed for more than creating darkness but instead death. Colonialism will attempt to rally the African peoples by uncovering the existence of “spiritual” rivalries (Fanon, [1961] 2017, p. 169).

In a colonial world, “The indigenous people see the land around them that has been stolen or acquired through trickery and unjust wars. The settlers see themselves as simply going through legal transactions that give them the right to the land they own” (Gordon, 2015, pp. 117–118). The indigenous people are considered like spectators of what is going on in the world while colonizers decide for everything. Colonialism engenders slavery as Sharpe (2016) emphasizes that “slavery’s violences emerge within the contemporary conditions of spatial, legal, psychic, material, and other dimensions of Black non/being as well as in Black modes of resistance” (p. 14). Slavery was a kind of physical business of black human beings while currently it has been modernized into different forms. As colonial violence was a compulsory instrument to run colonialism, in contrast “I argue that Fanon views violence as intrinsically valuable in the anti-colonial struggle for freedom” (Roberts, 2004, p. 1). Freedom has therefore to emerge from resistant violence engaged by black subjects.

Colonialism is violent and does not recognize the traditional organizational structures. On the side of the colonized subjects, it is said that “colonialism is not merely content to note the existence of tribes, it reinforces and differentiates them” (Fanon, [1961] 2017, p. 113). In the African context, tribalism should serve as a site of unification of people who share the same language and cultures, and this permits them to coherently work together. According to Fanon ([1961] 2017), “the work of the colonist is to make even dreams of liberty impossible for the colonized” (p. 112). This article exposes that colonialism is also a kind of business structured in a highly complicated manner so that colonized subjects cannot understand anything concerned with the world’s truth. Kebede (2004) advises that “theoreticians of colonialism must concede that the ‘white man’ is a myth, an invention, and as such in need of substantiation” (p. 10). Without colonialism, there is no whiteness or blackness.

Unfortunately, due to the project of colonialism, “The black people share the experience of having been abused and exploited” (Manganyi, 1973, p. 19), and this also was highlighted by the fact that “Biko was further aware of apartheid as a unitary economic system that exploited black labor” (Macqueen, 2018, p. 112). According to Nayar (2013), “colonialism, therefore, first targets the individual body, then the psyche and finally, the culture itself” (p. 72). The impacts of colonialism for the colonized subjects are innumerable but the main was the destruction of the inner of the colonized body. As a point of relevance at this point, “The truth is that colonization, in its very essence, already appeared to be a great purveyor of psychiatric hospitals” (Fanon, [1961] 2017, p. 243). With this in mind, it means that colonialism does not only attack the physic of the colonized but it is also a major trigger factor for mental illnesses.

Whatever (is) given to the colonized subject under the colonial world, it needs to be re-examined, hence “colonialism is never satisfied with having the native in its grip” (Biko, [1978] 2017, p. 105). Colonialists use many tactics to continue controlling the colonized subjects. Colonialism also finds ample material in the lumpenproletariat for its machinations (Fanon, [1961] 2017, p. 149). Once more, Fanon ([1961] 2017) stresses, “the colonized must be made to see that colonialism never gives away anything for nothing” (p. 154). The colonized subjects should be attentive that colonialism must be destroyed by those who are suffering. The colonizers plan to maintain power and to continue with the program of exploitation.

Importantly, the cassation of colonialism is a task that cannot be delegated to somebody else, “moreover, the colonized subject must be aware that it is not colonialism which makes the concessions but him” (Fanon, [1961] 2017, p. 154). Colonialism intends to take the whole Self and the inner of the colonized subject, and this is justified by the fact that “My originality had been snatched from me” (Fanon, [1952] 2008, p. 108). Here, Fanon reveals that a colonized subject under colonialism becomes another person and not the original one—he/she becomes a live carcass. In addition, due to colonialism’s ruse and human devalorization, Fanon ([1952] 2008) posits, “The black man is a toy in the hands of the white man” (p. 119). The colonizer considers the colonized subjects as nothing since there is a lack of reciprocal recognition between the two (the colonizer knows very well the colonized subject but the colonized subject does not know till yet the colonizer). It is from such a perspective that the colonizer has been able to fabricate and create Blackness and Whiteness. The colonized needs to engage in a serious and continual struggle, practice the counter-violence for him/her to be decolonized. As it will be explicated in the following heading, counter-violence guarantees genuine decolonization.

Decolonization and the Counter-Violence

According to Fanon ([1961] 2017), “decolonization is always a violent event” (p. 63). As it has been detailed above, colonialism is a project that is built on and driven by violence. Here, Fanon’s imagination is concerned by mapping and tracing the origin of the second form of violence (counter-violence), a violence that is exercised by the colonized subjects toward the colonizers. Fanon does not use zigzag in exposing that any form of genuine decolonization is always reached after a violent moment. Decolonization is always marked by violence, a violence that has been produced by colonizers and experienced by colonized subjects in their everyday lives. The same violence accumulated by the natives has to be claimed and launched back to the colonizers. It becomes an inevitable act for the colonized subjects to use counter-violence in their journey to genuine decolonization.

Decolonization attracts and recalls violence, and obviously, it is a continuous violent project. However, the same violence is claimed by black subjects as the sole option to eradicate colonial violence. What is important is the adequacy of counter-violence as a solution for colonial violence. “Will we recover? Yes. Violence, like Achille’s spear, can heal the wounds it has inflicted” (Sartre, [1961] 2017, p. 62). What has to be taken into consideration here, is that violence is medicine for itself. However, Fanon’s political thought regarding using counter-violence as an equilibrium to colonial violence far differs from Mandela’s thinking on how South African blacks should be fully decolonized. Mandela (1994) contrasts with Fanon in advancing that “If we did not start a dialogue soon, both sides would soon be plunged into a (dark) night of oppression, violence, and war” (p. 623). This indicates that Mandela was more attracted to dialogue, compromise, and negotiation between the colonizer and the colonized subject than engaging in continual counter-violence. Moreover, this article has been motivated to be taken to demonstrate that South African society, is still being criticized to remain a country characterized by violence, crime, and continual protests, as legacies of undefeated apartheid.

According to Fanon ([1961] 2017), “decolonization is the encounter between two congenitally antagonistic forces that owe their singularity to the kind of reification secreted and nurtured by the colonial situation” (p. 64). This means that the colonial violence owes another kind of counter-violence back to the colonized subjects, who from the first day of the launch of colonialism, experience daily sufferings caused by the colonial violence. Mbembe (2017) follows Fanon’s steps in affirming that “Fanon was conscious of the fact that, by choosing ‘counter-violence,’ the colonized were opening the door to a disastrous reciprocity—a ‘recurring terror’” (p. 166). By opting for counter-violence, the colonized subjects can cancel their relationship with the former colonizers and manage to create a reciprocal recognition between them and the colonizers.

The Fanonian message to the black subject can therefore be defined as one of capacious ruination, in which the role of Blackness in the world is essentially one of abnormality or fall, in whose aberrant movement Blackness (as a thing or chose) is reduced to an object (object) of racism (Marriott, 2016, p. 2). While colonialism objectifies the colonized human beings, it is only through genuine decolonization that “The ‘thing’ colonized becomes a man through the very process of liberation” (Fanon, [1961] 2017, p. 64). In essence, an establishment of distinction between different strategies of decolonization has to be set. It is from this point where a clear difference between pseudo and genuine decolonization, has to be exposed. The following scenario gives a clear understanding of who decided for the freedom of black people: “As Master, the white man told the black man: ‘You are now free.’ But the black man does not know the price of freedom because he has never fought for it” (Fanon, [1952] 2008, p. 195). Using his power qua master, the colonialist decides to announce that from now on, the black colonized is free and after that proclamation,

The news of liberty causes a stir of jubilation among the slaves. But this occurrence, this development, this freedom emerges from without and not from within the slave. External liberation, Fanon argues, in no way leads to genuine liberation. The slave has been acted upon rather than acting. (More, 2011, p. 174)

However, More (2011) is supportive of Fanon in confirming that real, authentic, or genuine decolonization emerges not from a negotiated settlement but through the reappropriation of power and land through violent struggle. In Dorlin’s (2019, p. 1) view, “In Black Skin, White Masks, Fanon’s 1952 study on the effects of colonialism and racism on black identity, the masks in question represent lived experiences of violence—a violence that seems constantly turned back against itself.” The use of violence is therefore predictable for the colonized subjects to relocate again in their agencies of being, a being that has been reduced to nothingness.

In addition, the major warning is that “In its bare reality, decolonization reeks of red-hot cannonballs and bloody knives” (Fanon, [1961] 2017, p. 65). Genuine decolonization emerges from a bloodshed moment, murderous confrontation, and not from a compromise. The practice of counter-violence is then the potential bridge to genuine decolonization. For any colonized subject to recover his/her primitive life, the use/practice of counter-violence becomes a compulsory high way to full decolonization. Fanon’s distinctiveness is that he left from theorizing to the practice, and this was a verification that “[a] Revolutionary theory without a revolutionary practice is sterile, but revolutionary practice with little theory opens up the possibility of a hollow ‘liberation’ that will decay and stagnate” (Zeilig, 2016, p. 222).

Because of the engagement in counter-violence by the colonized subjects, decolonization is, therefore, able to unify the whole world that has been divided by colonialism as Fanon ([1961] 2017, p. 72) elucidates, “The colonial context, as we have said, is characterized by the dichotomy in inflicts on the world. Decolonization unifies this world by a radical decision to remove its heterogeneity, by unifying it on the grounds of the nation and sometimes race.”

This article illuminates the suitability of the practice of counter-violence for the colonized subjects to eliminate colonial violence. In the same regard, Fanon ([1961] 2017, p. 92) argues that “They [colonized subjects] discover that violence is atmospheric, it breaks out sporadically, and here and there sweeps away the colonial regime. The success of this violence plays not only an informative role but also an operative one.” Potentially, colonized are cured and fully decolonized through counter-violence.

The counter-violence in a decolonial journey does not disappoint. This kind of derived violence reassures that the colonized subjects have regained and restored whatever has been taken away by colonialism. No compromise or negotiation is needed for genuine decolonization, because “The end of the colonial regime effected by peaceful means and made possible by the colonialist’s understanding might under certain circumstances lead to a renewed collaboration of the two nations” (Fanon, [1964] 1967, pp. 154–155). Here, Fanon alerts the colonized subjects that any peaceful manner of decolonization should lead to the renewal collaboration of the former colonizer and the colonized, while the application of direct counter-violence leads to the complete cancellation of the relationship between the two rivals, and fully liberates the colonized subject. In fact, “Liberation means that the violence that was designed and rationalized to harm the black body is done away with” (Sithole, 2020, p. 262).

What is fundamental is that “[counter]-violence continues to progress, the colonized subject identifies his enemy, puts a name to all of his misfortunes, and casts all his exacerbated hatred and rage in this new direction” (Fanon, [1961] 2017, p. 93). Here, Fanon describes counter-violence as the original detector of who is the enemy and his/her strategies, and what has to be done for the colonized subjects who have been lost to retake another new curative direction. Fanon ([1961] 2017) reveals that “between oppressors and oppressed, force is the only solution” (p. 94). The use of counter-violence is the solution for colonized subjects who want to uproot colonialism and its apparatuses.

When Fanon ([1961] 2017) observes that “the colonized masses intuitively believe that their liberation must be achieved and can only be achieved by force,” this means that only counter-violence can truly save and liberate the colonized subjects who have been dehumanized by colonialism (p. 95). Fanon ([1952] 2008) justifies, “What we are striving for is to liberate the black man [and woman] from the arsenal of complexes that germinated in a colonial situation” (p. 14). That is the major purpose of what the counter-violence is envisioned for—serving as a bridge to genuine decolonization.

Fanon ([1961] 2017) states, “He has always known that his dealings with the colonist would take place in a field of combat. So, the colonized subject wastes no time lamenting and rarely searches for justice in the colonial context” (p. 105). This serious engagement in combat is for no return, hence only counter-violence is the key to the colonized subject’s self-determination. Fanon ([1964] 1967) argues, “The people want things really to change and right away. Thus, it is that the struggle resumes with renewed violence” (p. 122). This renewal of violence is what is required for those who have been long under the penalties of colonial violence. While colonialism has plunged humanity into question and darkness, counter-violence, therefore, intervenes like a torch to be used while traveling in the (dark) night of colonialism.

This kind of counter-violence is not only curative but also integrative as Fanon ([1961] 2017) assumes, “Claiming responsibility for the violence also allows those members of the group who have strayed or have been outlawed to come back, to retake their place and be reintegrated” (p. 106). Because of counter-violence, colonized subjects recover their place and reintegrate into a world without a daily cry. Regarding the cry of the colonized subjects, Motsomotso (2020) explains that Fanon contextualizes the cry as a result of demanding something impossible. Application of “[counter-] violence is a necessary factor in Frantz Fanon’s concept of anti-colonial freedom” (Roberts, 2004, p. 1).

According to Fanon ([1961] 2017), “The colonized man liberates himself in and through violence” (p. 106). In Fanon’s imagination, any other option apart from the use of counter-violence should not serve as an adequate element of delinking between the colonized subjects and colonizers. Fanon ([1961] 2017) adds, “At the individual, violence is a cleansing force. It rids the colonized of their inferiority complex, of their passive and despairing attitude. It emboldens them, and restores their self-confidence” (p. 113). The application of counter-violence restores not only the Self but also the self-esteem. It revives the self-consciousness and maps out what must be done for the wellbeing and goodwill of the colonized subjects’ community. Here, Arendt (1970) rejects Fanon’s argument in mentioning that “if only the practice of violence would make it possible to interrupt automatic processes in the realm of human affairs, the preachers of violence would have won an important point” (p. 30). However, Arendt fails to justify how colonial violence should be muted. As a point of appeal, it is important to know that

Fanonian violence, in my view, is part of a struggle for psycho-affective survival and a search for human agency in the midst of the agony of oppression. It does not offer a clear choice between life and death or slavery and freedom, because it confronts the colonial condition of life-in-death. (Bhabha, [1961] 2017, p. 37)

Referring to Bhabha above, confronting the colonial condition of life-in-death, means that the colonized have to engage in a struggle against colonialism. It is such colonialism that uses fear and (fear of) death as imperative elements that allow its perpetual run. According to Biko ([1978] 2017), “Fear [is] an important determinant in South African politics,” and fear accentuates violence (p. 80). Furthermore, Fanon ([1961] 2017) posits that “Violence hoists the people up to the level of the leader” (p. 113). Counter-violence increases and elevates the colonized subjects’ level of thinking, responsibility, and leadership potentiality. “By exploding the former colonial reality, the struggle uncovers unknown facets, brings to light new meanings and underlines contradictions which were camouflaged by this reality” (Fanon, [1961] 2017, p. 158). When counter-violence is employed, the colonized subjects discover another reality that was hidden. The practice of counter-violence means that “it is a man reconstructing himself” (Sartre, [1961] 2017, p. 55). The colonized subjects notice the weakness of the colonizer and end up knowing as well that colonizers have fear of death. And, that is why Fanon ([1959] 1965) underlines that “the same time that the colonized man braces himself to reject oppression, a radical transformation takes place within him which makes any attempt to maintain the colonial system impossible and shocking” (p. 179).

As a point of relevance, all colonized subjects are encouraged, and to another extent instructed by Fanon ([1961] 2017) that “Violence alone, perpetrated by the people, violence organized and guided by the leadership, provides the key for the masses to decipher social reality” (p. 158). For the counter-violence to satisfy and lead the colonized subjects to self-determination, the masses have to be well organized and are called to respect the commandments from the leader who tells them what must be done in that terrible struggle that envisions to defeat colonialism. The next heading maps out how colonized people can defeat colonialism and reach a world free of violence.

Toward the Defeat of Colonialism and the Arrival to the New World

It may well be that today the dream of the colonized subject is to reach another new world, and not necessarily a world that is not marked by Whiteness and Blackness, but a world that positively affirms all our diverse identities (racial, class, gender, sexual, spiritual, to mention but a few) and thrives on the creativity, resourcefulness, and agency of colonized peoples using our invention, creation, and discovery to ensure the possibility of another world. Such a world can be reached only through the engagement of a terrifying war by the collective community of colonized subjects. Potentially, it is only this kind of struggle that can defeat the project of colonialism. This kind of struggle does not only defeat colonialism but also creates a new humanity. According to Fanon ([1952] 2008), “I must constantly remind myself that the real leap consists of introducing invention into life. In the world I am heading for, I am endlessly creating myself” (p. 204). This introduction of the invention into life and the creation of Self is possible after combat that defeats the foundation of colonialism. Without hesitating, the colonized subjects are reminded that “Armed with a revolutionary and spectacular goodwill, it grants the former colony everything” (Fanon, [1964] 1967, p. 121).

As a point of revendication, Fanon ([1952] 2008) claims, “I don’t want to be a victim of the Ruse of a black world” (p. 204). Fanon here is concerned that the colonial world is a world that oppresses black subjects, a world that rejects black human beings by creating Blackness and Whiteness. In other terms, a world under colonialism is an antiblack world. At the same point, it should be advanced that “This is a world bereft of humanism” (Ndlovu-Gatsheni, 2016, p. 37). It is a world that is synonymous with the apartheid world as for More (2017), “the apartheid world is a Manichean world, ‘a motionless Manicheaistic world’ of the good white and the evil black person” (p. 31). It is a world led by bourgeoisie class, hence “Whereas the national bourgeoisie competes with the Europeans, the artisans and small traders pick fighters with Africans of other nationalities” (Fanon, [1961] 2017, p. 165), as it is the case in the previous and contemporary South Africa with xenophobia, where other foreigner nationals are frequently attacked (this is a legacy of colonialism’s strategy of ensuring that black subjects are completely divided: the system continues in a form of the physical absence of the colonizer).

In his view, Gibson (2003) states, “In other words, it should be noted that Fanon predicted the new society on a long struggle which prefigures a new humanism” (p. 104). The new world permits the creation of new humanity and the discovery of other new possibilities of life. This new humanism is only possible when decolonization and deimperialization become successful. Ndlovu-Gatsheni and Zondi (2016) explain that “Deimperialization is, therefore, a process through which Europeans decolonize their minds. It must happen simultaneously with the decolonization of African minds” (p. 10). Here, Ndlovu-Gatsheni and Zondi (2016) suggest that genuine decolonization cannot happen without the success of deimperialization. At this point, Betts (1998) assesses, “The disappearance of the formal empire did not mean the end of the colonial experience in the opinion of many critics. For them, decolonization required much more: a fundamental change of outlook and attitude, of heart and mind” (p. 80). Total decolonization that leads to the new world, originates from a continual and engaged struggle by the colonized and not from these 1960s flag-independences that African countries have negotiated from the white masters.

The practice of counter-violence produces genuine decolonization, totally dismantles and defeats the enduring project of colonialism. With this in mind, Fanon ([1961] 2017) reminds us that “It [decolonization] infuses a new rhythm, specific to a new generation of men, with a new language and a new humanity. Decolonisation is truly the creation of new men” (p. 64). In Fanon’s thesis, violence serves as a tool that offers to the colonized people, a “grammar of new futurity” which is striving and living for the future now, in the present, with lessons of the past to guide the oppressed people in the search for new futurities. From this perspective, decolonization is not a linear process, but instead, a reflection of a “continuous feedback from the past to the future, [offering] a principle of hope or anticipatory consciousness that both discerns and realizes decolonization at the same time” (Cusicanqui, 2012, pp. 96–97).

Undeniable is that colonialism created racism, and “Until we have eliminated racism from our current lives and imaginations, we will have to continue to struggle for the creation of a world- beyond-race” (Mbembe 2017, p. 177). However, for the oppressed to reach that dreamed world, they have to fulfill the condition of being self-motivated to engage in continual combat. Mbembe (2012) declares that Fanon’s thinking was born of real, lived, unstable, and changing experiences. First and foremost, it is from Fanon’s thinking that critique of colonialism emerges, as For Mbembe (2012), “In this process, critique had to be like a bullet destroying, traversing and transforming the rocky, mineral wall and the interstices of colonialism. It is this energy that characterized Fanon’s thought as metamorphic thought” (p. 20). Therefore, this indicates that Fanon’s conception of violence is still relevant and metal for the understanding of the antiblack world and how to come out of it.

Fanon ([1952] 2008) assesses that “There is no white world; there is no white ethic—any more than there is a white intelligence. There are from one end of the world to the other men who are searching” (p. 204). In other terms, Fanon means that the colonial world supports and recognizes whites as the only human beings. Such an antiblack world needs to be challenged so that another new world comes, a new world that re-integrates all colonized subjects. Mbembe (2012) acknowledges that in a genuinely decolonized world, there is no more Black or White, there is only a world finally rid of the burden of race, a world to which everyone has a right. Fanon’s (1961, p. 238) concern is to, «tenter de mettre sur pied un homme neuf » (to attempt to create a new man [originally translated from French]). Fanon is inviting colonized subjects to attempt to create a new man/woman.

Finally, genuine decolonization is a product of perpetual struggle as More (2019) acknowledges, “the struggle continues, and Fanon is right in the middle of it” (p. 235), and the major reason that should justify such an argument is that “Fanon’s thoughts have, since the 1960s, played a dominant role in the struggle against apartheid” (More, 2019, p. 235). Fanon’s contribution to the mapping out of how to become truly decolonized is still thought of as metal. Hence Mbembe (2012) agrees, “I have been attracted to Fanon’s name and voice because both have the brightness of the metal” (p. 26). The only Fanon who died is Fanon “the Body” but Fanon as a philosopher remains existential. Relevantly, “today, for those who experience the reality of injustice and violence, alienation and exploitation, reading Fanon helps them understand the new false beliefs broadcast in insidious ways by the media” (Fanon-Mendès-France, 2014, p. xiii). For Fanon’s imagination on the new world, Lee (2015) underlines, “The Wretched of the Earth confirms, not simply identifies, a new world coming into being through decolonization” (p. 175). In absence of genuine decolonization, there is no new world.

Conclusion

Departing from the colonial situation faced by South African black people and all colonized people wherever they are located in this antiblack world, this article has explicated that neither colonialism nor decolonization cannot be successful without using violence. Based on Fanon’s political thought, it has been assessed that colonialism has been built on violence, and Fanon theorized that hence colonialism is violent, decolonization has to employ counter-violence as well as an adequate and equilibrium mechanism to confront colonialism.

Mainly, this article has illuminated Fanon’s dualism regarding the meaning of the concept of violence. On one hand, (colonial) violence has been assessed as the tool that has been used by the colonizers to conquer and monitor the colonized subjects. To another hand, the practice of (counter-) violence has been critically assessed as the adequate option to go for the colonized subjects, to claim whatever has been damaged by colonialism. The article has discussed that colonizers have been accused to be the first launchers of violence and that the counter-violence used by the colonized subjects, is a derivation from the colonial violence. Therefore, it has elucidated that practicing counter-violence, is the bridge to the defeat of colonialism and the only highway to the new world.