Off Violence

“On Violence,” the first essay featured in The Wretched of the Earth by Frantz Fanon, was written over the span of one summer and a few months before Fanon’s death. The chapter takes a global perspective on the legacy of imperialism and provides concrete instructions for individuals and groups seeking cultural and national autonomy.

To properly understand the essay, it is first necessary to situate the piece within the context of when it was written. Frantz Fanon lived from 1925-1961, his life overlapping with the French colonization of Algeria, which began in 1830 and lasted until 1962. It was a lengthy, brutal event that culminated in over four million deaths during the 132 years and has been sometimes characterized as a genocide (Kiernan 374). Only in 1954, seven years before Fanon died, did the tides turn when the FLN, a nationalist political party in Algeria, began trying to reclaim their independence through guerilla warfare and crimes against humanity (Connelly 263). Fanon was part of the FLN insurrectionists and had joined after gaining his degree in psychiatry and working at an Algerian hospital, where he faced much racism due to his Blackness (Lossin). Liberation was achieved in 1962, one year after Fanon’s death, through the FLN’s violent means (Connelly 267).

On Violence analyzes the psychological effects of colonialism and colonization on colonized peoples. Its main thesis states that pacifism is inherently ineffective during the process of decolonization. Instead,  "the colonized man finds his freedom in and through violence" and violence is necessary to the story of anti-colonialism—“whatever may be the headings used or the new formulas introduced, decolonization is always a violent phenomenon” (“On Violence” 33). This assertion is often critiqued for glorifying violence, though it is important to recognize that Fanon is not arguing for arbitrary violence, but rather a methodological and imperative kind. Fanon believes violence is the only option to bring about true liberation for native people for three main reasons.

Firstly, “decolonization is quite simply the replacing of a certain ‘species’ of men by another ‘species’ of men. Without any period of transition, there is a total, complete, and absolute substitution” (“On Violence” 33). During the call for a new state, a tabula rasa (blank slate) is called for, which can only be achieved through utter usurping of the current system: "The last shall be first and the first last.” (“On Violence” 36)

Secondly, because colonization is enacted and maintained through violent means, it is unavoidable that violence will ultimately be required to alter such dynamics (“On Violence” 35). As the colonial world is built upon and operating on a system of violent oppression, pacifist attempts at winning over subjugated peoples through deliberation or rhetorical coercion are ineffective and only deemed effective if the violence and coercion that truly occurred underneath have been disguised. For example, the article “Hearts and Minds” written by Paul Dixon, a Professor at the University of London, analyses Britain's successful counter-insurgency campaign in Malaya (1948–60) which is generally associated with a less coercive approach of ‘minimum force’ that won the ‘hearts and minds’ of the Malaysian people. This campaign is often used as an example of how nonviolence can successfully liberate a group. However, Dixon explains that the phrase ‘hearts and minds’ does not accurately describe Britain's campaign in Malaya. Instead, it conceals the true story. In Malaya, British repression against Malayan people was in reality extremely harsh and included strategies and tools including The Briggs Plan which forcibly resettled 500,000 people (about 25 percent of Malaya's Chinese population), mass arrests, identity cards and movement restriction, control of food and shops, arson against the homes of communist sympathizers, censorship, indiscriminate shooting of rural Chinese squatters, The Batang Kali massacre of 24 unarmed civilians, and more. Strategies like those concerning 'hearts and minds' reflected a shifting power dynamic whereby colonists saw that locals must be co-opted, such as with natively hired counter-insurgency soldiers. This recognized the animosity of the oppressed natives, and Dixon claims that extremely violent counterinsurgency measures were considered by the colonists to be effective instances of ‘minimum force.’ Clearly, even the most passive examples of colonization and colonialism were underlined with brutality, repression , and violence, showing that our system relies on violence to exist at all.

Lastly, colonizers do not recognize the colonized as rational subjects, or even humans due to centuries of oppression, subjugation, and dehumanization (“On Violence” 41). Racialism has categorized and stratified communities, resulting in severe disparity in every arena of life, such as through segregation of academic opportunities, cities, and resources, all of which allow colonizers to live plentiful and fulfilling lives, their “bell[ies] always full of good things” (“On Violence” 38). Yet the affair of colonization goes past social and physical control. It is most negatively supplemented with a deliberate mental devaluation of native dignity, culture, and tradition. The colonized is then not just a person living in another area, a worse area, but the antithesis of what is good, right, normal, or just. 

“Native society is not simply described as a society lacking in values. It is not enough for the colonist to affirm that those values have disappeared from, or still better never existed in, the colonial world. The native is declared insensible to ethics; he represents not only the absence of values, but also the negation of values. He is, let us dare to admit, the enemy of values, and in this sense he is the absolute evil….At times this Manicheism goes to its logical conclusion and dehumanizes the native, or to speak plainly, it turns him into an animal. In fact, the terms the settler uses when he mentions the native are zoological terms. He speaks of the yellow man's reptilian motions, of the stink of the native quarter, of breeding swarms, of foulness, of spawn, of gesticulations.” (“On Violence” 40-41)

The settler is not afraid to employ violence towards the colonized, as the act is then deemed a moral one against the animal. The narcissistic colonial settler then situates his or her zone—the privileged one “always full of good things” (“On Violence, 38)—as the sole sphere of humanity. If one does not belong to that sphere, then one cannot claim to represent a civilized human species.

What other option is left but violence in the face of those who see you as nothing more than evil incarnate? Who sees you as an irrational animal, unable to be reasoned with? Who sees violence enacted upon you and your people as just, moral—who does not even consider it as an act of violence? For these reasons combined, attempts at pacifist deliberation will always fail as the colonizer is unable to recognize the colonized as anything more than an animal under his power. Attempts at logical or emotional arguments then always fall through.

Fanon's personal experiences with prejudice, paired with concepts acquired during vicious subjugation, fierce patriotic battles, and lack of international aid during the colonization of Algeria eliminated all of his hope in the potential of global solidarity among proletarians. Thus, Fanon's main purpose and call to action during decolonization is the construction of the ‘new man,’ instead of an international proletariat movement. He claims that “decolonization is the veritable creation of new men,” “new language,” and “new humanity” (“On Violence” 35), a process through which estranged colonial subjects can reclaim their humanity through violence.

To expand on the previous mention of Fanon’s assertion that physical and social segregation form a boundary between colonized and colonizer, it is important to note that Fanon goes further to say that, in capitalist societies, it is mostly the educational system that forms this border. “Intermediaries,” or educated racialized people who benefit from the system, are then the “bringer of violence into the home and into the mind of the native.” (“On Violence” 37) These indoctrinated, intellectual natives push the false belief there is hope under the colonial system, believing that “contacts with the elite” will allow “the settler and the native [to] live together in peace in a new world” (“On Violence” 44). Colonizers appeal to the colonized intellectual who will largely be manipulable, who will then attempt to convince natives that violence is never the answer. However, these views are faulty and marred—the adoption of the colonialist mindset, which gives the illusion of potential equality, will never truly amount to liberation. These native elites, then, enable mental oppression through a belief that adopting any of the colonizer’s values can lead to decolonization, something done only to further personal interests. Alas, though decolonization should not be focused on a global proletariat movement, it is still necessary to recognize how bourgeoisie racialized people will attempt to encourage pacifist attempts at deliberation, which will not work.

“The dialogue between these political parties and colonialism is never broken off. Improvements are discussed, such as full electoral representation, the liberty of the press, and liberty of association. Reforms are debated. Thus it need not astonish anyone to notice that a large number of natives are militant members of the branches of political parties which stem from the mother country. These natives fight under an abstract watchword: "Government by the workers," and they forget that in their country it should be nationalist watchwords which are first in the field. The native intellectual has clothed his aggressiveness in his barely veiled desire to assimilate himself to the colonial world. He has used his aggressiveness to serve his own individual interests.” (“On Violence” 59)

Here, it is important to take a step back and recognize my particular position in the equation of colonization. Under our current capitalist, euro-centric system, what does this mean for people like me—racialized but privileged—who Fanon believes perpetuate the system? 

Babel, or the Necessity of Violence is a fictional novel that follows the main character Robin Swift, who as a young boy, was orphaned and taken to the Institute of Translation at Oxford University’s Babel from China. His role working for the University is to learn languages to their fullest—to grasp the origins, meanings, and histories of words. However, it is soon made clear that Babel plays a central role in British imperialism, racism, and exploitation—not only the country Robin came from, but others as well. Robin is therefore forced to decide between the academy which affords him the privilege of education and life, or to his far-gone native land which is being ravaged through its colonialism.

The author, R.F. Kuang, graduated from Cambridge University with a Master of Philosophy in Chinese Studies in 2018, and from Oxford University with a Master of Science in Contemporary Chinese Studies. It is a story that reflects Kuang’s dilemma; the tagline of the novel is “An act of translation is always an act of betrayal.” The translation of language is not merely a mathematical replacement but a cultural exercise. Unfortunately, this often means that translation becomes an act of colonization and colonialism. The effort made by students of color such as Robin, therefore, despite their identities and good intentions, is co-opted into the “business of colonialism.” In addition to this question of being a racialized person in a colonial system, is that of When is violence necessary? Robin kills his father, a professor at Babel, and though tortured by the act of it, it is that act itself that starts the rebellion against Oxford that allows the institution to fall and people to be liberated. Robin’s brother claims, 

"The thing about violence, see, is that the Empire has a lot more to lose than we do. Violence disrupts the extractive economy…But if the system is so fragile, why do we so easily accept the colonial situation? Why do we think it's inevitable?... The problem is that we're always living like we've lost... We see their guns, their silver-work, and their ships, and we think it's already over for us…we never consider what things would look like if we took the gun…Violence shows them how much we're willing to give up. Violence is the only language they understand, because their system of extraction is inherently violent. Violence shocks the system. And the system cannot survive the shock.” (Kuang 436)

In an interview with Pop Matters, Kuang cited that the reason the story germinated in the first place was reflecting on being  “a student of color at a place like Oxford … To want that life, on one hand, to understand the history that made it possible, and to want to act on that history, on the other hand, was the contradiction that became the heart of my story” (Riley et al.). Babel may give perspective to racialized, privileged people, who simultaneously are oppressed by the system but reap its rewards. The book hints at the idea of using money as an act of rebellion through two means: funding guerilla warfare or helping convince the colonial bourgeoisie that decolonization is in their monetary interest.

“Abolition happened because white people found reasons to care - whether those be economic or religious. You just have to make them think they came up with the idea themselves. You can't appeal to their inner goodness. I have never met an Englishman I trusted to do the right thing out of sympathy…If we are to turn the tides of history, we need some of these men - the same men who find no issue in selling me and my kind at auction - to become our allies. We need to convince them that a global British expansion, founded on pyramids of silver, is not in their own best interest. Because their own interest is the only logic they'll listen to. Not justice, not human dignity, not the liberal freedoms they so profess to value. Profit.'” (Kuang 444)

Pacifism is as previously mentioned then argued for by native, bourgeoisie intellectuals because they do not have the same desires as the desperate proletariat. With land and bread, they can afford the privilege of willful ignorance. On the other hand, the truly colonized and oppressed person needs the land and bread for their survival and have nothing to lose in seeking this, and are therefore willing to risk their life. “In Confronting Colonialism and Racism: Fanon and Gandhi,” Hira Singh explains the bourgeoisie begins talking about non-violence as a signal to the colonial elites that they have shared economic incentives and they are open to negotiations. In the case of colonial India, which is where many critiques of Fanona are born with examples of Gandhi at the helm, is in actuality one example where proponents of non-violence were often the middle and rich classes.

“There were some instances in which the political parties of the left had an influence over a movement in a particular region at a particular moment that involved the poor peasant, landless labor, and the tribal peasantry. The Bijolia movement in the princely state of Mewar (Udaipur) in Rajasthan towards the end of the 1910s under the leadership of Pathik, a precursor to the widespread peas-ant movements that swept the princely states of Rajasthan in the 1920s-1940s, was one such instance. It was, however, taken over by the Indian National Congress under Gandhi’s leadership, with Gandhi’s direct involvement, supported by the section of the national bourgeoisie with native roots in Rajasthan, ousting the left leadership, along with the ouster of the tribals, poor peasants, and landless laborers. From that moment onwards, it was the rich and the middle peasant that remained the driving force behind the peasant movements in Rajasthan… invariably, the movements led or supported by the Congress under Gandhi’s leadership, wedded to the ideology of non-violence, had the rich and the middle peasants as the vanguard, excluding the poor peasant, landless labor, and the tribals. Fanon emphasized the demand of the peasantry for land: “People take their stand on the questions of“bread and land”—how can we obtain the land, and bread to eat?” (WE 39). Excluded from the movements against the landlords and the colonial state, the people who needed the land most in order to have the bread to eat, remain excluded from the land until today. That was the violence of non-violence.” (Singh, 350)

However, an issue arises when using violence as a tool of redefinition. Violence can indeed transform or emancipate a person, though the greatest possible result is simply a more violent person. Excessive obsession with or extreme use of violence (as often happens when the act is heavily normalized, or dehumanization of the ‘other’ occurs) may shape a person's psyche to default to violence as an expression of self even after the true target of aggression has vanished following a successful liberation. Further, the glorification of violence persists past personal behavior—it might also create the prolonged instability of both social and political structures, especially when violence is used by masses of people and is a nationally charged act. Indeed, Fanon calls for essentially guerilla warfare—the type of warfare that won Algerian liberation—when he states “Decolonization evokes for us the searing bullets and bloodstained knives which emanate from it. For if the last shall be first, this will only come to pass after a murderous and decisive struggle between the two protagonists” (“On Violence” 36). Highly armed, vicious, and guerilla forms of authority spawned by necessarily private and radical rebels are likely to lead to the mechanization of force as a tool of governance after decolonization. Normalization of violence to solve issues can quickly degrade into the co-opting of people for political means. Just because violence is utilized for the ‘right reasons,’ doesn't strip the fact that partaking in such violence will likely leave trauma on the individual and the collective. 

“Wars of liberation do not last for ever and… the violent experiences which men undergo in their course may create as many problems as they resolve….When he kills a class enemy or an oppressor, he also kills another man. All killing is by definition de-humanizing. The peasant wins his war, but he loses a particular battle.” (Caute 87)

Further, Fanon's theory of aggression being a uniting factor (“On Violence” 47) is also debatable. Aggression beset by rage and resentment can develop a sense of temporary solidarity against a shared adversary or group, but that solidarity itself can be questioned. Having a common enemy is a dangerous game—though perhaps warranted in the case of the colonized people, viewing the colonizers as nothing more than their social beings or dehumanizing them in the way that violence often necessitates can lead to nothing more than genocide. Though the violence that Fanon describes has a purpose, in reality, it is difficult to find examples of violence being used as a successful cleansing force. Fanon has before described the long-term psychological damage that witnessing and participating in violence had on individuals and society in Algeria:

“No man, no peasant, is purely a social being…The curious thing is that we have only to turn to Fanon himself to find evidence of this. His psychiatric case histories concern not only the crimes but also the perpetrators of violence. An African militant had planted a bomb in a cafe, killing ten. Every year, at about the same time, he suffered from acute anxiety, insomnia and suicidal obsession. An Algerian whose own mother had been wantonly murdered himself wantonly killed a white woman who was on her knees begging for mercy. As a result, he suffered what Fanon calls an anxiety psychosis of the de-personalization type. Fanon’s own close involvement and understanding of such cases makes his theory of renovating violence more difficult to understand. It is said that while studying medicine in Lyon his hand had shaken uncontrollably while performing autopsies.” (Caute, 87-88)

The question, then, becomes how far are you willing to bring about violence on the pretext of a better world? How much violence can be excused in the name of ‘peace, love, and unity’?

On October 14, 2005, at a Howard University panel on Hurricane Katrina’s Media Coverage, Kamau Kambon, professor of Africana studies at North Carolina State University, stated that the only way to truly emancipate Black people was through the genocide of white people. Though the message was quickly co-opted by white nationalists and KKK members to show the dangers of “reverse racism,” Kambon believed that “exterminating white people” was necessary, and the “only conclusion” to abolitionism and the central “problem” of society—the “psychological, cultural, economic, spiritual, chemical, killing of black people” while capitalism was “making money in the process of … death.” (C-SPAN) Is this how far violence should be taken? 

Without a clear end goal in mind for how ‘man’ should be redefined through violence, calls to violence in the interest of colonization can be rendered useless. Decolonization can quickly devolve into simply seeking the same privileges that colonizers do through the same means that were first mechanized against the oppressed. This is to ask, what is stopping the oppressed people to become just like their oppressors if they use the same means to liberate themselves against the colonizers—violence—that is currently being used to oppress them? In this case, both natives and settlers are manifestations of dehumanization. Liberation must then give rise to a new type of individual: one who is neither oppressor nor oppressed, but human. As previously mentioned, Fanon calls for a redefinition of man. But the spiteful, brutal, violent liberation Fanon and Kambon advocate for is easily brought about by vengeance or revenge; it is not unexpected that a laborer, upon being put into the position of his previous employer, might become another tyrant against previous compatriots, for what he wanted might have been freedom, but his paradigm of such is identical to that of the oppressor, with the roles merely flipped. The system of oppression does not change, then, and all lose the game. This is to say, Fanon states that you cannot strive to have the same values as the oppressors or else decolonization will never occur, but it might be stated that he relies on colonial strategies—those of dehumanization and violence—to rally others to his side. The system and its tools still exist—only the roles within it have been shifted.

Further, the assertion that ‘decolonization is always a violent phenomenon’ assumes that decolonization is always a possibility. 20th-century decolonization was in a period of mass revolt and a changing global order, but in the modern age when colonialism is more subtle than direct empire, it is difficult to see the benefits from violence or non-violence, when the targets of the violence are less accessible. You can hold a gun against a landlord, but not the Indo-US Nuclear Deal. Therefore, it may be unrealistic to use Fanon’s thesis as a normative tool in the modern age, as the structure and meaning of colonial states have developed.

If violence is not the answer, and nonviolence isn’t constructive either, then what is?

Full decolonization requires both a physical change—destratification of communities and dismantling of archaic laws as well as the return of political, social, and economic autonomy to the native people—and psychological change—decolonization of the mind, a conceptual change which allows one to regard the native people as human and rational, often the darker side of modernity, a structure that continues to condition international politics long after formal decolonization. Objective change is the more easily achievable of the two—lack of subjective change is where the problem lies.

In the case of Babel and the call for rallying help by making it clear that decolonization is in the economic interest of the oppressors, this fails in the face of subjective change. Though objectively it might work, oppressed persons would still be perceived as less-than and the solution would be short-lived. In the case of Fanon’s violence, this is in the same vein—the system of oppression still likely exists if you co-opt colonialist tactics to decolonize yourself. All that changes is that the first becomes the last. But there should not be a “first” or a “last” at all. Subjective change is not achieved—dehumanization of the oppressor continues the system.

Subjective change requires two things. Firstly, the decolonization of knowledge as a whole—of academic research, teaching, and other knowledge practices, so that the word and messages passed down between generations of native people is held with just as much merit as that of the settlers. Secondly, a redefinition of what it means to be human.

Firstly, decolonization of knowledge. Currently, parallel to the lines between colonizer and colonized runs a line between those who know and those who are known about. Quijano and Mignolo refer to this dividing line as “the coloniality of knowledge” (Mignolo 2007). Western academics are the subjects of knowledge under the structure of modernity/coloniality, whereas racial "others" are the objects of research. European Knowledge is ubiquitous, but knowledge in "other" nations is specialized or particular. The Western man is envisioned to be neutral, and the information he generates is globally applicable (notice the gendered element). Knowledge gathered from the standpoint of the colonized (or from women, sexual minorities, and other historically oppressed groups) is regarded as intrinsically particularistic and incapable of being applied beyond its particular setting. These deeply ingrained preconceptions successfully mask the power that knowledge production possesses.

 This dual blindness to both the experience of the colonized and the situatedness of the colonizer creates a type of violence—one which attempts to eliminate knowledge possessed or created by certain groups by damaging their ability to speak and be heard. Paired with concepts of minority groups only being seen as irrational creatures, this strategy is often effective. 

We must progress from realization to action because absolute Western domination is the "default" of the production of knowledge, any claim of "knowing" from a perspective situated in the "epistemic South" automatically undermines "true" knowledge and "true" subjectivity. In this manner, such disobedience undermines individuals in the West's ability to translate their experience into universal knowledge and challenges the illusion of rationalist universalism entirely. This is not to suggest that this endeavor is necessarily aimed at "silencing" individuals speaking from positions of power: both of these aspects suggest a relative silencing as a byproduct of de-linking from colonial knowledge and focusing on the excluded. Threatening knowledge threatens all conceptions of reality: all ideas of self and your place in the world. In some ways, it may feel like a violent usurping. However, it is important to reiterate that decolonization does not seek to get rid of Western knowledge altogether but rather to challenge the practices and beliefs that underlie it. Rather than turning the West into the “object” of knowledge, decolonization of knowledge calls for removing any “subject” or “object” of knowledge altogether and instead facilitating a genuinely horizontal dialogue among different epistemologies and nations.

True revolution, then, whether it be within the context of knowledge or other things, necessitates emancipation for all—including the oppressor. It is worth quoting Paulo Freire at length here (author of Pedagogy of the Oppressed, which gives explicit instructions to the process of decolonization and outlines its goals): “

“It is only the oppressed who, by freeing themselves, can free their oppressors. The latter, as an oppressive class, can free neither others nor themselves… the contradiction will be resolved by the appearance of the new man: neither oppressor nor oppressed, but man in the process of liberation. If the goal of the oppressed is to become fully human, they will not achieve their goal by merely reversing the terms of the contradiction, by simply changing poles.… It is only when the oppressed find the oppressor out and become involved in the organized struggle for their liberation that they begin to believe in themselves. This discovery cannot be purely intellectual but must involve action; nor can it be limited to mere activism, but must include serious reflection: only then will it be a praxis… Critical and liberating dialogue, which presupposes action, must be carried on with the oppressed at whatever the stage of their struggle for liberation. The content of that dialogue can and should vary in accordance with historical conditions and the level at which the oppressed perceive reality. But… attempting to liberate the oppressed without their reflective participation in the act of liberation is to treat them as objects which must be saved from a burning building; it is to lead them into the populist pitfall and transform them into masses which can be manipulated… At all stages of their liberation, the oppressed must see themselves as women and men engaged in the ontological and historical vocation of becoming more fully human. Reflection and action become imperative when one does not erroneously attempt to dichotomize the content of humanity from its historical forms… Otherwise, action is pure activism.” (Friere)

It is for this reason that Fanon’s decolonial violence falls short—through dehumanizing others and violating their rights, they themselves become the oppressors and continue the cycle. The “critical and liberating dialogue” that Friere speaks of here, which “should vary in accordance with historical conditions and the level at which the oppressed perceive reality,” suggests that a change in language and dialogue also needs to occur (Friere). This leads me to my second point about what decolonization requires.

Secondly, decolonization requires a redefinition of what it means to be human. Here, we may cite philosophers Giorgio Agamben and Audre Lorde who speak extensively about the power of language. 

Giorgio Agamben tackles the idea of imposed names and happiness in his piece Magic and Happiness, a four-page essay from his collection Profanations. Agamben asserts that happiness is essentially a “science of secret names,” and that a gesture that allows one to break “free from the name” which “has been imposed on him” would grant happiness; happiness can be found in “liberation from language.” (Agamben, 2020) By this, he means that happiness is about escaping definitions that have been imposed on us. As language is inherently about communication with others, it would be ideal to have shared definitions of words and ideas. However, speech and literature are susceptible to not only misinterpretations but also the personal and shared biases of others, leaving us to potentially be betrayed by our own words. How often has one said something only to regret it, or for someone to confuse their point? This same concept can be applied to our lives. How often has one misunderstood you or your personality based on the way you have been described by others? How often have you met someone only for them to be utterly different from how you expected? This is why a child is “never more content than when he invents a secret language,” (Agamben, 2020)—when speaking in babbles of only his own understanding, he is able to live in his own world and break free from the restrictions of language and society. 

In chapter 8 of Profanations, The Author as a Gesture, Agamben focuses on he who imposes the name (the author), and he who has the name imposed upon him (the subject), questioning the power difference between the two. Agamben suggests that when the author imposes the name onto the subject by using language to speak about or on behalf of them, he “defines the conditions and forms under which the subject can appear.” (Agamben, 2020) In other words, the author has the power to create a lived reality under which the subject is forced to exist. The subject is then constrained by the author in the same way that we who use and speak with language are constrained by the bounds of our society.

Agamben’s ideas of escaping definition echo those of Audre Lorde, a political philosopher, who in an address at Hunter College, suggested that minority groups must define their similarities and differences—or the names which are imposed upon them—for themselves, instead of those with power or privilege doing it on behalf of them so that they might be finally liberated. “If you allow your difference, whatever it might be, to be defined for you by imposed externals, then it will be defined to your detriment, always, for that definition must [be] dictated by the need of your society, rather than by a merging between the needs of that society and the human needs of self.” (Lorde, 1983) Here, Lorde is in accordance with Agamben’s claims that if others define our identities for us, we will never be able to seize our reputations. If we do not do so, we give authors, and those with power, to “play” with our lives. Too often within literature have people’s reputations been misconstrued or their lives redefined because authors have written false ideas of them. In these cases, these people's “freedom, their misfortune, often their death, in any case, their fate [was] actually decided in them,” and their “existences were effectively risked and lost in these words.” (Agamben, 2020)

Currently, settlers have defined the native through animalistic terms and as sub-human. Under our current system, oppressors have defined natives through our similarities and differences. Minority groups are defined as “other” and different types of “other” while the straight, white, male is the settler's norm. The adequate response to this is for natives to define things for themselves without the oppressors doing the defining. To “redefine,” for example, is to define oneself in a way that is not constrained by the bounds of the society that one lives in, that is not constricted by the identity of being oppressed. For example, under the current system, people are ethnic, and white is the norm. Whoever is ethnic is not white. Redefinition would call to redefine what ethnic means so that one can still be a person with cultural roots, culture, and history, without being ethnic and oppressed. Speculative fiction may be used here—movements such as  Solarpunk and Afrofuturism imagine systems without oppression. While they are not real, they show us that our idealistic identities are possible, they can exist and they can be redefined. Though there may not be a current system where native people are free, there is a speculative one where they are.

The current colonial system is built off a history where minority groups have been defined as inhumane, or worse. For example, Black people in America were essentially only included in historical literature when described through materialistic means—things such as how much an enslaved person was worth in dollars if returned, an enslaved person's height, weight, or even value in work they could provide. There is no humanity allowed in these words and definitions—the same words and definitions we use today. Creative fabrication or speculative fiction might allow for humanity through these hypothetical stories and by doing that, could liberate oppressed peoples. 

However, calling for redefinition is rich in a world where, as an oppressed people, you are being co-opted and violence is being used against you. What other choice do you have other than violence if your people are being killed, persons are being removed from their homes, and resources being cut off? While being seen as an animal and unable to use rational conversation to debate? Ideally, redefinition should be used in the process of liberation, which, as Fanon is correct—is the only option despite its shortcomings.

Works Cited

Agamben, G. (2020). Magic and Happiness Profanations, 19-22.

Agamben, G. (2020). The Author as Gesture Profanations, 61-73.

Caute, David. Fanon. Fontana, 1970. Accessed 31 May 2023.

Connelly, Matthew James. A Diplomatic Revolution: Algeria's Fight for Independence and the Origins of the Post-cold War Era. Oxford University Press, 2002. Accessed 31 May 2023.

C-SPAN. “Kamau Kambon Calls for Extermination: Clip.” C-SPAN, 14 October 2005, https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4941153/user-clip-kamau-kambon-calls-extermination-white-people. Accessed 31 May 2023.

Friere, Paulo. “Pedagogy of the Oppressed.” University of California Santa Cruz, 2005, https://envs.ucsc.edu/internships/internship-readings/freire-pedagogy-of-the-oppressed.pdf. Accessed 13 July 2023.

Kiernan, Ben. Blood and Soil: A World History of Genocide and Extermination from Sparta to Darfur. Yale University Press, 2007. Accessed 31 May 2023.

Kuang, R. F. Babel: Or the Necessity of Violence : an Arcane History of the Oxford Translators' Revolution. Harper Voyager, 2022.

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