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The Political Ethics of Frantz Fanon

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The Palgrave Handbook of African Social Ethics

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Abstract

For most scholars of Fanon, Fanon’s political ethics does not merit an independent treatment. Yet, understanding Fanon’s political ethics is crucial to understanding his theory of decolonisation. This chapter assesses Fanon’s political ethics as an independent and fundamental aspect of his decolonial thought. Fanon’s political ethics is two-pronged—an ethic of (political) violence and an ethic of radical empathy, two seemingly non-overlapping normative frameworks for constructing a political ethics. Through a critical reading of the uneven evolution of Fanon’s decolonial ethics in Black Skin, White Masks and The Wretched of the Earth, the chapter explores how Fanon tries to balance the paradoxical relations that necessarily exist, it would appear, between his ethics of violence and radical empathy.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Gordon, Lewis, 2015a, Fanon, Frantz, The international encyclopedia of ethics, H. LaFollette, Ed., John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. p. 1.

  2. 2.

    Gordon, Lewis, 2015a, Fanon, Frantz, p. 2.

  3. 3.

    Cf. Ciccariello-Maher, George, 2013, Decolonial realism: Ethics, politics and dialectics in Fanon and Dussel, Contemporary Political Theory, 13(1): p. 2–22; also Tucker, Gerald E., 1978, Machiavelli and Fanon: ethics, violence and action, The Journal of Modern African Studies, p. 397–415.

  4. 4.

    Lee, Christopher J. 2015, Frantz Fanon: toward a revolutionary humanism, p. 19–34.

  5. 5.

    Cf. Fashina, Oladipo, 1989, Fanon and the ethical justification of anti-colonial violence, Social Theory and Practice, 15,2, p. 179.

  6. 6.

    Gordon, Lewis, 2015a, Fanon, Frantz, The international encyclopedia of ethics, p. 5.

  7. 7.

    Irele, Abiola, 2011, The Negritude moment: explorations in Francophone African and Caribbean literature and thought, p. 140.

  8. 8.

    Emphasis added, see Fanon, F. 1963 [1961], The wretched of the earth, Preface by Jean Paul Sartre. C. Farrington, p. 45–46.

  9. 9.

    Fanon, F. 1963 [1961], The wretched of the earth, p. 195.

  10. 10.

    Italics are quotations of Fanon and are Sardar’s. See Sardar, Z. 2008, Foreword to the 2008 edition, Black skin, white masks, C. L. Markmann, Trans., p. vii.

  11. 11.

    Fanon lampoons the very notion of racial prejudice, arguing not just that it is absurd, but also that it has constituted a kind of ailment, a tarnishing accretion to the purported purity of European humanity. See Fanon, F. 2008, Black skin, p. 18–20.

  12. 12.

    Cf. Sardar, Z. 2008, Foreword to the 2008 edition, p. xvii.

  13. 13.

    Cf. Gordon L.R. (2015b) What Fanon said: A philosophical introduction to his life and thought, Johannesburg: Wits University Press, p. 19–46.

  14. 14.

    Lee, Christopher J. 2015, Frantz Fanon: toward a revolutionary humanism, passim.

  15. 15.

    Fanon, Frantz, 1952 [2008], Black skin, white masks, p. 28.

  16. 16.

    Gordon, Lewis, 2015a, Fanon, Frantz, p. 5.

  17. 17.

    Iris Marion Young’s further critique of Fanon that follows her summation here is not entirely true, but I shall let it alone here for want of space. She argues that Fanon’s ‘compelling vision’ is ‘also ultimately flawed,’ and that ‘[t]he existential humanism on which it is based is too radically individualist and dehistoricized.’ For the verbatim citation in-text, see Young, I. M. 2011, Responsibility for justice, p. 171–72; and for the footnote quotation, see p. 171.

  18. 18.

    Lee, Christopher J. 2015, Frantz Fanon: toward a revolutionary humanism, p. 155.

  19. 19.

    Fanon, F. 1963 [1961], The wretched of the earth, Preface by Jean Paul Sartre. C. Farrington, Trans., p. 59.

  20. 20.

    Fanon, F. 1963 [1961], The wretched of the earth, p. 315.

  21. 21.

    Alice Cherki, cited in Lee, Christopher J. 2015, Frantz Fanon: toward a revolutionary humanism, p. 152.

  22. 22.

    Fanon is cited from The wretched of the earth in Lee, Christopher J. 2015, Frantz Fanon: toward a revolutionary humanism, p. 170.

  23. 23.

    Cf. Ndlovu-Gatsheni, S.J. 13/10 (2015), Decoloniality as the future of Africa, History Compass.

  24. 24.

    Cf. Gordon L.R. (2015) What Fanon said, p. 119.

  25. 25.

    Fanon, F. 1963 [1961], The wretched of the earth, p. 44.

  26. 26.

    Sartre J.P. 1963 [1961], Preface to Fanon, F. 1963 [1961], The wretched of the earth, p. 29–30.

  27. 27.

    We will have more to say about this. Lee cites Mohamed Bedjaoui approvingly here; See Lee, Christopher J. 2015, Frantz Fanon: toward a revolutionary humanism, p. 28–29.

  28. 28.

    Lee, Christopher J. 2015, Frantz Fanon: toward a revolutionary humanism, p. 29–33.

  29. 29.

    Lee, Christopher J. 2015, Frantz Fanon: toward a revolutionary humanism, p. 193.

  30. 30.

    Fanon, Frantz, 1952 [2008]. Black skin, white masks. C. L. Markmann, Trans. London: Pluto Press, p. 28.

  31. 31.

    Fanon, Frantz, 1952 [2008]. Black skin, white masks, p. 28 and passim.

  32. 32.

    Lee, Christopher J. 2015, Frantz Fanon: toward a revolutionary humanism, p. 192–193.

  33. 33.

    Lee, Christopher J. 2015, Frantz Fanon: toward a revolutionary humanism, p. 190–191.

  34. 34.

    Lee, Christopher J. 2015, Frantz Fanon: toward a revolutionary humanism, p. 196.

  35. 35.

    ‘Burgers and coke are eaten and drunk throughout the world but one would hardly classify them as universally embraced, healthy and acceptable food: what the presence of burgers and coke in every city and town in the world demonstrate is not their universality but the power and dominance of the culture that produced them.’ See Sardar, Z. 2008, Foreword to the 2008 edition, p. xvi; cf. Fanon, F. 1963 [1961], The wretched of the earth, p. 215.

  36. 36.

    Fanon, F. 2008, Black skin, p. 176.

  37. 37.

    Fanon is cited by Hountondji, but is reported here from Coetzee, P. H. 2003, Africa in the global context, The African Philosophy reader: a text with readings. 2nd Ed. P. H. Coetzee and A. P. J. Roux. Eds. London and New York: Routledge, p. 651.

  38. 38.

    Fanon, F. 1967 [1961], The wretched of the earth, p. 63.

  39. 39.

    Fanon, F. 1967 [1961], The wretched of the earth, p. 41 and 47.

  40. 40.

    See Patoĉka, J. 2007, Living in problematicity, E. Manton, Ed., Fanon, F. 1963 [1961], The wretched of the earth and Fanon, F. 2008, Black skin, white masks.

  41. 41.

    Fanon, F. 2008, Black skin, p. 181.

  42. 42.

    See Young, I. M. 2011, Responsibility for justice, p. 119; Patoĉka, J. 2007, Living in problematicity, passim.

  43. 43.

    Burggraeve R., 2002, The wisdom of love in the service of love: Emmanuel Levinas on justice, peace, and human rights, p. 105.

  44. 44.

    Cf. Hand, S. 2009. Routledge critical thinkers: Emmanuel Levinas, p. 54–55.

  45. 45.

    Thomas, E. L. 2004, Emmanuel Levinas: ethics, justice and the human beyond being, R. Bernasconi, Ed., p. 157.

  46. 46.

    Thomas, E. L. 2004, Emmanuel Levinas, p. 157.

  47. 47.

    Levinas, E. 1990, Difficult freedom: essays on Judaism, S. Hand, trans., p. 295.

  48. 48.

    Appiah, K. 2005, The ethics of identity, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, p. xv.

  49. 49.

    Levinas, E. 1990, Difficult freedom, p. 295.

  50. 50.

    See Newman, M. 2000, Sensibility, trauma, and the trace: Levinas from phenomenology to the immemorial, The face of the Other and the trace of God: essays on the philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas. J. Bloechl, Ed., p. 94–104.

  51. 51.

    Visker, R. 2005, Dis-possessed: how to remain silent ‘after’ Levinas, Emmanuel Levinas: critical assessments of leading philosophers; Levinas, phenomenology and his critics. C. Katz and L. Trout, Eds., Vol. 1, p. 379.

  52. 52.

    Levinas is paraphrased here by Paul Marcus in Marcus, P. 2008. Being for the Other: Emmanuel Levinas, Ethical living and psychoanalysis, p. 43.

  53. 53.

    Mosés, S. 2005, Emmanuel Levinas: ethics as primary meaning, G. Motzkin, Trans., Emmanuel Levinas: critical assessments of leading philosophers; Levinas, phenomenology and his Critics. C. Katz and L. Trout, Eds., Vol. 1, p. 327.

  54. 54.

    See Rawls, J. 1992, Justice as fairness: political not metaphysical, Communitarianism and individualism. S. Avineri and A. De-Shalit. Eds. New York: Oxford University Press, p. 186–204; Rawls, J., 1996 [1993], Political liberalism: with a new introduction and the “Reply to Habermas.”

  55. 55.

    For more on this idea, see Mba, C., 2018, Conceiving global culture: Frantz Fanon and the politics of identity, Acta Academica, (50)1: 83–103.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of African Studies, University of Ghana, Legon, Ghana

    Chika C. Mba

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  1. Boston University, Boston, MA, USA

    Nimi Wariboko

  2. Department of History, University of Texas, Austin, TX, USA

    Toyin Falola

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Mba, C.C. (2020). The Political Ethics of Frantz Fanon. In: Wariboko, N., Falola, T. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of African Social Ethics. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-36490-8_17

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