Dying Colonialism An incisive and illuminating account of how, during the Algerian Revolution, the people of Algeria changed centuries-old cultural patterns and embraced certain ancient cultural practices long derided by their colonialist oppressors as primitive, in order to destroy those same oppressors. Fanon uses the fifth year of the Algerian Revolution as a point of departure for an explication of the inevitab Full description

One thing needs to be perfectly clear about this book: Fanon was not a neutral observer evaluating the politics of colonial Algeria. He was an intensely interested party - despite being from Martinique, Fanon was a member of the F.L.N. In other words, this book is a piece of political advocacy. As a side note, Fanon died quite young, before the end of the Algerian Revolution, and never got the chance to see the independent Algeria he so obviously longed for.

I say this to eliminate the notion that this is a work of scholarship, or a reasoned study on the effects of colonization and the resistance to it. Fanon is earnest in his beliefs, but it seems like he tries to hard to make a case for universality of opinion, on both sides of the struggle. According to Fanon, for example, all European men want to unveil and rape Algerian women, and all Algerians of all races (except those who are in the active service of the colonial government, and supposedly, many of them are secret agents for the resistance) are ardently supportive of the revolutionary forces - a claim contradicted by the mass exodus from Algeria following independence.

Although he never "officially" came out as one, Fanon also seems to be a socialist at heart, and through much of the book he struggles to cast Algerian adherence to traditional practices (such as the veil) in properly revolutionary terms. Adherence to traditional values is a sign of resistance to colonialism, except where it isn't. The tension between traditional Algerian society and the fact that Fanon is a modern, educated man runs through the entire book. Fanon extols the virtues of the F.L.N. fighter, decries the ineffectiveness of the political left in France (while lauding actions by the F.L.N. that made any kind of political compromise difficult or impossible). Fanon also seems to be somewhat blind to the seeds of an Islamic revolutionary movement that lurks at the edges of his narrative concerning the development of the F.L.N. - I think this book may contain one of the earliest references to mujahedin in a work published in the West.

I don't normally bother to reference Introductions when I am evaluating books, as they are usually fluff pieces of limited value, but the Introduction by Adolfo Gilly a "journalist" (really pretty much an advocate for socialist revolution rather than a reporter of news) is an example of wishful thinking that is worth commenting upon. The Introduction also shows how much Fanon became the darling of the socialist movement, even if his book has scant little to say on the subject of socialism, rather than simply anti-colonialism. Gilly believes that the triumph of the socialist revolution is an inevitable outcome, and that Fanon's book is going to pave the way. Oddly, Gilly seems to think that the socialists should look to Moscow, effectively exchanging one form of colonialism for another.

Hindsight is twenty-twenty, and we know a lot more about Algeria now than Fanon could have possibly predicted. Despite Fanon advocating repeatedly for Algerian democracy, we know that independence resulted in somewhat brutal one-party rule of Algeria for decades. Despite Fanon arguing for a multicultural independent Algeria, we know that virtually all of the Europeans, Jews and other non-Arabic inhabitants left Algeria in droves following independence. Reading the book now, it is a study in naive hope, that we know, had he survived, probably would have been destroyed by reality. ( )

postcolonialism