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Concept
The Wretched of the Earth
Summary
The Wretched of the Earth (Les Damnés de la Terre) is a 1961 book by the philosopher Frantz Fanon, in which the author provides a psychoanalysis of the dehumanizing effects of colonization upon the individual and the nation, and discusses the broader social, cultural, and political implications of establishing a social movement for the decolonization of a person and of a people. The French-language title derives from the opening lyrics of "The Internationale".
Through critiques of nationalism and of imperialism, Fanon presents a discussion of personal and societal mental health, a discussion of how the use of language (vocabulary) is applied to the establishment of imperialist identities, such as colonizer and colonized, to teach and psychologically mold the native and the colonist into their respective roles as slave and master, and a discussion of the role of the intellectual in a revolution. Fanon proposes that revolutionaries should seek the help of the lumpenproletariat to provide the force required to effect the expulsion of the colonists. In traditional Marxist theory, the lumpenproletariats are the lowest, most degraded stratum of the proletariat—especially criminals, vagrants and the unemployed—people who lack the class consciousness to participate in the socialist revolution.
Fanon applies the term lumpenproletariat to the colonial subjects who are not involved in industrial production, especially the peasantry, because, unlike the urban proletariat (the working class), the lumpenproletariat has sufficient intellectual independence from the dominant ideology of the colonial ruling class, ready to grasp that they can revolt against the colonial status quo and so decolonize their nation. One of the essays included in The Wretched of the Earth is "On National Culture", in which Fanon highlights the necessity for each generation to discover its mission and fight for it.
The first section is entitled "On Violence". It is a detailed explanation of violence in relation to both the colonial world and the process of decolonization.
Official source
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