The Wretched of the Earth by Frantz Fanon

He agrees with Fanon that violent revolution teaches colonized people how to be human: 'By their ever-present desire to kill us. Sartre adds, referring to colonized people in the third person: 'His aim is to teach them to beat us at our own game.' Sartre welcomes this development. There was violent popular resistance to decolonization in Algeria: 'The motorhorns beat out 'Al-gér-ie fran-çaise' while the Europeans burn Moslems alive.' Algérie française is a French, pro-settler slogan meaning 'French Algeria,' or 'Algeria for the French.' Regarding the murders, Sartre asks, 'Now, which side are the savages on?'Īddressing a European audience, Sartre claims Fanon's book is not addressed to Europeans: 'He speaks of you often, never to you.' Instead Fanon's book is addressed to colonized people. He specifically addresses the vigilantism, or acting without official legal authority, during the Algerian War of Independence (1954–62). Sartre denounces the crimes of European settlers in Algeria. Sartre does not really believe 'natives' are lesser than 'men.' He is demonstrating one of Fanon's points: colonialism dehumanizes people.įrantz Fanon's analysis is summarized by Sartre when he says: 'The peasantry, when it rises, quickly stands out as the revolutionary class.' All the other classes, such as 'the puppet bourgeoisie' and 'the urban proletariat' then 'fall into line' with 'the rural masses.' He begins by describing the world's population as consisting of 'men' and 'natives.' The 'men' are the citizens of colonial empires the 'natives' are the colonized people. The preface is written by 20th-century French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre.

The Wretched of the Earth by Frantz Fanon