1. Violence and/or Power: the Arendt vs Fanon-debate
1.1 About this course
PoC – Classes & Seminars
- Seminars = online
What is this course about?
ð Used to be classic conflict analysis.
- Power, violence, nature of conflict, nature of violence, typologies, what
constitutes politics, democracy
All highly philosophical
- Interested in the quality of argumentation
Trying to provoke new insights
- The exam
Open book
- Critical thinking
Engage with the texts, offer insights and high level of understanding
Way of arguing which will be graded: most probably digital
Politics of conflict
- What is the philosophy behind it? à Initiate the process of slow learning
o Not focused on quantity, but the quality of learning
o Understanding what is being said
o Not separate classes, they will refer to each other
o How do the loose ends connect?
o We must make and see connections, relate the arguments and authors
Aim of assignment
o Process that takes time.
o Pushing you to engage in different manners
o Assignment for next week, very minor
o Topics are very theoretical.
o Arendtà violence as belief
o Look at the course outline
o How gradedà 5 assignment 5 points, if you make it serious and very good
one pager 1/1. Quite easy, no feedback.
o Read and study the authors as they have written themselves, some will be
challenging. Read twice.
,1.2 Fanon vs. Arendt
Two opposing viewsà a dynamic, a discussion, a problem, a process
- Arendt is important, a lot of Arendt
- Very outspoken viewpoints strong opinions
ð Very important debate since the 1960s
Talking about
- Colonialism
- Fascism
- Holocaust
1.3 Frantz Fanon
Best book by Fanon: Black Skin, White Masks
Some points: quite provocative, opening up the debate on violence
Starting Point
Fanon (and Sartre) on violence in; Fanon, F. (1963), The Wretched of the Earth
Introduction by Sartre: understood as a glorification of violence
Importance: Fanon writes about colonialism
ð Does not want to make a universal point about violence as such
Fanon = activist scholar, somebody who wants to change the world
Somebody who has been extremely disappointed in the process of decolonization
- Not a radical reversal
- Colonized intellectuals rise, who he doesn’t like
Anti-colonial thinker and activist
Violence as an energy
Wretched of the earth à clear anti-colonial
- Political statement of anti-colonial struggle
- Emancipation against oppression
- FNLà activist
- A direct statement
General Background
1) Colonialism creates sperate life-worlds. The colonizer and the colonized, the colonial
world is a dual one with spatial separation and spatial separation
(Fanon) The colonial world is a Manichaean world
, 2) Dehumanization of the colonial subjects, a process of degradation by the colonizers.
Also through a spatial compartmentalization (e.g. native cartiers)
o Robbed of pride (wants the natives to win the battle)
o Stoler (class 2): challenges this binary view on colonialism (focuses on in-
betweens, uses it as a methodological tool to understand the formation of
colonial policies)
3) Critique on colonized intellectuals trying to bridge the two lives
Fanon says you cannot do this: competing life-worlds where no negotiation can be reached
or agreed on
How to end this will be done through violent struggle
ð colonialism is essentially a violent process
General Notes on Violence
1) Violence as inevitable in (anti-colonial) struggle
- Violence is inherent to colonization, hence decolonization is by definition a violent
process; even when violence is not always visible (can be pointed in the body)
- An analysis of an inevitable confrontation where a negotiated settlement is
impossible; in the real world: you have to choose sides and there are only 2 sides to
choose from
‘a melancholic inevitability’
He is not glorifying violence, it is just inevitable
colonialism instigated society with violence
- A particular political strategy of decolonization, to turn this atmospheric violence into
violence directed at the colonial project
- Not a conceptual statement of violence as such
o not attempt to come off with a universal definition
o It’s a political pamphlet
o Statement of how the struggle should occur, and how it inevitably involves
violence
ð There is no way of winning this struggle, without using violence
- The truly revolutionary subject: the oppressed proletariat who understand that
colonialism can only be fought with ‘naked violence’
Fanon: ‘… between the oppressors and the oppressed, force is the only solution’
- Master-servant relation
Fanon: ‘In its bare reality, decolonization reeks of red-hot cannonballs and bloody knives’
à Strong language in the book that offends people
