The document is a summary of all the courses (10) of Politics of Conflict, taught by Jeroen Adam. It is a collection of my class notes (including examples given in class, discussion points raised at the end of each class, his memes that should just get some credit), so quite extensive. Therefore, I...
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
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