Frantz Marguerite Victor Fanon, whose adopted middle name was “Omar” during his participation in the struggle for national liberation in Algeria, died on December 6th, 1961. His classic work of revolutionary political thought, Les Damnés de la Terre, unfortunately known in the Anglophone world as The Wretched of the Earth, was published little more than a month earlier. This year thus marks the sixtieth anniversary of a passing and a birth. As Fanon was also a poet and playwright, his life never fell short of allegory.
Fanon’s first published book was Peau noir, masques blancs (1952)—that is, Black Skin, White Masks. It, too, is a classic work. Indeed, all of Fanon’s writings are now canonical since their author is now a field of study. As that work turns seventy in 2022, anniversary reflections on Fanon’s life and thought will continue into another year.
The impact of Fanon’s thought over the past half century is monumental and ironic. It is ironic because he had hoped the prophetic aspects of his thought were wrong. The vestiges of colonialism, fascism, and racism that continue into the twentieth century reveal the weaknesses of liberal democracies and, indeed, the inadequacies of liberalism. Calls for actions other than revolution continue, but, in the end, they come down to concerns that frustrated Fanon’s contemporary, Martin Luther King, Jr., which compelled him to write Why We Can’t Wait (1964).
Fanon was not concerned with recognition from hegemons, from dominators, from those whose hardened hearts failed to address the cruelty, degradation, and lies on which much of Euromodern society is built. He wrote to and sought out those among the not wretched but Damned, and, as history has shown, many have and continue to listen. Ironically, in turning his back on dominant cultural forms of recognition in what could be called the Euromodern Age, Fanon’s legacy overflows with it. This is no doubt due, among other things, to one of Euromodern societies’ ultimate fears: their eventual irrelevance.
That great revolutionary would, however, be grateful for those among the Damned of the earth who engage his thought without fetishizing it. In that spirit, I here offer links to some sites for readers interested in joining them in these sixtieth- and seventieth-year reflections; since, as our dire times, marked by the folly of stupid leadership, reveal, there continue to be too many in power who fail to learn from their predecessors’ mistakes:
The Frantz Fanon Foundation (France)
Centre Culturel Frantz Fanon (Martinique)
Il Centro Frantz Fanon (Italy; see also its fundraiser, as this is also offers health services)
Abahlali baseMjondolo (South Africa)
The Frantz Fanon Blog (South Africa)
Frantz Fanon University (Somiland)
Frantz Fanon Lab for Intersectional Psychology (USA)
Frantz Fanon Center at Prescott College (USA)
Fanon Research and Development Center (USA)
Labor Community Strategy Center (USA)
The Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research (Argentina, Brazil, India, South Africa)
The Caribbean Philosophical Association (global)
Global Social Theory (UK)
Radical Books Collective (global)
Yes, as the rallying cry from Mozambique, stated in the age of revolution, reminded many to come: a luta continua.
Lewis Gordon
Lewis R. Gordon is Chairperson of the Awards Committee of the Caribbean Philosophical Association and Board of Trustees Distinguished Professor of Philosophy and Global Affairs and Head of the Department of Philosophy at the University of Connecticut. He is also Honorary President of the Global Center for Advanced Studies and Distinguished Scholar at The Most Honourable PJ Patterson Centre for Africa-Caribbean Advocacy at The University of the West Indies, Mona. He is the author of many books, including, most recently, Freedom, Justice, and Decolonization (Routledge, 2021); Fear of Black Consciousness (Farrar, Straus and Giroux in the USA, and Penguin-UK 2022); Black Existentialism and Decolonizing Knowledge: Writings of Lewis R. Gordon, edited by Rozena Maart and Sayan Dey (Bloomsbury, 2023); and “Not Bad for an N—, No?”/ «Pas mal pour un N—, n'est-ce pas? » (Daraja Press, 2023).
