Sartre influential in the way that Fanon saw humanity Humans limited by

Sartre – influential in the way that Fanon saw humanity  Humans limited by physical reality/historical condition o Fundamentally disagrees with these writers despite influence  Sartre – disagrees about nature racism; universalizing Marxist dialectic as Eurocentric  Cissare – primarily wanted intellectual revolution o Sartre and Fanon conceptualize humans in radically different ways  Non-humans (slaves, …)  Sartre – Capitalism turns people into commodities • I.e. Marxism – capitalism must be destroyed in order to escape from discrimination  Fanon – still felt oppressed despite status as a doctor (equal class) • Black and Jewish oppression compared • Particularities of oppression rather than overall abstract oppression like Sartre - Depiction of violence o Criticized for glorifying violence; rather, he sees it as a necessity - Decolonization is inherently violent o Removal of one group of human beings from a position of immense power and violence and replacing them with another o Colonialism built on violence (physical / mental)  Only way to challenge it is with (physical) violence

• Only available option; nothing to lose but everything to gain • Violence restores the humanity of the colonized because it allows them to act and regain power o Become conscious of who they are o Enlightenment • Violence is therefore liberational – physical and mental equality brought to colonized o Not indiscriminate, but targeted violence Feb. 5 Independence? - In the period between 1945 and the end of the 1960s, the “colonial movement” came to an end across most of Africa - The speed to which colonial rule came to an end was not anticipated. Colonial empires were overcome by both unforeseen external events and pressures manifest in African protest and militant African identity o Speed of decolonization was completely unanticipated - In the end, Africa became independent – politically at least – through both compromise and conflict, negotiation and violence; sometimes it was both simultaneously, in other cases it was one or the other - Causes of independence – pressures manifest in organic African protest, new national identities o Events in Europe less important o British and French rule collapsed in Africa because the system fell apart internally - Transfer of power – independence movement o Britain – transfer of power was constitutional in nature; often created nations - Scramble in Africa = rushed/unplanned o Similar rushed nature of decolonization Africa and the Cold War - The emergence of the US as a truly global power had an enormous impact on post-war Africa, during the 1950s and 1960s, the US was less concerned with dismantling European empires than with the exigencies of the Cold War; of prime concern was that the Third World should be protected from Communism o USA less interested in dismantling colonial empires than with the Cold War o USA – Anti-colonial doctrine of self-determination; BUT anti-communist