Colonialism
In “Black Skins, White Masks,” Fanon revolts against colonialism in the context of witnessing colonial atrocities and acts of genocide while practicing medicine in Algeria. As a result, he unified himself to the suffering Algerians, who are dehumanized, oppressed, and tortured under their French masters in a bid to argue in defense of the colonized peoples. He, therefore, explores the human consequences of the socially constructed white-scripted racism and colonization. He observes the impact of such atrocities on the human mind and consequently champions for decolonization in “The Wretched of the Earth.” In his view, liberalization will happen when the people change their thinking and adopt a new way of thinking in the attempts to bring forth a new humanity. He theorizes an ethical violence of uncompromising justice as the sole weapon the colonized people can use against the barbaric colonialism by European civilizations.
On his part, Aimé Cesaire takes the position that European civilizations were responsible for creating colonial racism and bourgeois nationalism. He seeks to reject French colonial thinking through solidifying African cultural values, an ideology commonly known as negritude. Aimé views European civilizations as incapable of solving the issues that emerged from such ideologies, especially considering the fact that they cleverly misrepresent the colonial and proletariat problems. Besides, these European civilizations legitimized the hateful solutions to the problems they created, resulting in the further perpetuation of colonial violence. He, therefore, argues that colonial violence is part and parcel of European culture, which explains the active involvement and collaboration of the Europeans in the extermination of the Jews, Roma peoples, and Ukrainians, among others. As such, he observes that the atrocities of genocides before, during, and after World War II were a manifestation of colonial racism. In that case, the European people are complicit in the racist aggression toward non-Western colonial subjects.
Cesaire issues a warning against capitalism, terming it a product of racial colonialism and a demonstration of Western hypocrisy in trying to solve the problems of the proletariat while, in actual sense, its goal is to keep power and resources on the side of European nations. He notes the brutal impact capitalism has on both the colonized and the colonizer, which exposes the contradictions implicit in the western ideas of civilization and progress. Consequently, capitalism is not capable of establishing a culture of personal ethics and rights for all men. Therefore, instead of fighting capitalism, colonial racism channels the White working-class’s discontent and struggles toward fighting the most disenfranchised peoples. As a result, to prevent the atrocities related to European imperialist acts, the proletariat need to form a united front against the destructive forces of capitalism.
With reference to the book “Regarding the Pain of Others,” Susan Sontag explores how witnessing human suffering mobilizes the attention of the witnesser and elicits emotions ranging from horror and empathy to enjoyment. As such, Sontag would applaud Fanon’s and Cesaire’s responses on colonialism and histories of genocides as they managed to disrupt the hypocritical and contradictory interpretations of these actions by the European nations. Their writings transform the reader from being consuming spectators into witnesses who actively participate in the actions depicted in the writings by encouraging self-examination and criticism. Particularly, the fact that Fanon unifies himself with the Algerian people presents him as an ideal witness, according to Sontag, as the readers are forced to decide where they stand with regards to colonial racism and imperialism by Western powers.