Decolonization is the undoing of colonialism, where a nation establishes and maintains its domination over dependent territories. In the words of Fanon, in the reading The Wretched of the Earth, “National liberation, national reawakening, restoration of the nation to the people or Commonwealth, whatever the name used, whatever the latest expression, decolonization is always a violent event.” (Fanon, 1). Frantz Fanon was one of many authors who supported decolonization struggles occurring after World War II. He breaks down decolonization into two senses: one being the physical act of freeing a territory from external control of a colonizer, and the other being the psychological act of freeing the consciousness of the native from the alienation caused by colonization. Fanon particularly advocated that violence was justified by overthrowing colonial oppression. In his reading, The Wretched of the Earth, Fanon wrote on why and how colonialism must be stopped. Fanon argued that the colonial infrastructure must be destroyed. “Decolonization, which sets out to change the order of the world, is clearly an agenda for total disorder. But it cannot be accomplished by the wave of a magic wand, a natural cataclysm, or a gentleman’s agreement. Decolonization, we know, is an historical process: In other words, it can only be understood, it can only find its significance and become self coherent insofar as we can discern the history-making movement which gives it form and substance,”
In order to determine if decolonization by removal of the native body could ever be successful, one must look to the case of American decolonization. While America went from being a colony under the rule of another country to a nation, it was the colonizer who decolonized and not the native body. American decolonization removed the British hand-holding that taught America how to be a country. After this process, however, the newly American people still had natives who wanted their land back. European diseases and violent conflict over the land wrecked the native body, and once nationhood was achieved, the government began passing policies like the Indian Removal Act of 1830.
From 1945 and beyond, leaders have selected different paths to affect change. Some encouraged independence through violence, peaceful actions, diplomacy, and the commitment of their struggling nation. Others sparked revolutions by appealing to the peoples’ needs. Through policy, and sometimes uniting a people, trailblazers changed the face and structure of their nation. A column from a journalist during the time period would help to see a broader perspective during such varying and exciting time. Decolonization, revolution, and nation building are all goals of any effective leader willing to make a change.
The inconsistencies in the implementation even partly contributed to the outbreak of the Second World War (xxx, xxx). The European powers mobilized their African subjects with propaganda vilifying the racial-supremacist ideology of the Fascist powers. This set-in motion a process in which “Fascist nationalism produced the opposed reality of anti-Fascism; and anti-Fascism became antiracism; and antiracism led in due course to an end of colonization” (Davidson, 1992). The result was the erasure of European colonial rule from large swathes of the African continent within a relatively short period of time (xxx, xxx). Consequently, this led to the development of a decolonized version of the self-determination concept. The decolonization version of self-determination was based on the following three principles: i) all dependent peoples are entitled to freedom; ii) the peoples so entitled are defined in terms of the existing colonial territories, each of which contains a nation; and iii) once such a people has come to independence, no residual right of self-determination remains with any group within it or cutting across its frontiers (Emerson 1964). This version of self-determination had numerous implications. The concerned entities often did not find it necessary to demonstrate effective legitimate authority to gain and
“Decolonization is Not a Metaphor” is an article by Eve Tuck and K. Wayne Yang. Through the article, the attempt to explain that the widely used term, “decolonization” is not applied as the term itself specifies. According to Eve and Wayne Yang, the term “decolonization” is now used in social justice rethoric such as enhancing the quality of societies and education and schools (Tuck & Yang, pg 3). The authors argue that decolonization must not lose its initial sense and meaning because any use other than what decolonization insinuates, turns the terms into a metaphor.
In The Colonizer and the Colonized, Albert Memmi’s essential argument is that the collapse of colonialism is inevitable. According to Memmi, there are only two answers for the colonized to disrupt the system of oppression. The two possible “solutions” are assimilation and revolt. In response to the marginalization of the colonized, both answers carry a high price. In Memmi’s eyes, neither will work in the end. The first of two answers on the road to collapsing colonization is assimilation. Imitation and compromise are not the answer to decolonizing, for neither the colonized nor the colonizer.
This is demonstrated through cases such as the shooting of J.J. Harper, who was an unarmed, innocent Aboriginal man who was shot and killed by a police officer who acted upon his own racist attitudes (Comack 2012, 108). In The Wretched of the Earth, Fanon states that colonialism “is violence in its natural state, and it will only yield when confronted with greater violence” (1963, 61). With this, his solution for this situation would be for the Aboriginal peoples to respond with violence, most importantly to free themselves from this oppression caused by the settlers. However, decolonization must occur for the natives to separate completely from the settlers and be free of
Frantz Fanon argues the decolonization must always be a violent phenomenon because resisting a colonizing power using only politics will not work. Europeans justified colonization by treating it as gods work. They believed that god wanted then to occupy all lands and spread the word of god to savages of darker skin color. Fanon joined the Algerian Nationalist Movement when the Algeria was being colonized be the French. Many examples of violence written of in The Wretched of the Earth were taken from the struggle for independence in Algeria. Also the writing is sympathetic towards colonized natives. Fanon claims decolonization causes violent actions from both settlers and natives and creates intolerant
The progress made in the 20th century is staggering. Advancements in science, medicine and technology alone have brought incalculable benefits to human beings. Yet on the darker side, the 20th century was also the most violent time of human history. Two world wars, the massacres of Stalin, the Holocaust of Hitler, and many other such events killed over hundreds of millions of people and inflicted extreme suffering on hundreds of millions more that will make this period in time and period that will be remembered forever.
Violence in America America is a violent nation. Many people think that America is full of freedom and democracy. Do these people actually see what happens in America? Do they see the violence in schools, the crime in our society? Most likely, no, these people have loosely seen our society, the violence and the frauds that plague America's history as well as the present.
Franz Fanon, in his seminal work The Wretched of the Earth, argues that decolonisation alias restoring nationhood is always a ‘violent phenomenon’: “To tell the truth, the proof of success lies in a whole social structure being changed from the bottom up…. If we wish to describe it precisely, we might find it in the well-known words: "The last shall be first and the first last." Decolonization is the putting into practice of this sentence.”
Living in the same region for an extended period of time will endow the human inhabitant with a sense of pride in their homeland. When this idea is extended to a certain group of people living in the same area, pride turns into nationalism. The residents not only feel like they geographically own the land, but their history of culture in that given area lends them an emotional connection as well. When people of elsewhere come to take the land from the native inhabitants, many changes occur. In his book The Wretched of the Earth, Franz Fanon gives his insight into how the process of colonization and decolonization happens, and the resulting physical and mental effects on both groups of people. Telling this from a strictly historical and
Political violence is the leading cause of wars today. Personal agendas have led to many of the political objectives that cause violence today this has caused many problems throughout the world and will continue to do so until a solution to this issue is found. Political objectives have been advanced involuntarily dependent upon the kind of government a nation exercises. For instance, in a democratic nation political groups must worry about convincing the majority in order to advance ethically. Those who try to influence the majority through acts of violence are considered today as “terror” organizations. Though perhaps if it were not because of the recent 9/11 terror attacks that maybe such warrants would not be seen as terror attacks,
Decolonization can be achieved by gaining independence, along with interaction of power also, it is a political process that causes violence in in a lot of circumstances and may sometimes be resolved by negotiating on peaceful terms. But can also lead to violent resistance and arm struggle by the native population. Eventually with World War coming to an end, it brought a revolution of decolonization in many countries. For many people, this was a positive thing as they were to obtain independence from colonies and empires. Decolonization was a long process to begin with, it took almost thirty years after World War II for some places. With colonial powers getting weaker, that was great chance for independence for Africa and Asia. Not only
The process of decolonization in Africa during the 1950’s through the 1970’s was a very smart yet risky idea. For some places independence was easily gained yet in other areas it was a battle. During the time periods where colonization existed, Africa was peaceful and kept things in order. People had control over their specific locations and there were no questions to be asked. Once it was decided to remove these rights, things got out of hand rather quickly. Violence was a main occurrence during the decolonization timeframe because rules, rights, leaderships, etc. got altered and drastically changed. Sometimes nonviolence was used but it usually wasn’t as effective. A major example of using nonviolence actions to gain independence is when
Colonialism is the act of gaining political control of another country and occupying it with settlers. Communal disintegration is the tendency for society to decline over time due to the lapse of traditional social support systems (“Colonialism”). The disintegration of a community can happen because of many different kinds of reasons including colonialism. Colonialism can be seen as a cause of communal disintegration in both Wole Soyinka’s Death and the King’s Horseman and Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart.