The Crucial Role Of Violence In Africa

The Wretched of the Earth is a fantastic book about the colonization in Algeria and Africa in general, the process of decolonization, and some of the psychological effects it has on its victims. This book has its good attributes and then it has some very interesting attributes that will be

Violence Changes Everything Decolonization has been around for decades and decades. It was not until the late 1800’s when Leopold’s scramble for Africa changed the outcome of the African nation forever. Within Leopold's interest in Africa, hemade some important decisions. One being that to be “in-charge” of the African nation you would 1. Have a physical presence within the state and 2. Become responsible for the welfare of the society of the new state. When this was established it changed the game in terms of want in the African society. While the violence, in ways helps keep population under control, there is a large correlation with decolonization and the increase of violence in African history because it changed the entire fate of the

In Frantz Fanon’s text “Concerning Violence” he establishes his response to colonization and decolonization to be the simple act of violence against the oppressor. I find that Fanon’s reasoning’s for using the sole practice of violence to directly reflect his past experiences. Fanon was affected directly and indirectly by experiencing the Fascist and Colonial violence as an African man and also witnessing the atrocities of his peers while growing up in Martinique. He also witnessed the atrocities of WWII when he fought against Nazi Germany and during the Algerian War as Algerians tried to gain independence from France. His only answer to the dehumanizing violent atrocities was to fight back with extreme violence to regain freedom from the world’s

British Imperialism and the Crisis in the Sudan Introduction One of the world’s worst humanitarian crisis is currently unfolding in the Darfur region of the Sudan. For the past 22 months, more than 70,000 Sudanese have been killed, and nearly 2 million people have fled their homes to neighboring countries. This paper attempts to explore this present day civil war and genocide taking place in the Sudan. This is an event of epic proportions that will have vast implications for the future of the country and the continent. Understanding the history of European colonialism in Africa, as focused through the lense of the Sudan, is the purpose of this paper. Primarily, the paper will analyze the history of European imperialism

Sierra Leone is located in West Africa and share a border with Liberia and Guinea. Its current population is 6.5 million with 3.2 million men and 3.3 million women. The country has 16 diverse tribal groups with diverse languages. The younger populace has 42% and a rural populace with 62%

Frantz Fanon, in his book The Wretched of the Earth, seeks to define violence and its justification in the context of colonialism. To understand Fanon’s justification for violence, it is necessary to learn how Fanon defines violence. Fanon’s definitions of violence range from psychological to historical to cultural, eventually leading the colonized to redirect this violence to the colonizer as a cleansing ritual.

Fanon also discusses the psychological effects that force can have on one in this process of colonization. Fanon finds that the labeling of people as the colonizer and the colonized can result in the dehumanization of the latter, as they are being relegated as “the other” (3). This notion relates to Weil’s definition of force as man is being turned into a “thing,” stripped of his identity (Weil, 6). Furthermore, it is stated in the piece that “the very same people who had [force] constantly drummed into them that the only language they understood was that of force, now decide to express themselves with force” (42). This excerpt assists in illustrating how the concept of force acts within a cycle of sorts, as one needs to use force in order to escape force. This notion relates back to the film The Battle of Algiers as the Algerian people, more specifically those of the National Liberation Front (FLN), had to use force in order to prevent colonization and further force from the French government. Fanon directly touches on the Battle of Algiers in his piece, stating that “mental illness and the rampant development of specific pathological conditions” were an outcome for many Algerians due to the war (216). These pathological conditions caused by colonization also relate to Weil’s definition of force as both Weil and Fanon are contending

Drunk off of the wine of nationalist fervor, men wrought with power built upon the bricks of global exploitation, we have here a cyclic, seemingly self-sustaining machine which propels our society into a limitless future. By its very definition, self-sustainability can and will continue as a result of its own

Violence of Decolonization 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

The thesis essentially implies that certain parts of the world, mainly the Global South, “are populated by irrationally violent and uncivilized peoples” (Bau 2010, 23). The ‘New Barbarism’ thesis is exemplified in Robert Kaplan’s “The Coming Anarchy.” Contrastingly, Paul Richards’ Fighting for the Rainforest sought to undermine the arguments behind both “The Coming Anarchy” and the ‘New Barbarism’ thesis. The dominant representations of conflicts in Africa are found through Western media coverage, which have simplified and distorted complex situations by reducing the cause of conflicts to ethnic antagonisms. “Mainstream media often report African wars in terms of a reversion to an earlier state of development” (Ellis 2003, 39). In doing so, conflicts in Africa, such as those in Rwanda and Sudan, are presented under the false premise of conforming to ‘New Barbarism,’ leading to international actors addressing the wrong problems or simply loosing hope in Africa altogether

Violence is inescapable when considering political agenda. In the words of Fanon, “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” (1). According to Fanon, violence is the fundamental factor that defines the meaning and practice of colonisation. In Fanon’s chapter “On Violence”, he writes predominately about the centrality of violence in resisting colonial rule. However, violence is not limited to playing a significant role in just colonisation. Marx and Engels’ The Communist Manifesto encompasses ideas of violence in social revolution and communism. In Marx’s theory, Marx writes of a

Because of the nature of the program, Frantz Fanon argues that decolonization cannot be achieved without violence. Hence, the author claims that “decolonization is always a violent phenomenon” (35). Decolonization is itself a violent program dues to the fact that colonies are created with violence. Because of “the violence which has ruled over the ordering of the colonial world, that same violence will be claimed and taken over by the native at the moment when he surges into the forbidden quarters” (40). Therefore, the authors claim that decolonization is violent event because these people have been colonized using force; therefore, when they decide to fight back, they will use the same force the same used to conquer them. Because “the agents

In his conclusion, Fanon proclaims that “If we want to respond to the expectations of our peoples, we must look elsewhere besides Europe ...we must make a new start, develop a new way of thinking, and endeavor to create a new man” (239). We must ask ourselves, then, what is the European man well known for? According to the young Algerian boy “he kills Arabs.” For Fanon, any colonized person can insert his nationality into this young man’s words and they remain true. What Fanon advocates for, then, is not violence but something else, “a new way of thinking”, and whatever it may be, it cannot be violence

Stephanie Diaz PLSC 228 3/25/16 Prof. Bappa Nigeria’s Humanitarian Crisis Despite being one of the richest countries in Africa due to their geological advantage of supplying excessive gas and oil, Nigeria faces severe human rights challenges. This is primarily due to the inefficient and unjust response to the mass violence prevalent in that

Ethnic conflict is the dominant security issue of our time, 75 percent of all new conflicts are ethnic. Since 1989, ethnic conflict has killed at least 3.5 million and displaced 26 million people. Almost all ethnic conflicts, especially in the 21st century, occur in post-colonial settings. Colonialism is why we have ethnic conflicts, especially in Africa. There are many factors contributing to post-colonial ethnic conflict, however some have more influence over the others. I argue that during colonialism, the intraethnic and interethnic divisions that led to the creation of different types of ethnic groups, and unequal treatment by colonial rule led to ethnic conflict in post-colonial settings.