Frantz Fanon

 “At the conclusion of this study, I want the world to recognise, with me, the open door of every consciousness.
My final prayer: O my body, make of me always a man who questions” (Frantz Fanon: Black Skin White Mask)

“Madness is one of the means man has of losing his freedom.
And I can say, on the basis of what I have been able to observe from this point of vantage, that the degree of alienation of the Inhabitants of this country appears to be Frightening.
If Psychiatry is the medical technique That aims to enable man no longer to be a stranger to his environment, I owe it to myself to
Affirm that the Arab, permanently an alien in his own country, Lives in a state of absolute depersonalisation.
What is the status of Algeria? A systematized de-humanization. “
(Frantz Fanon: Towards the African Revolution - Resignation Letter to the Resident Minister)

“National Liberation, national renaissance, the restoration of nationhood to the people Commonwealth: whatever may be the headings used or the new formulas introduced, decolonisation is always a violent phenomenon.
At whatever level we study it- relationships between individuals, new names for sports clubs,
The human admixture at cocktail parties, in the police, on the directing boards of national or private banks- decolonisation is simply the replacing of a certain ‘ species’ of men by another ‘ species’ of men. Without any period of transition, there is a total, complete and absolute Substitution. It is true that we could equally well stress the rise of a nation the setting up of a new state, its diplomatic relations, and its economic and political trends. But we have precisely chosen to speak of that kind of tabula Rasa which characterizes at the onset all decolonisation. It’s unusual importance is that it constitutes, from the very first day, the minimum demands of the colonised. To tell the truth, the proof of success lies in a whole social structure being changed from the bottom up. The extraordinary importance of this change is that it is willed, called for, and demanded.

The need for this change exists in its crude state, Impetuous and compelling, in the consciousness and in the lives of the men and women who are colonized. But the possibility of this change is equally experienced in the form of a terrifying future in the consciousness of another ‘ species’ of men and women: the colonizers. “(Frantz Fanon: The Wretched of the Earth Page 27).

“If the building of a bridge does not enrich the awareness of those who work on it, then that bridge ought not to be built and the citizens can go on swimming across the river or going by boat. The bridge should not be ‘ parachuted down’ from above; it should not be by a deus ex machina upon the social scene; on the contrary, it should come from the muscles and the brains of the citizens.
……….so that the new techniques can make their way into the cerebral deserts of the citizens, so that the bridge in whole and in part can be taken up and conceived, and responsibility for it assumed by the citizens. In this way, and in this way only, everything is possible.”
(Frantz Fanon: The Wretched of the Earth page 162).