The Wretched of the Earth

by Frantz Fanon

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Student Question

What type of government does Frantz Fanon describe in The Wretched of the Earth?

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Fanon's government is a form of Nationalism that is both anti-colonialist and Marxist in nature. He saw the colonial powers as being responsible for oppression and wanted to see them replaced by indigenous people. The government would be servant to the people, not the other way around, and would promote equality among all people with no class systems or hierarchy.

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Frantz Fanon saw the world as being composed of two types of people: the Colonizers and the Colonized. He examined Imperialist governments and found them lacking moral integrity; his opinion was that while the scientific achievements of the West are of great value, they might not have been worth centuries of war and indigenous oppression. Fanon was a post-Marxist philosopher, but defined himself as more of a Humanist, arguing against the class systems that define many regions of the world. He argued for a specific anti-colonialist influence, and defined government as a servant of the people instead of the other way around:

The masses must realize that the government and the party are at their service. A people worthy of esteem, i.e., conscious of their dignity, is a people who never forget this obvious fact.

[...]

A government and a party get the people they deserve. And in the more or less long term a people gets the government it deserves.
(Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth, Google Books)

In this sense, Fanon was arguing for an adapted form of Nationalism, a form that promotes the indigenous people of a country or nation over both the government and over outside influences. The eventual ideal government would be Marxist in nature, without class systems, but would only be possible through violent revolution; Fanon considered violence a necessary evil in the decolonization process.This sort of government might be called Nationalist Socialism, but Fanon's full theories are far more complex and include many variables.

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