Frantz Fanon Quotes on Nature
Frantz Fanon, the psychiatrist and theorist of decolonisation, did not write a philosophy of nature in the usual sense, and the quotes gathered here approach the theme through his analysis of the colonial condition and of human beings as its objects. Fanon insisted that all forms of exploitation are fundamentally alike, since all of them are applied against the same object, man, and seek their justification in some pretended natural or sacred order. He described the human being deformed by racism as rooted at the core of a universe from which he must be extricated, and called for the destruction of the colonial world, its burial deep within the earth. He held that a person is nothing on earth who is not first the servant of a cause, the cause of justice and liberty. Drawn from Black Skin, White Masks and The Wretched of the Earth, these passages weigh the human condition under colonialism.
Quotes
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“We are nothing on earth if we are not in the first place the slaves of a cause, the cause of the peoples, the cause of justice and liberty .”
Letter to Roger Tayeb, December 1961, as cited in Peter Geismar, Fanon (1971), p. 185. -
“Why write this book? No one has asked me for it. Especially those to whom it is directed. Well? Well, I reply quite calmly that there are too many idiots in this world. And having said it, I have the burden of proving it.”
Introduction, page 7 -
“The black is a black man;that is, as the result of a series of aberrations of affect, he is rooted at the core of a universe from which he must be extricated.”
Introduction, page 8 -
“To destroy the colonial world means nothing less than demolishing the colonist's sector, burying it deep within the earth or banishing it from the territory.”
The Wretched of the Earth(1961) | p. 6 Alternate translation: The destruction of the colonial world is no more and no less that the abolition of one zone, its burial in the depths of the earth or its expulsion from the country. -
“All forms of exploitation resemble one another. They all seek the source of their necessity in some edict of a Biblical nature. All forms of exploitation are identical because all of them are applied against the same "object": man.”
Black Skin, White Masks(1952) | p. 88 -
“Alternate translation: The destruction of the colonial world is no more and no less that the abolition of one zone, its burial in the depths of the earth or its expulsion from the country.”
The Wretched of the Earth(1961)