Monday, April 25, 2016

How does Frantz Fanon differ from Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. in his theory of national independence?

Frantz Fanon, Mahatma Gandhi, and Martin Luther King Jr. were all proponents of social justice. They supported and envisioned an end to oppression and suffering among their people. They dedicated their lives towards ensuring that individual freedom was not only extended to a select group of people but to every human being. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Mahatma Gandhi differ with Frantz Fanon on how the change to the state of affairs should be instituted.
Both Martin Luther King and Mahatma Gandhi believed in an absolute non-violent approach towards securing independence from the oppressors by the oppressed. The two insisted that violence would lead to bitterness and more violence that goes contrary to harmonious co-existence of the two groups despite their previous differences. Their idea emanated from the need for reconciliation between the oppressors and the oppressed.
On the other hand, Frantz Fanon argued that the system of oppression was protected through violent means. The oppressors employed soldiers and policemen not only to protect the status quo but to affirm the oppressors' dominance and subsequent exploitation over the oppressed. Frantz suggests that such a system cannot be changed through peaceful means and the oppressed are left with no choice but to apply violence against the oppressor to secure freedom. As Fanon said in his book The Wretched of the Earth,

The rebel’s weapon is the proof of his humanity. For in the first days of the revolt you must kill: to shoot down a European is to kill two birds with one stone, to destroy an oppressor and the man he oppresses at the same time: there remain a dead man, and a free man; the survivor, for the first time, feels a national soil under his foot.
http://www.openanthropology.org/fanonviolence.htm

https://www.e-ir.info/2016/05/03/examining-the-dynamics-of-decolonisation-in-fanons-the-wretched-of-the-earth/

No comments:

Post a Comment

Why is the fact that the Americans are helping the Russians important?

In the late author Tom Clancy’s first novel, The Hunt for Red October, the assistance rendered to the Russians by the United States is impor...