A Decolonial View

By: Omar Mohamed

How would it feel if we could see or listen to Fanon’s writings? How would it feel if the narrativization of “On Violence” blended in a discussion with the indigenous peasant, the Liberian striking workers, and the colonized from Mozambique, Burkina Faso, Angola, and Guinea-Bissau? Or even with Lamco’s administrators, with the colonial pawn of indirect rule, or the Christian missionaries of the European dreams, the soldiers and the cops, the settler who thinks that she belongs there, and the other one who is afraid because the social fabric changes in South Africa? What type of feelings does one experience when Spivak’s brief introduction to the Fanonian thought witnesses the mutilated Black Venus, breastfeeding her mutilated baby? And the women guerrillas talking about the existence of gender equality within the context of resistance? Or when rewatching Thomas Sankara’s interviews while Fanon’s “The Wretched of the Earth” (1963) echoes through Lauryn Hill’s voice? Indeed, it is powerful to witness decolonization in the making. 

“Concerning Violence – Nine Scenes from the Anti-Imperialistic Self-Defense” (2014) is a documentary by director Göran Olsson that blends the emblematic “Wretched of the Earth” (Fanon 1963)with Swedish archival material that documents the realities in those African countries in the turbulent process of/for decolonization. Instead of imposing Fanon’s words into the visual and acoustic bricolage, the film gives room for interpretation. It does not dictate nor command the viewer to think in a particular way. It provides space for the viewer to creatively formulate linkages between the image, the music, the testimonies, and the narration. It is an amalgamation of raw footage and the discourse of violence, reminding us of violence as the means for liberation and for the invention of a new human. Not the individual, not the homo economicus, not the bearer of European consciousness, but a human in plural, a relational and communal human, whose existence does not presuppose the others’ subjugation. Where in the vision of that future environment there will be no room for the Hegelian master-slave dualism.  

Here, I share a few moments from the film in an affective manner, as a viewer of violence. The carefree soldiers drinking in the city are the relentless killing machines of the colonial mission.Looking at a group of possible murderers enjoying life, whose imperial military uniform has become their first skin layer, reminds me of Fanon’s metaphor of the colony as a living hell for the colonized that, to become a paradise, the colonizers must be replaced. We witness a soldier shooting livestock from a helicopter. Having landed, a relentless repetition of the action takes place while the footage is focused on the dead face of the animal until blood flows. Meaningless murder and brutality. Those images are more relevant than ever today as well. We scroll through images on social media of IDF solders unloading bullets on animals, uprooting olive trees as a tactic of starvation and erasure. When Lauryn Hill reminds us Fanon’s quote that “colonialism is not a thinking machine” (Olsson 2014, 7:33) I realise that the system is carefully planning to achieve alienated zombies—in the words of Fela Kuti. 

Rather than being confessions of passivity or testimonies of victimization, the footage provides an insight into the agency of the freedom fighters. Although in the hands of the director, their strategies, their intellect, their desires, and the rationale behind their actions are communicated in an unmediated manner. One could say that the director tailors the footage with Spivak’s question: “Can the Subaltern Speak?” on his mind. I find it exceptionally peculiar to be able to listen to the voices and see the faces of subjects of resistance that are determined to die for the ultimate goal of emancipation. The insight that is provided also adds up to the footage’s importance in capturing the naturalization of colonization in everyday societal life. There seems to be a chaos amidst that order. It boils inside the subjugated and is ready to flood the colonies in order to sweep their structures away. This antithesis reflects the parallel, segregated worlds within the colony, the black and the white zones. 

Furthermore, the interview with Tonderai Makoni reveals the shocking effects of imprisonment and torture on the anticolonial consciousness. I interpret his growing feelings of indifference and detachment as evidence of the colonial methods of alienation and strategies of castration. A glimpse into the participation of other international agents of colonial rule is provided with the documentation of the workers’ strike and their imprisonment in Liberia. The interviews with Lamco’s Swedish CEO, the president of Liberia, and a cop, expose how corporate extractivist capital regulates the laws and the rules of the economy in coordination with the authorities and the state. Any form of resistance or opposition to the colonial-capitalist power relations seems to have destructive repercussions on the lives of the local population. That alone is telling of the sacrifice that is willing to be taken to live a life of dignity. Again, Lauryn Hill quotes Fanon: “In the colonies the economic substructure is also a superstructure. The cause is the consequence. You are rich because you are white; you are white because you are rich” (Olsson 2014, 35:45-35:58) 

One of the most terrifying pieces of footage is that of the Christian missionaries in Tanzania. Locals dig the soil to build a church while they discuss their civilizing religious purpose. Far in the background, a child stares at them, and I cannot stop wondering what was on that kid’s mind. Maybe I am overthinking this. But as I am listening to the missionaries—in their clean clothes and with their bright smiles—stating proudly that they are unaware of plans concerning the construction of schools and hospitals when Black people labor to fix the White Man’s church behind them, I keep thinking about the violent rhetoric of the civilizing mission. Then I wish that this child felt anger. An anger that explains the type of violence that Fanon is writing about. An anger that could have potentially stimulated a consciousness driven by decolonial violence. The same anger that connects Fanon to Audre Lorde and Sarah Ahmed when she states:  

“Anger is constructed in different ways: as a response to the injustice of racism, as a vision of the future, as a translation of pain into knowledge, and as loaded with information and energy. Crucially, anger is not simply defined in relationship to a past, but as opening up the future. In other words, being against something does not end with ‘‘that which one is against.’’ Anger can open up the world. This is not to say that anger is our only response to racism— after all, if anger is creative, then it gives us room to do other things. Nor is anger our duty; I am not obliged to keep hitting that wall, sometimes I will, and sometimes I won’t. But not to speak anger because it is pointless is not the answer. After all, even if we use softer language, we are already sore points. We might as well do things with these points. To speak about racism is to labor over sore points” (Ahmed 2012, 171). 

Bibliography 

Ahmed, Sara. 2012. On Being Included: Racism and Diversity in Institutional Life. Durham, N.C.; London: Duke University Press. 

Fanon, Frantz. 1963. The Wretched of the Earth. New York: Grove Press. 

Olsson, Göran, dir. 2014. Concerning Violence: Nine Scenes from the Anti-Imperialistic Self-Defense. Kino Lorber.