Frantz Fanon Speech at the Congress of Black African Writers, Rome,1959

[XXPANTHAXX]

Speech by Frantz Fanon at the Congress of Black African Writers, 1959,
Rome, Italy

Wretched of the Earth

Reciprocal Bases of National Culture and the Fight for Freedom

Source: Reproduced from Wretched of the Earth (1959) publ. Pelican.
Speech to Congress of Black African Writers.

Colonial domination, because it is total and tends to over-simplify,
very soon manages to disrupt in spectacular fashion the cultural life of
a conquered people. This cultural obliteration is made possible by the
negation of national reality, by new legal relations introduced by the
occupying power, by the banishment of the natives and their customs to
outlying districts by colonial society, by expropriation, and by the
systematic enslaving of men and women.

Three years ago at our first congress I showed that, in the colonial
situation, dynamism is replaced fairly quickly by a substantification of
the attitudes of the colonising power. The area of culture is then
marked off by fences and signposts. These are in fact so many defence
mechanisms of the most elementary type, comparable for more than one
good reason to the simple instinct for preservation.

The interest of this period for us is that the oppressor does not manage
to convince himself of the objective non-existence of the oppressed
nation and its culture. Every effort is made to bring the colonised
person to admit the inferiority of his culture which has been
transformed into instinctive patterns of behaviour, to recognise the
unreality of his 'nation', and, in the last extreme, the confused and
imperfect character of his own biological structure.

Vis-à-vis this state of affairs, the native's reactions are not
unanimous While the mass of the people maintain intact traditions which
are completely different from those of the colonial situation, and the
artisan style solidifies into a formalism which is more and more
stereotyped, the intellectual throws himself in frenzied fashion into
the frantic acquisition of the culture of the occupying power and takes
every opportunity of unfavourably criticising his own national culture,
or else takes refuge in setting out and substantiating the claims of
that culture in a way that is passionate but rapidly becomes
unproductive.

The common nature of these two reactions lies in the fact that they both
lead to impossible contradictions. Whether a turncoat or a
substantialist the native is ineffectual precisely because the analysis
of the colonial situation is not carried out on strict lines. The
colonial situation calls a halt to national culture in almost every
field. Within the framework of colonial domination there is not and
there will never be such phenomena as new cultural departures or changes
in the national culture.

Here and there valiant attempts are sometimes made to reanimate the
cultural dynamic and to give fresh impulses to its themes, its forms and
its tonalities. The immediate, palpable and obvious interest of such
leaps ahead is nil. But if we follow up the consequences to the very end
we see that preparations are being thus made to brush the cobwebs off
national consciousness to question oppression and to open up the
struggle for freedom.

A national culture under colonial domination is a contested culture
whose destruction is sought in systematic fashion. It very quickly
becomes a culture condemned to secrecy. This idea of clandestine culture
is immediately seen in the reactions of the occupying power which
interprets attachment to traditions as faithfulness to the spirit of the
nation and as a refusal to submit.

This persistence in following forms of culture which are already
condemned to extinction is already a demonstration of nationality; but
it is a demonstration which is a throw-back to the laws of inertia.
There is no taking of the offensive and no redefining of relationships.
There is simply a concentration on a hard core of culture which is
becoming more and more shrivelled up, inert and empty.

By the time a century or two of exploitation has passed there comes
about a veritable emaciation of the stock of national culture. It
becomes a set of automatic habits, some traditions of dress and a few
broken-down institutions. Little movement can be discerned in such
remnants of culture; there is no real creativity and no overflowing
life. The poverty of the people, national oppression and the inhibition
of culture are one and the same thing. After a century of colonial
domination we find a culture which is rigid in the extreme, or rather
what we find are the dregs of culture, its mineral strata.

The withering away of the reality of the nation and the death-pangs of
the national culture are linked to each other in mutual dependences.
This is why it is of capital importance to follow the evolution of these
relations during the struggle for national freedom.

The negation of the native's culture, the contempt for any manifestation
of culture whether active or emotional and the placing outside the pale
of all specialised branches of organisation contribute to breed
aggressive patterns of conduct in the native. But these patterns of
conduct are of the reflexive type; they are poorly differentiated,
anarchic and ineffective. Colonial exploitation, poverty and endemic
famine drive the native more and more to open, organised revolt.

The necessity for an open and decisive breach is formed progressively
and imperceptibly, and comes to be felt by the great majority of the
people. Those tensions which hitherto were non-existent come into being.
International events, the collapse of whole sections of colonial empires
and the contradictions inherent in the colonial system strengthen and
uphold the native's combativity while promoting and giving support to
national consciousness.

These new-found tensions which are present at all stages in the real
nature of colonialism have their repercussions on the cultural plane. In
literature, for example, there is relative over-production. From being a
reply on a minor scale to the dominating power, the literature produced
by natives becomes differentiated and makes itself into a will to
particularism. The intelligentsia, which during the period of repression
was essentially a consuming public, now themselves become producers.

This literature at first chooses to confine itself to the tragic and
poetic style; but later on novels, short stories and essays are
attempted. It is as if a kind of internal organisation or law of
expression existed which wills that poetic expression become less
frequent in proportion as the objectives and the methods of the struggle
for liberation become more precise. Themes are completely altered; in
fact, we find less and less of bitter, hopeless recrimination and less
also of that violent, resounding, florid writing which on the whole
serves to reassure the occupying power. The colonialists have in former
times encouraged these modes of expression and made their existence
possible.

Stinging denunciations, the exposing of distressing conditions and
passions which find their outlet in expression are in fact assimilated
by the occupying power in a cathartic process. To aid such processes is
in a certain sense to avoid their dramatisation and to clear the
atmosphere. But such a situation can only be transitory.

In fact, the progress of national consciousness among the people
modifies and gives precision to the literary utterances of the native
intellectual. The continued cohesion of the people constitutes for the
intellectual an invitation to go farther than his cry of protest. The
lament first makes the indictment; then it makes an appeal. In the
period that follows, the words of command are heard. The crystallisation
of the national consciousness will both disrupt literary styles and
themes, and also create a completely new public. While at the beginning
the native intellectual used to produce his work to be read exclusively
by the oppressor, whether with the intention of charming him or of
denouncing him through ethnical or subjectivist means, now the native
writer progressively takes on the habit of addressing his own people.

It is only from that moment that we can speak of a national literature.
Here there is, at the level of literary creation, the taking up and
clarification of themes which are typically nationalist. This may be
properly called a literature of combat, in the sense that it calls on
the whole people to fight for their existence as a nation. It is a
literature of combat, because it moulds the national consciousness,
giving it form and contours and flinging open before it new and
boundless horizons; it is a literature of combat because it assumes
responsibility, and because it is the will to liberty expressed in terms
of time and space.

On another level, the oral tradition - stories, epics and songs of the
people - which formerly were filed away as set pieces are now beginning
to change. The storytellers who used to relate inert episodes now bring
them alive and introduce into them modifications which are increasingly
fundamental. There is a tendency to bring conflicts up to date and to
modernise the kinds of struggle which the stories evoke, together with
the names of heroes and the types of weapons. The method of allusion is
more and more widely used. The formula 'This all happened long ago' is
substituted by that of 'What we are going to speak of happened somewhere
else, but it might well have happened here today, and it might happen
tomorrow'.

The example of Algeria is significant in this context. From 1952-3 on,
the storytellers, who were before that time stereotyped and tedious to
listen to, completely overturned their traditional methods of
storytelling and the contents of their tales. Their public, which was
formerly scattered, became compact. The epic, with its typified
categories, reappeared; it became an authentic form of entertainment
which took on once more a cultural value. Colonialism made no mistake
when from 1955 on it proceeded to arrest these storytellers
systematically.

The contact of the people with the new movement gives rise to a new
rhythm of life and to forgotten muscular tensions, and develops the
imagination. Every time the storyteller relates a fresh episode to his
public, he presides over a real invocation. The existence of a new type
of man is revealed to the public. The present is no longer turned in
upon itself but spread out for all to see. The storyteller once more
gives free rein to his imagination; he makes innovations and he creates
a work of art. It even happens that the characters, which are barely
ready for such a transformation - highway robbers or more or less
antisocial vagabonds - are taken up and remodelled.

The emergence of the imagination and of the creative urge in the songs
and epic stories of a colonised country is worth following. The
storyteller replies to the expectant people by successive
approximations, and makes his way, apparently alone but in fact helped
on by his public, towards the seeking out of new patterns, that is to
say national patterns. Comedy and farce disappear, or lose their
attraction. As for dramatisation, it is no longer placed on the plane of
the troubled intellectual and his tormented conscience. By losing its
characteristics of despair and revolt, the drama becomes part of the
common lot of the people and forms part of an action in preparation or
already in progress.

Where handicrafts are concerned, the forms of expression which formerly
were the dregs of art, surviving as if in a daze, now begin to reach
out. Woodwork, for example, which formerly turned out certain faces and
attitudes by the million, begins to be differentiated. The inexpressive
or overwrought mask comes to life and the arms tend to be raised from
the body as if to sketch an action.

Compositions containing two, three or five figures appear. The
traditional schools are led on to creative efforts by the rising
avalanche of amateurs or of critics. This new vigour in this sector of
cultural life very often passes unseen; and yet its contribution to the
national effort is of capital importance. By carving figures and faces
which are full of life, and by taking as his theme a group fixed on the
same pedestal, the artist invites participation in an organised
movement.

If we study the repercussions of the awakening of national consciousness
in the domains of ceramics and pottery-making, the same observations may
be drawn. Formalism is abandoned in the craftsman's work. Jugs, jars and
trays are modified, at first imperceptibly, then almost savagely. The
colours, of which formerly there were but few and which obeyed the
traditional rules of harmony, increase in number and are influenced by
the repercussion of the rising revolution. Certain ochres and blues,
which seemed forbidden to all eternity in a given cultural area, now
assert themselves without giving rise to scandal.

In the same way the stylisation of the human face, which according to
sociologists is typical of very clearly defined regions, becomes
suddenly completely relative. The specialist coming from the home
country and the ethnologist are quick to note these changes. On the
whole such changes are condemned in the name of a rigid code of artistic
style and of a cultural life which grows up at the heart of the colonial
system. The colonialist specialists do not recognise these new forms and
rush to the help of the traditions of the indigenous society.

It is the colonialists who become the defenders of the native style. We
remember perfectly, and the example took on a certain measure of
importance since the real nature of colonialism was not involved, the
reactions of the white jazz specialists when after the Second World War
new styles such as the be-bop took definite shape. The fact is that in
their eyes jazz should only be the despairing, broken-down nostalgia of
an old Negro who is trapped between five glasses of whisky, the curse of
his race, and the racial hatred of the white men.

As soon as the Negro comes to an understanding of himself, and
understands the rest of the world differently, when he gives birth to
hope and forces back the racist universe, it is clear that his trumpet
sounds more clearly and his voice less hoarsely. The new fashions in
jazz are not simply born of economic competition. We must without any
doubt see in them one of the consequences of the defeat, slow but sure,
of the southern world of the United States. And it is not utopian to
suppose that in fifty years' time the type of jazz howl hiccupped by a
poor misfortunate Negro will be upheld only by the whites who believe in
it as an expression of nigger-hood, and who are faithful to this
arrested image of a type of relationship.

We might in the same way seek and find in dancing, singing, and
traditional rites and ceremonies the same upward-springing trend, and
make out the same changes and the same impatience in this field. Well
before the political or fighting phase of the national movement an
attentive spectator can thus feel and see the manifestation of new
vigour and feel the approaching conflict. He will note unusual forms of
expression and themes which are fresh and imbued with a power which is
no longer that of invocation but rather of the assembling of the people,
a summoning together for a precise purpose.

Everything works together to awaken the native's sensibility and to make
unreal and inacceptable the contemplative attitude, or the acceptance of
defeat. The native rebuilds his perceptions because he renews the
purpose and dynamism of the craftsmen, of dancing and music and of
literature and the oral tradition. His world comes to lose its accursed
character. The conditions necessary for the inevitable conflict are
brought together.

We have noted the appearance of the movement in cultural forms and we
have seen that this movement and these new forms are linked to the state
of maturity of the national consciousness. Now, this movement tends more
and more to express itself objectively, in institutions. From thence
comes the need for a national existence, whatever the cost.

A frequent mistake, and one which is moreover hardly justifiable is to
try to find cultural expressions for and to give new values to native
culture within the framework of colonial domination. This is why we
arrive at a proposition which at first sight seems paradoxical: the fact
that in a colonised country the most elementary, most savage and the
most undifferentiated nationalism is the most fervent and efficient
means of defending national culture.

For culture is first the expression of a nation, the expression of its
preferences, of its taboos and of its patterns. It is at every stage of
the whole of society that other taboos, values and patterns are formed.
A national culture is the sum total of all these appraisals; it is the
result of internal and external extensions exerted over society as a
whole and also at every level of that society. In the colonial
situation, culture, which is doubly deprived of the support of the
nation and of the state, falls away and dies. The condition for its
existence is therefore national liberation and the renaissance of the
state.

The nation is not only the condition of culture, its fruitfulness, its
continuous renewal, and its deepening. It is also a necessity. It is the
fight for national existence which sets culture moving and opens to it
the doors of creation. Later on it is the nation which will ensure the
conditions and framework necessary to culture. The nation gathers
together the various indispensable elements necessary for the creation
of a culture, those elements which alone can give it credibility,
validity, life and creative power.

In the same way it is its national character that will make such a
culture open to other cultures and which will enable it to influence and
permeate other cultures. A non-existent culture can hardly be expected
to have bearing on reality, or to influence reality. The first necessity
is the re-establishment of the nation in order to give life to national
culture in the strictly biological sense of the phrase.

Thus we have followed the break-up of the old strata of culture, a
shattering which becomes increasingly fundamental; and we have noticed,
on the eve of the decisive conflict for national freedom, the renewing
of forms of expression and the rebirth of the imagination. There remains
one essential question: what are the relations between the struggle -
whether political or military - and culture? Is there a suspension of
culture during the conflict? Is the national struggle an expression of a
culture? Finally, ought one to say that the battle for freedom, however
fertile a posteriori with regard to culture, is in itself a negation of
culture? In short is the struggle for liberation a cultural phenomenon
or not?

We believe that the conscious and organised undertaking by a colonised
people to re-establish the sovereignty of that nation constitutes the
most complete and obvious cultural manifestation that exists. It is not
alone the success of the struggle which afterwards gives validity and
vigour to culture; culture is not put into cold storage during the
conflict.

The struggle itself in its development and in its internal progression
sends culture along different paths and traces out entirely new ones for
it. The struggle for freedom does not give back to the national culture
its former value and shapes; this struggle which aims at a fundamentally
different set of relations between men cannot leave intact either the
form or the content of the people's culture. After the conflict there is
not only the disappearance of colonialism but also the disappearance of
the colonised man.

This new humanity cannot do otherwise than define a new humanism both
for itself and for others. It is prefigured in the objectives and
methods of the conflict. A struggle which mobilises all classes of the
people and which expresses their aims and their impatience, which is not
afraid to count almost exclusively on the people's support, will of
necessity triumph. The value of this type of conflict is that it
supplies the maximum of conditions necessary for the development and
aims of culture.

After national freedom has been obtained in these conditions, there is
no such painful cultural indecision which is found in certain countries
which are newly independent, because the nation by its manner of coming
into being and in the terms of its existence exerts a fundamental
influence over culture. A nation which is born of the people's concerted
action and which embodies the real aspirations of the people while
changing the state cannot exist save in the expression of exceptionally
rich forms of culture.

The natives who are anxious for the culture of their country and who
wish to give to it a universal dimension ought not therefore to place
their confidence in the single principle of inevitable, undifferentiated
independence written into the consciousness of the people in order to
achieve their task. The liberation of the nation is one thing; the
methods and popular content of the fight are another. It seems to me
that the future of national culture and its riches are equally also part
and parcel of the values which have ordained the struggle for freedom.

And now it is time to denounce certain pharisees. National claims, it is
here and there stated, are a phase that humanity has left behind. It is
the day of great concerted actions, and retarded nationalists ought in
consequence to set their mistakes aright. We, however, consider that the
mistake, which may have very serious consequences, lies in wishing to
skip the national period. If culture is the expression of national
consciousness, I will not hesitate to affirm that in the case with which
we are dealing it is the national consciousness which is the most
elaborate form of culture.

The consciousness of self is not the closing of a door to communication.
Philosophic thought teaches us, on the contrary, that it is its
guarantee. National consciousness, which is not nationalism, is the only
thing that will give us an international dimension. This problem of
national consciousness and of national culture takes on in Africa a
special dimension. The birth of national consciousness in Africa has a
strictly contemporaneous connexion with the African consciousness.

The responsibility of the African as regards national culture is also a
responsibility with regard to African-Negro culture. This joint
responsibility is not the fact of a metaphysical principle but the
awareness of a simple rule which wills that every independent nation in
an Africa where colonialism is still entrenched is an encircled nation,
a nation which is fragile and in permanent danger.

If man is known by his acts, then we will say that the most urgent thing
today for the intellectual is to build up his nation. If this building
up is true, that is to say if it interprets the manifest will of the
people and reveals the eager African peoples, then the building of a
nation is of necessity accompanied by the discovery and encouragement of
universalising values. Far from keeping aloof from other nations,
therefore, it is national liberation which leads the nation to play its
part on the stage of history. It is at the heart of national
consciousness that international consciousness lives and grows. And this
two-fold emerging is ultimately the source of all culture.