Fanon’s thoughts were shaped by his experiences in the colonial world and the Cold War era’s political dynamics. However, the end of the Cold War led to the creation of a unipolar world international solidarity remains a far cry as global superpowers continue to dominate the global institutions. He envisioned the emergence of a world system of Third-World nations - based on the twin pillars of national unity and international solidarity (Bhabha, 2005, p. Fanon, furthermore, warns of the vacuity of national consciousness that could easily lead to a regression from state to a tribe - inhibiting the development of national unity. In The Wretched of the Earth, Fanon also puts forth his critique of the Manichaean world system in the Cold War era, the abolition of which - he deemed - would usher in a new age of ‘postcolonial humanism’ in the former colonies. Fanon, who treated both Arab natives and French policemen, makes a counterargument in his book: It was instead the colonial structure of the Algerian society that engendered violent behaviours and psychological disorders in both colonised and coloniser (Nicholls, n.d.). These theories deemed the violent outbursts of the native patients as pathological problems - results of their supposed innate savagery. Working under the colonial medical structure, Fanon realised how the psychiatric theories of that time were biased against the people of colour. In Algeria, the revolutionary struggle for independence was in full swing at that period. Fanon’s interactions with patients suffering from psychotic disorders provided the intellectual impetus for him to develop theories on colonial psychoanalytic practices - kick-starting his journey of a revolutionary philosopher (Leander, 2014).įirst published in 1961, Fanon’s seminal work The Wretched of the Earth - which remains a source of inspiration for many freedom-struggles on earth and the focus of this essay - is the product of his accumulated insights in French-occupied Algeria, where he emigrated to practice psychiatry. The horrors of the Second World War profoundly influenced him and inspired him to switch his career path to psychiatry.

He fought for the French Army in the Second World War in the African continent and gained first-hand experience of racism and colonialism in action.

Born as the descendant of a slave, under the French colonial yoke in the Caribbean Island of Martinique, Fanon began his illustrious career as a soldier. One of the earliest postcolonial theorists, the Afro-Caribbean philosopher Frantz Fanon (1925- 1961) made profound philosophical contributions to the freedom struggles of the colonised people around the globe.

The wretched of the world