Essence and Existence
XI
3rd November, 1999
By Franz J. T. Lee
(A new class commences. Prof.
Coseino introduces the topic: Racism, Ideology, Philosophy, within
the context of "Essence a n d Existence", related to African
Philosophy, with special reference to the Martiniquean psychiatrist and Algerian
revolutionary militant, Frantz Omar Fanon. Thereafter, the discussion
fervently unfolds itself. )
Coseino: In my introduction, I have dealt with the ideological concept "race", and its implications in such terms as "racism" or "racial prejudice"; its historic origin; its meaning after the bourgeois-democratic capitalist revolution, and its sublimation in Negritude and the African liberation movement, especially in West and South Africa.
Adam: Please, explain to us the ideological Relation between Capitalism and Racism.
Coseino: I indicated that Social Discrimination , generated by the patrian labour process, as third element of its quintessence, is nothing else than the superstructural ideological reflection of the "international division of labour", of the World Market, and that in reality, in nuce, it appears as Racism on a global scale. I emphasized that Capitalism and Racism are two sides of the same exploitative and dominant alienating process, of Labour.
There is no Capitalism without Racism, there exists no Racism without Capitalism. To emancipate oneself from Capitalism one has to eliminate Racism, to liberate oneself from Racism, one has to annihilate Capitalism.
Albert: Are all lovers of capitalism, who want to make here and there some "face-lifts" of the system, logically also "racists"?
Coseino: A very delicate question. Yet, it must be asked by anybody someday, and must be answered very clearly, without any chills, thrills or frills!
Who affirms the status quo, who only essentially wants to change the everlasting system from within, in other words, who only desires to reform Capitalism, no matter what (s)he claims or how innocent (s)he might seem to be, (s)he simply also affirms the very existing capitalist superstructure, its Racism; de facto, whether (s)he knows it or not, (s)he simply "thinks" like a Racist, is a Capitalist Being, a racist, capitalist "Human Being" per se. (S)he should not try eviternally to have her/his racist, capitalist cake, and then still want to devour all of it hic et nunc, by stating that (s)he categorically is not a racist, not a capitalist. So easily the brutal dialectics between Racism and Capitalism cannot be "ideologized" and "formal-logicalized" away! As we will see later, according to Fanon, exactly these "roots", this capitalist, racist identification, identity, is the curing trampoline towards self-knowledge, to self-emancipation.
Karl: What has Racism got to do with the colonized "Human Being", whom Sartre refers to in his Introduction to Frantz Fanon's "Wretched of the Earth"?
Coseino: I also indicated that within this historic context, the "colonized" world received its concept of a "human being"; Aristotle, Voltaire, Montesquieu, Sartre, introducing Fanon, and Fanon himself, had confirmed, that Europe never ever had dreamt of even considering, that a "colonized" should be part and parcel of the sonorous species homo sapiens, sapiens, Man, the Human Being! Not even Senghor, Honoured Member of the French Academy, could ever lose his "Kaffir" identity, this inferior "underdog-complex"!
This has nothing to do with individual European, Nigerian or Afro-Guyanese attitudes, with the so-called "exceptions to the rule"; this concerns the iron rule, the intrinsic element of Labour, of Capital; it refers to Racism, to Apartheid, to Social Discrimination.
Also, in my introductory lecture, referring to our central philosophic
theme, I have explained "Conscience and Consciousness", that is, the relevance
of Hegel and Sartre for Fanon's views, concerning the development of a New
Psychology of Colonial Relationships, his ideas about Psychiatry and the Nature
of Therapy. I am sure that you all have read and studied Les Damnés de la terre , "The
Wretched of the Earth",
Peau noire, masques blancs ,"Black Skin, White Masks", and Pour la révolution africaine, "For
the African Revolution", hence we will only synthesize these works. Today,
in all probability, we can only deal with "Black
Skin, White Masks", but we will continue with the "Wretched" next week.
But, Irene, how about introducing Fanon to us? Also, please, explain to us Fanon's problems with "racism", and his search for identity, for his "roots".
Irene: Renate and I have studied the life of Fanon; if I should overlook anything relevant, she surely would come to the rescue. We will make it "short and sweet"! As such was his life! His biography is fascinating indeed, let me relate the story.
FRANTZ OMAR FANON, the West Indian Psychoanalyst and Social Philosopher, was born in 1925 in French Martinique, and he died on December 6, 1961, in Washington, D. C. In his youth, he received his basic education in Martinique and France. During the European World War II, alongside with Senghor, he was serving in the French Army; later he completed his studies in medicine at the University of Lyon. Then he left for Algeria, where, between 1953 and 1956, he directed the Psychiatry Department of the Hospital Blida-Joinville.
Karl: When did his political engagement in the Algerian liberation movement begin?
Renate: Exactly at that time. In 1954 he joined the liberation movement, and two years later he became Editor-In-Chief of its famous newspaper, El Moudjahid, published in Tunis.
Irene: Thanks, Renate. Thereafter a rebel "Provisional Government" was formed, and in 1960, Fanon became its Ambassador to Ghana. Now, because they belong to his short biography, let me make some remarks about his two major works, written between 1952 and 1961. Peau noire, masques blancs (1952; Black Skin, White Masks) reflects his personal frustrations with colonial discrimination, with racism. In his early youth, Fanon came to the conclusion that he should know, should understand himself, his essence, as he is, as the world sees him. This is why he became a writer, a writer of essence, a science writer.
Karl: Folks, that's me! I always said that I have something in common with Frantz Fanon!
Irene: Okay, Karl.
There is more to this. He wanted to write down, to understand the absurdities
and possibilities of rationalization of the world in which he lived. For
him, science writing was a form of Action, the Relation Praxis a n
d Theory.
He wanted not only to communicate to others, but he also wanted to communicate
the possibility of their common experience.
Renate: And, precisely in this process, he was confronted with Global and Globalized Social Discrimination, with Racism. As Martiniquean, "whitened" by bare- and pale-faced French Colonialism, but stark "black" in the blue aristocratic eyes of the colonizer, but also in the brown hateful eyes of the colonized, he wanted to analyse psychologically, ideologically, the roots of this evil, of Racism, and develop a real, revolutionary, emancipating panacea against this social plight of (wo)mankind.
Irene: When Fanon reached the age of 27, he published Peau noire, masques blancs, and his world outlook had already transcended simple human relationships, the simple explanation of isolated events. His philosophic thought became more complex, more complicated, more theoretical; this was the only way to grasp universal social and colonial complexities. I wish that we could learn this from him, to eradicate our intellectual slackness, our mental concreteness, our fear of "ivory-tower" philosophy, once and for all. In spite of everything, of his arduous psychiatric work, his revolutionary struggle, Fanon was thinking, which is no Sunday afternoon window-shopping spree, was studying Hegel's " Phenomenology of the Mind" and Sartre's "Being and Nothingness". We have no excuse whatsoever not to do likewise, and to begin to philosophize ourselves. What were the precognitive, cognitive and retrocognitive philosophic results of his intellectual and rational endeavours? Renate, please, proceed!
Renate: His book is an exposé of Fanon's "past", of the history of colonization, and he came to the conclusion, arriving at the vital question, whether it was possible, that in a revolutionary way, the "colonized", that all those like him, all those black skins, with white masks, could live in emancipated relations, could form historic disalienated relationships. His philosophic answer was a simple, straightforward YES a n d NO.
Coseino: To what other conclusions did Fanon come?
Irene: To come to this conclusion, the work posited a praxical solidarity of real sentiments among the "colonized"; it analysed their "false" identity, the falsified "roots" of their identity, and it underlined their capitalist exploitation and social deprivation. Fanon pointed out that the so-called individual exists in a social nexus, caught in an enormous WEB, which neither Marx nor Freud had, or could describe in its ultimate finesse. None of them, and many others, had concerned themselves with "blacks", with their "psyche", with their life conditions and problems. These dirty, stinking "pack animals" were simply not worth of any psychological or philosophical consideration; their "animal instincts" did not serve, neither for the use nor for the abuse of aristocratic or bourgeois "Philosophy".
Karl: What liberating method did Fanon suggest for urgent consideration?
Renate: A very simple,
but realistic one. He considered the relations between "colonized" and "colonizers"
as part of a rigid global system. To "unlock" them, he suggested a revolutionary
metamorphosis of these basic relations. This involved, individually, a constant
active and thinking process for recognition, based on
the achievement of a more developed form of thinking, of consciousness,
and to develop permanently new objectives of emancipation. Collectively,
he urged, that a new process of rediscovery should be launched, not influenced
by colonial education or history, that a revision and revaluation of one's
own past and that of all oppressed, dominated and discriminated classes
should be undertaken, and that ultimately a monstrous system would be discovered,
which has to be destroyed by all means necessary, including emancipatory
violence, in order to pave the road towards a new "(wo)man", who would be
conscious of him/herself, and who would assume a new emancipated identity.
Coseino: Thank you! Renate and Irene. Again, time is sabotaging our emancipating endeavours. we have to leave. Next time, we will continue with Part II: The Wretched of the Earth!
(Reluctantly, everybody leaves the aula magna, filled with rage towards Father Time.)