Fanon, Fugitive Theory and De-Coloniality as a Path to Liberation

Post-Colonial Theory
Erasmus University College
Myrthe van der Staay (526414)
23-06-2021











Introduction
The aim of post-colonial theory is to understand the consequences of colonialism beyond the superficial realms of economic and political impact, but rather works through the discursive and ideological level from the perspective of the colonized (Young, 2001, p. 18, 20). In line with this tradition, Frantz Fanon's landmark book Peau Noire, Masques Blancs (1952) explores the existential experience of racialized subjectivity and the impact of colonial rule from a psychological and phenomenological perspective. For Fanon, colonialism is a total project, meaning that it leaves no realm of life untouched, including inner psychological dimensions of the relations of self-to-self and self-to-others (Drabinski, 2019, §1.4).
In a nutshell, in Peau Noire, Masques Blancs (1952) Fanon asserts that black subject is locked into blackness caused by the white man’s gaze. Consequently the black subject has no ontological existence and is locked into a zone of non-being, a hell, in which the black subject is confronted with this inescapable condition in a fundamentally anti-black world (Fanon, pp. 82-83, (Drabinski, 2019, §1.3). In the important fifth chapter, L’expérience vécue du Noir, Fanon describes the ‘lived experience’ of blackness and the consequential inferiority complex. Although Fanon attempts to deploy “rational” and “irrational” mechanisms that could liberate the black man from the white gaze, neither offer a real solution (Fanon, 1952, p.101). Fanon’s analysis and consequent failed attempt to reconcile the faith of the black man has left the academic field divided on what the implications of Fanon’s analysis are.
This essay will investigate the interpretation of Fanon as one of the founding fathers of Afropessimism as articulated by Frank Wilderson III and Jared Sexton, and that as an inspiration for fugitive theory as articulated by Fred Moten and Stefano Harney. Afterwards, Fanon’s heritage in fugitive theory will be investigated as a tool in the practice of de-coloniality, a practice that almost 70 years since Peau Noire, Masques Blancs is yet to be completed.

Part I

An Afropessimist Reading of Fanon
Fanon (1952) closes the chapter L’expérience vécue du Noir with the words:

Yesterday, awakening to the world, I saw the sky turn upon itself utterly and wholly. I wanted to rise, but the disemboweled silence fell back upon me, its wings paralyzed.Without responsibility, straddling Nothingness and Infinity, I began to weep. (p.108).

The term afropessimism in the context of philosophy was first coined by Frank Wilderson III and is a theoretical lense that aims to lay bare the necessity of black death for the material and psychic life of human beings (Wekker, 2021, p.86). In similar vein to Fanon, afropessimism notes that the black subject is not regarded as human by the white, and different than Fanon, afropessimism goes further to state that the only function of the black subject is to affirm the humanity of the white and lend cohesion (Wekker, p.89) In addition, afropessimism aims to stress that black (and more specifically Afro-American) suffering is unique and cannot be linked to other contemporary forms of struggle as a consequence of colonialism and capitalism, such as the struggles of indigenous people, Palestinians, the working class, women and the LGBTIQ community (Wekker, pp.88-89). The core belief of Afro Pessimism is that the social death of black people, meaning being subjectless, propertyless, and rightless, is fundamental to the modern world (Wekker, p.89).
Although afropessism did not exist yet as a lens at the time of writing of Fanon, for many afropessimist scholars Fanon serves as an inspiration for their thought. For Jared Sexton, the value of Fanon’s analysis in Peau Noire, Masques Blancs, which is also underscribed by Fanon’s closing sentences in L’expérience vécue du Noir, is that Fanon fully accepts the definition of the black subject as pathological regardless of time, space and morality (Sexton, 2016, p,27). Aware of the world that knows itself through this very imposition, a world that is fundamentally antiblack, Fanon’s affirmation recognizes that something so fundamental cannot be changed. Instead, Fanon accepts his blackness, his pathological being, and accepts to live life under what Sexton calls “the shadow of social death” (p.27). In abandoning the mission to be regarded as an equal, or even a human, Fanon remains in the zone of non-being, inhabits it, and pays whatever social cost there is to being black, refusing to pretend to be otherwise (Sexton, p.27). Although for Sexton this stance is an active stance, Sexton also regards that there is effectively nothing that can be done to escape this faith. For Sexton, Fanon correctly recognizes that there is no escape from being black in a world that is antiblack.
A critique of Afropessimism is that it presents an unshakeable irreconcilable division of the world without space for rethinking (Wekker, 2021, p.90). Rather, as Gloria Wekker points out, ‘nothing is asked of Black people other than to be Black’ (p.93). Afropessimism does not pay any attention to how to transcend an anti-black world. The “active” affirmation of blackness that Sexton recognizes in Fanon does not practically translate to anything (politically) active, and even inhibits political action. The harsh division of black people (or rather afro-americans as Sexton’s and Wilderson’s analysis is centered on the U.S.) and the rest extinguishes all possibilities of alliances between other black activist communities and solidarity across struggles (Wekker, p.90, p.94). The lack of intersectionality in afropessimism further problematizes the discourse as it inhibits the analysis of struggles simultaneously (Wekker, p.87). In addition, Angela Davis also points out that the stress of afropessimism on anti-black racism also centers black people as the main group suffering from racism, neglecting other groups targeted by racism and hinting towards a black nationalism. For Davis, this is less effective than an intersectional, collaborative, global anti-imperialist movement that actively works on changing the system that lies at the root of these struggles (Wekker, p.94).

A Fugitive Reading of Fanon
Right before the closing sentences of L’expérience vécue du Noir, Fanon (1952) writes:
The crippled veteran of the Pacific war says to my brother, ‘Resign yourself to your color the way I got used to my stump; we’re both victims.’ Nevertheless with all my strength I refuse to accept that amputation. I feel in myself a soul as immense as the world, truly a soul as deep as the deepest of rivers, my chest has the power to expand without limit. (pp.107-108).
Contrary to the crippled veteran, Fanon refuses to accept his black skin as an amputation. Rather, Fanon seems to imply that this very “amputation” is an opening to a “power to expand without limit.” The latter interpretation is also one underscribed by Fred Moten. Moten, just like Sexton, recognizes that Fanon identifies himself as pathological, but their visions diverge as Moten recognizes that Fanon is also a psychiatrist, and that beyond the romantic identification with the pathological lies the psychopathologist that ventures into the dead space, the zone of non-being, to understand and attempt reanimation (Moten, 2008, p. 208). For Fanon, the colonized are reduced to a group that owe their existence to the presence of the colonizer and nothing else. Fanon, aware of this conundrum, consequently hints to whether something is still possible from such a place. Could resistance be born from there? Could this resistance overcome the pathological? (Moten, p.208). For Moten, Fanon’s take on the lived experience of blackness is essentially that of a fugitive. By recognizing that being black means non-being, yet refusing to be otherwise, Fanon becomes a fugitive. The essential difference with Sexton’s socially dead is that the fugitive still holds the power to bring about a change in the real world, albeit coming from the underworld of the fugitives (Moten, p. 211). Moten regards that Fanon’s blackness makes him ‘an anticolonial smuggler whose wares are constituted by and as the dislocation of black social life that he carries, almost unaware’. (Moten, p.211). What he carries is an imagining thing that is not quite clear or controllable, but escaping and thus alive, ‘seen in this light, black(ness) is, in the dispossessive richness of its colors, beautiful.’. (Moten, p.212). The essential difference between Afropessism and the proposition of fugitivity in Moten, then, is really whether Fanon’s assertion of blackness can be regarded as a political possibility (Marriott, 2018, p.200). Both schools of thought agree that Fanon recognizes the implications of blackness and refrains from articulating a tangible solution to exit the zone of non-being. For Sexton and Wilderson this conclusion is final and in their contemporary work, regard the zone on non-being as an inevitable end station. Moten, however, does not require a tangible solution from Fanon. All he needs is a window, an ambiguity, an ambivalence, to turn the zone of non-being into a place from which resistance can be born (Marriott, pp. 200-201). Moten is not an optimist, rather Moten aims to escape the binaries of pessimism/optimism, colonialism/postcolonialism amongst others, as these binaries already hold a teleological determination of what the future should bring (Shulman, 2020, p.13). Through refusal Moten foregrounds improvisation to reach a world that is yet to be determined. Moten’s transvaluation of social death means the reimagination of blackness and its opportunities (Shulman, p.11,13).

Part II

Fugitive Theory in Harney and Moten
According to Moten, Fanon’s anticolonial stance and effort throughout his life was not to end colonialism, but to end the standpoint from which colonialism makes sense. In order to do so, Fanon tried to speak truth to power, but lost. To combat colonialism according to Moten & Harney ‘one has to inhabit the crazy, nonsensical, ranting language of the other, the other who has been rendered a nonentity by colonialism’ (Halbestam, 2013, p.8). Rather than exiting the zone of non-being, Moten & Harney advocate to enter this space and discover depths of common impasse to regain resilience and regeneration (Shulman, 2020, p.279). This space of the undercommons, as Harney and Moten call it, is a space and time which is always here. Rather than a space to rebel or critique, it begins with ‘the right to refuse what has been refused to you’ (Halberstam, p.8), and the, taking the troubles by the root, deconstructing the very logic that refused you in the first place (Halberstam, pp.8-9).
This is not to say that the aim of the undercommons is a repair of the past. Rather the undercommons figures as a space to make common cause with the brokenness of being, embracing brokenness the undercommons aims to transform debt into a principle of liberation (Halberstam, 2013, p.5). It is important to mention that this liberation cannot be reached through recognition and acknowledgement as it aims to “repair’ something that is irreparable (Halberstam, p.6). Seeking recognition and acknowledgement is futile and self-defeating given that modern nation states have been built upon racial domination. Instead, theory and practice should move beyond formal Western politics (Shulman, 2020, p.5). For Harney and Moten this deconstruction is possible through fugitivity and its consequent informal practices of mutual aid and collaborative improvisation (Halberstam, p.6; Shulman, p.7). To do so, Harney and Moten, stress the importance of intersectionality and that “tearing this shit down” can only be reached if there is the realization that current oppressive structures are not only bad for the marginalised groups such as black people and people of color, women, LGBTIQ people, but for all of us (Halberstam, p.10).
The seemingly paradoxical thesis of regenerative creation from the condition of blackness is what Harney & Moten also refer to as “fantasy in the hold”. For Harney & Moten the hold, or the inescapable bind of blackness, and the survival and flourishing from the perspective of this hold is inseparably linked to fantasy (Shulman, 2020, p.10). To illustrate what they mean by this they (ironically enough) use Kant, one of the founding fathers of modernity, who regards that imagination, in all its freedom, produces nothing but nonsense, and therefore rationality is reached by blackening imagination. Reversing this logic Harney and Moten argue that it is this nonsense that is essential to conceive an outside beyond modernity (Shulman, p.10). There is nothing “wrong” with blackness, in the same sense that there is nothing wrong with for instance queerness. What is supposedly wrong, is only wrong because it is resistant, wild and ungovernable (Shulman, p.11).

The potential of fugitive theory in de-linking Coloniality and Modernity
The “irrationality” in fugitive theory is essential in order to move beyond modernity. For Walter Mignolo modernity and coloniality are two sides of the same coin. The ideological project of modernity in practice has meant that one notion of an ideal society and man has been forced upon the world with coloniality as a consequence (Mignolo, 2007, p.459). Only by moving against the current of modernity, the constant reproduction of coloniality can be halted (Mignolo, p.450). Hence, considering modernity started in the minds of Machiavelli, Hobbes and Kant amongst others, it is also only in the mind where, not post-coloniality, but de-coloniality can start. Post-coloniality is a project of scholarly transformation initiated by writers such as Edward Said and Hommi Bhabha. De-coloniality on the other hand aims to de-link coloniality and modernity through radical political and epistemological shifts as articulated by authors such as Frantz Fanon, Amiliar Cabral, and Gloria Anzaldúa (Mignolo, p. 452). De-linking leads to an epistemic shift that brings forward other epistemologies, other notions on an ideal society, on politics, on ethics. Rather than the totalizing universality of modernity, de-linking leads to pluri-versality as a universal project (Mignolo, p.453). In the pursuit of this goal fugitive theory functions as a tool for de-linking practices. As opposed to modernity and its contemporary formal politics, fugitive practice promotes engagement and decolonial practices through informal democratic processes (Shulman, 2020, p.28). Moving beyond boundaries Moten essentially imagines the work done in the Undercommons similar to the creation of jazz. Jazz ensemble and collective improvisation holds suffering but consequently creates aesthetic and social relief. In praxis, fugitive democracy then is not a question of justice or reparation but an active register for informal politics departing from grief and refusal and into creative transfiguration (Shulman, p.31).

Conclusion
Before Fanon accepts the zone of non-being at the end of L’expérience vécue du Noir he touches upon diction and racial embodiment. As an attempt to escape the black skin, a black man could sound perfectly like a white man and be accepted as one through mastery of diction. Yet, to be black and speak with perfect diction whilst being black, is still met with surprise and thus a reminder of the inferior character of the black man (Fanon, 1952, p.85). This idea of “emancipation” through the effort to be regarded as white is in fact alienation from blackness (Drabinski, 2019, §1.5). In addition, emancipation is a concept that originates from the European enlightenment and universalist conceptions of mankind, and consequently perpetuates a logic of coloniality (Mignolo, 2007, pp.454-455). Liberation on the other hand, just as decoloniality, de-links from the current matrix of power whether violently or epistemologically (Mignolo, p.455). Fanon closes Peau Noire, Masques Blancs (1952) with the affirmation that the black man is not bound to history, are not slaves of the past, and therefore any future is possible through liberation. The start of the path to this liberation is born in the mind of those who dare to question (p.206).
In conclusion, Fanon laid bare the consequences of colonialism beyond the surface level and articulated the notion of blackness and the consequent zone of non-being. For afropessimists Fanon’s analysis is definitive and impossible to overcome. Fugitive theory, on the other hand, refuses to regard the zone of non-being as an end station and rather declares this place as the departure point for transcendence and liberation through informal collaborative “politics”. Consequently, in line with Fanon, this decolonization, which is sensitive and precise, has to start in the mind. Through the de-linking of modernity and coloniality, the improvisational jazz of Harney and Moten in the hold carves out an unexpected path to a liberated future.

References

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Harney, S., & Moten, F. (2013). The undercommons: Fugitive planning and black study.

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Sexton, J. (2016). The social life of social death: On Afro-pessimism and Black optimism. Time, Temporality and Violence in International Relations, 61-75.

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