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Got this beautiful behemoth in the mail this weekend. I've only read a few bits so far but it's full of really interesting and valuable pieces.
Fanon's letter to Shari'ati shocked me, though: he expressly set himself up as opposed to liberatory anticolonial Islam, (1/6)
Fanon's letter to Shari'ati shocked me, though: he expressly set himself up as opposed to liberatory anticolonial Islam, (1/6)
viewing it (rather ignorantly, in my opinion) as necessarily tending towards reaction, diverting the liberated nation "closer to its past" than "to its ideal future". Now, Fanon wasn't Muslim, so one wouldn't expect him to view Islam in the same light or as having the same (2/6)
capacity as did Shari'ati, but, given his experiences in Algeria and intimate knowledge of the psychology of numerous Algerian Muslims committed to the liberation of their country, and his general intelligence and intellect, I found it very surprising to read how skeptical, (3/6)
albeit nevertheless supportive, he was of the project of Shari'ati and other Islamic revolutionaries of Iran to liberate Iran from Western colonialism using Islam as a guiding force. Judging from both the letter and from his other works (e.g. The Wretched of the Earth), (4/6)
it's obvious that this skepticism didn't give way to outright hostility towards Islam, nor to disbelief in its ability to aid in achieving the decolonial result, but he did characterize himself as ultimately opposed to it, and I hadn't expected this. My own ideas are still (5/6)
very much influenced by those of Fanon, but I think this exchange showcases well how many on the decolonial left tend to flatten and simplify Fanon's beliefs on decolonization and anti-imperialism into a suite of more palatable beliefs that don't accurately reflect his own (6/6).
In any case, I'm very excited to delve more deeply into the generally-overlooked essays and articles and reports and journal entries collected in this book, and to not only learn more from Fanon, but learn more about him and the nuances of his ideas and experiences.
