The colonizer constructs colonized peoples as ‘lazy’ and ‘unproductive,’ thereby justifying low wages or coercive systems of labor. The rich history and institutions of the indigenous population are physically and symbolically destroyed, and in their place the colonizer produces a people who deserve only to be ruled. Instead, the colonizer claims to ‘know’ the colonized, but this knowledge “betrays a determination to objectify, to confine, to imprison, to harden” (Fanon 1968a: 34). It is also the separation of colonized peoples from their individuality and culture:īecause it is a systematic negation of the other person and a furious determination to deny the other person all attributes of humanity, colonialism forces the people it dominates to ask themselves the question constantly: “In reality, who am I?” (Fanon 1968b: 250).Ĭolonized peoples are denied the opportunity to know themselves. ![]() It is that other being in whom the meaning of his life is condensed (Fanon 1967: 216f).Ĭolonialism is not simply the economic exploitation and political domination of the periphery by the capitalist core. It is on that other being, on recognition by that other being, that his own human worth and reality depend. As long as he has not been effectively recognized by the other, that other will remain the theme of his actions. Man is human only to the extent to which he tries to impose his existence on another man in order to be recognized by him. Our humanity is a function of being recognized by others in a social relationship: Fanon’s social theory asserts that race, like class, is a denial of our species-being. Alienation is an inescapable feature of capitalism, in which capitalist control of the means of production condemns the vast majority of the population to sell their labor power in a relation of exploitation rather than having our productive activity reflect our essential humanity, we are converted into ‘workers’ who produce surplus value for capitalists. As alienated beings our productive abilities are organized and appropriated by others, and in this way we are incapable of expressing our humanity. His theory’s grounding in the Algerian national liberation struggle4 gives it added relevance.įanon’s social theory extends Marx’s concept of alienation to the analysis of how race is constructed and reproduced within colonialism.5 For Marx, alienation represents the systematic denial of species-being, our fundamental nature as social beings that produce the material and social conditions of our existence (Marx 1964). ![]() Fanon’s theorization of global capitalism as both a racial and a class system is especially valuable for understanding the Iraq war in all its complexity. Using the insights of Frantz Fanon, I will examine US discourse of ‘the enemy’ in its invasion and occupation of Iraq. The status of colonial subject, of being ‘known’ by the colonizer, simultaneously enforced and rationalized the colonial power’s dominance of indigenous populations, thereby giving imperialism a fundamental racial dimension. A major component of this violence was the collection of cultural images and themes by which colonized people came to be known by the colonial power. ![]() The ‘white man’s burden,’ in its 19th-century expression, involved extraordinary violence, at times reaching the level of genocide, against its supposed beneficiaries. In setting for itself this ‘civilizing’ mission, however, the US demonstrates just how ‘uncivilized’ it is. US policy elites have presented the Iraq war as benign: as an important step ensuring the spread of capitalist markets, democracy, human rights, and individual liberties to less fortunate regions.3 They see the US as bearing what was once called the ‘white man’s burden’ of bringing civilization to the darker corners of the world. Unfortunately, the racialized nature of imperialism has received less attention. As a result, the left critique of the war, at least within the academy, has focused on the political-economic aspects of imperialism, emphasizing either the specific sectors of capital that have benefited from the war (such as oil companies and the military-industrial complex) or the significance of Middle Eastern oil for the United States and its competitors. In this context, the Iraq war represents an attempt to solidify the global hegemony of US-led neoliberalism. The invasion of Iraq by the United States has been correctly seen by the left as an expression of US imperialism.1 In the period after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the United States was freed of the political and military constraints on its exercise of global power, such as they were, that the Soviet Union once offered.2 The United States has sought to make full use of this opportunity to demonstrate to allies, potential competitors (e.g., China), and ‘rogue states’ alike that it will not allow any state to challenge its position as the sole global superpower.
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