Fanon actually talks about the role that radicalized settlers can play in the decolonial struggle. The settler can smuggle weapons to the colonized or hide fugitives in her residence because she isn’t going to be searched by the colonial occupation. Nothing to see here, just an ordinary French citizen!
Settlers is much more pessimistic, seeing settlers as inherently untrustworthy because of their material relation to colonialism. It essentially forecloses on the idea of settlers class traitors.
I think the events of the last 96 hours adequately justifies the utter lack of faith in the western settler, frankly; between exit polls and all of the “enjoy deportation” said settlers have been posting to all corners of the internet.
:this:
All criticism of settlers is basically “not all men” for white leftists.
There’s a big jump to “inherently” while immediately noting the very real material conditions that lead settlers to behave a certain way. It’s not saying white settlers are inherently anything, it’s correctly pointing out that have a material position that is exploited by capital and that only settlers themselves can deal with that and to do that you have to acknowledge it as a real problem.
Settlers are still settlers, yeah.
Fanon’s point was that settlers can be reached by the decolonial struggle and join it. I’m reading Huey P. Newton’s biography right now and he actually has a similar observation about white radicals. The danger, of course, is that settlers will take over the struggle and sheepdog it into electoralism. I think the true role of settlers in the decolonial struggle must be subordinate to the colonized.
Not even just settlers, plenty of Black folks coming out with similar takes about Palestinians and Arabs, someone posted abunch of screenshots of comments about buying Starbucks and not feeling guilty about funding the genocide because Arab voters didn’t get Kamala in office. The settlerfication has taken root deep into even colonized subjects, not even just the bourgeois comprador strata as it was when Fanon was writing about them.
“Skin folk aren’t kinfolk” right? Westoids, regardless of skin color, won’t support the liberation of the global south. Those few living in the west that do support the global south and can see past privilege don’t have 1 kind of skin color.
They (poc that wanted kamala to win and resorted to throwing immigrants and Palestinians under the bus) want to be part of the club so bad.
The only thing keeping my optimism in check regarding this hellhole of a nation is that the Black Excellence™ crowd will one day get burned badly enough by the crackers to remember the faces of their mothers tbh; I think I’d hit a point of terminal jokerfication if that fell through too
Just playing devils advocate here, but at least Kamala’s anti-immigrant campaign lost and only a max of 2/3 USians support it.
Devil’s advocacy recognized: my response runs something to the lines of finding that somewhat hollow comfort when both wings of the duopoly are treading anti-immigrant planks as we speak; and 2/3s of the country is still a whole fucking lot of settlers– even those settlers against anti-immigration policy could be interpreted as ghoulishly knowing where their produce comes from and who staffs their construction lots-- and these settler ghouls cynically know they’re not gonna go replace them.
Tbf under the Settlers model a lot of the 1/3 that didn’t vote are internally colonised people, not considered settlers themselves
Is it not in the Bourgeois’ material interest to support capitalism, regardless if there are bourgeois class traitors?
Fanon doesn’t go into the distinctions, per se, but I have my own.
Being bourgeois is always a choice and they can stop being bourgeois any time they want. Some are born into their material relations by inheritance, of course, but any business owner can get a real job whenever they want or could give up their ownership of the means of production to their workforce. Being bourgeois is not just something they are, it’s something they choose to do.
Settlers, by contrast, can only stop being settlers if they leave the settler colony. The ones that migrated obviously can just go back home, but what about their children? For a settler born on the settlement, being a settler is something they are and was never something they chose to do. If the child of settlers wants to stop being a settler, the only choice is to become a traitor.
I think that puts settlement-born-settlers into a distinct material position that can’t be related to being bourgeois.
I’ve been reading both Settlers and Wretched of the Earth since last week and it jokerfied me. Now that the election has passed I keep thinking about the US calling Venezuelans election illegitimate a couple months ago meanwhile my ballot has still not been counted.
The journey of knowledge isn’t about reading a bunch of “correct” books. Read anything and everything, critically, and take what knowledge you can. Sakai’s work isn’t as useful as Fanon’s imo but I definitely got something out of it.
Read anything and everything, critically, and take what knowledge you can.
Didn’t realize all the erotic Sonic the Hedgehog fanfics I read were part of my political education.
Fanon will teach you the theory of hating crackers, Sakai will teach you the praxis.
why read fanon when you can watch dune
well, dune is, like, fiction and one of the colonizers allows himself to be considered a god to the colonized
Can’t afford him; there’s a…Fanon tax
