Grandeur and Weakness of Spontaneity – Frantz Fanon – The Wretched of the Earth.

This is an extensively edited reproduction of Frantz Fanon`s Chapter in his book The Wretched of the Earth. Reproduced here as a contribution to the students struggle and as a quick guide to the challenge facing students as they battle to deal with spontaneity and strategic action. () indicate where I have inserted words.

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The shanty town is the consecration of the colonized`s biological decision to invade the enemy citadel at all costs, and if need be, by the most underground channels.

These vagrants, these second-class citizens, find their way back to the nation thanks to their decisive militant action. The hopeless cases, all those men and women who fluctuate between madness and suicide, are restored to sanity, return to action and take their vital place in the great march of the nation on the move.

The outbreak o the insurrection in the towns modifies the nature of the struggle.

The leaders of the insurrection, observing the ardour and enthusiasm of the people as they deal decisive blows to the colonialist’s machine, become increasingly distrustful of traditional politics.

Hence in the initial phase the cult of spontaneity is triumphant.

Every colonized subject in arms represents a piece of the nation on the move.

During this period, spontaneity rules. Initiative rests with local areas.

We are dealing with a strategy of immediacy which is both all-embracing and radical. The objective, the program of every spontaneously formed group is liberation at a local level

Tactics and strategy merge. The art of politics is quite simply transformed into the art of war. The militant becomes the fighter. To wage war and to engage in politics are one and the same thing.

This dispossessed population, used to living in narrow cycle of conflict and rivalry, solemnly sets about cleansing and purifying the local face of the nation. In a state of genuine collective ecstasy rival families decide to wipe the slate clean and forget the past.

On their continuing road to self-discovery the people legislate and claim their sovereignty. Every component roused from its colonial slumber lives at boiling point.

Emissaries are despatched to the neighbouring tribes. Tribes well-known for their stubborn rivalry disarm amid rejoicing and tears and pledge their help and support.

The national circle widens and every new ambush signals the entry of new tribes.

This solidarity grows much stronger during the second period when the enemy offensive is launched…Colonial forces regroup.

The offensive throws the euphoria and idyll of the first phase into question. The enemy… concentrates large numbers of troops at precise locations. Local groups are swiftly overwhelmed, and all the more so because they first tend to tackle the fighting head on. The opportunism of the initial phase had made them intrepid, even rash. The group, who was persuaded their own mountain peak was the nation, refuses to pull back, and to beat a retreat is out of the question. Losses are considerable and the survivors are wracked by doubt. The local community endures the attack as a crucial test. It behaves literally as if the fate of the country were at stake at that very place and at that very moment.

But it soon becomes clear that this impetuous spontaneity, which is intent on rapidly settling its score with the colonial system, is destined to fail as a doctrine. A deeply pragmatic realism replaces yesterday`s jubilation and the illusion of eternity.

The basic instinct of survival calls for a more flexible, a more agile response.

In guerrilla warfare, in fact, you no longer fight on the spot but on the march. Every fighter carries the soil of the homeland to war between his bare toes.

No strategic position is given preference. The enemy thinks he is in pursuit but we always manage to come up behind him, attacking him at the very moment he least expects it. Now it is we who are in pursuit. Despite all his technology and firepower the enemy gives the impression he is floundering and losing ground. We never stop singing.

In the meantime, however, the leaders…realise that their units need enlightenment (and) instruction.

The leaders who fled the futile atmosphere of urban politics rediscover politics, no longer as a sleep inducing technique or a means of mystification, but as the sole means of fuelling the struggle and preparing the people for clear-sighted national leadership.

They discover that in order to succeed, the struggle must be based on clear set of objectives, a well-defined methodology and above all, the recognition by the masses of an urgent timetable. One can hold out for three days, three months at the most, using the masses pent up resentment, but one does not win a national war, one does not rout the formidable machine of the enemy or transform the individual if one neglects to raise the consciousness of the (people) in combat.

The enemy now modifies its tactics. To its brutal policy of repression it adds a judicious and spectacular combination of détente, divisive manoeuvres and psychological warfare.

The political education is now recognised as an historical necessity.

Antiracist racism and the determination to defend ones skin, which is characteristic of the colonized`s response to colonial oppression, clearly represent sufficient reasons to join the struggle. But one does not sustain a war, one does not endure massive repression or witness the disappearance of one`s entire family in order for hatred or racism to triumph.

These flashes of consciousness which fling the body into a zone of turbulence, which plunge it into a virtual pathological dreamlike state where the site of the other induces vertigo, where my blood calls for the blood of the other, where my death through mere inertia calls for the death of the other, this passionate outburst in the opening phase, disintegrates, if it is left to feed on itself. Of course the countless abuses perpetrated by the colonialist’s forces reintroduce emotional factors into the struggle, give the militant further cause to hate and new reasons to set off in search of a “colonialist to kill.” But day by day, leaders will come to realise that hatred is not an agenda.

During the struggle the colonists and the police force are instructed to modify their behaviour and “to become more human”. The colonized, who took up arms, not only because they were dying of hunger and witnessing the disintegration of their society but also because the colonists treated them like animals and considered them brutes, respond very favourably to such measures. These psychological devices defuse their hatred. Experts and sociologists are a guiding force behind these colonialist manoeuvres and conduct numerous studies on the subject of complexes – the complex of frustration, the complex of aggressiveness, and the complex of colonizability. The Colonized subject is upgraded, and attempts are made to disarm him psychologically and, naturally, with a few coins. 

These paltry measures and clever window dressing manage to achieve some success.

The violent, unanimous demands of the revolution, which once lit up the sky, now shrink to more modest proportions.

Once again, clarification is needed and the people have to realise where they are going and how to get there. The war is not one battle but a succession of local struggles, none of which, is in fact, decisive.

There is therefore a need to save ones strength and not waste it by throwing everything into the balance. The reserves of colonialism are far richer and more substantial than those of the colonised.

The objectives of the struggle must not remain as loosely defined as they were in the early days. If we are not careful there is the constant risk that the people will ask why continue the war, every time the enemy makes the slightest concession.

These concessions, which are nothing but concessions, do not address the essence of the problem, and from the colonized`s perspective, it is clear that a concession does not truly address the problem, until it strikes the heart of the colonial regime.

Historical examples have demonstrated that the masquerade of concessions and the heavy price paid by certain countries have ended in servitude that is not only more discreet, but also more complete.

[C]ertain concessions are in fact shackles.

The colonized must be made to see that colonialism never gives away anything for nothing.

Moreover, the colonised subject must be aware that it is not colonialism which makes the concession but (her).

The colonized at the most, can accept a concession from the colonial authorities, but never a compromise.

All this clarification, this subsequent raising of awareness and the advances along the road to understanding the history of societies can only be achieved if the people are organised and guided.

In every unit and in every village, legions of political commissioners are at work enlightening the people on issues which have become stumbling blocks of incomprehension. If it were not for these commissioners, who are not afraid to address certain issues, the people would find themselves disoriented.

The silence of the towns and the continuation of the daily routine give the peasant the bitter impression that an entire sector of the nation is content to sit back and watch.

The task of the political commissioner is to nuance their position and make them aware that certain segments of the population have their own specific interests which do not always coincide with the national interest.

At this exact moment in the struggle clarification is crucial as it leads the people to replace an overall undifferentiated nationalism with a social and economic consciousness. The people who in the early days of the struggle had adopted the primitive Manicheanism of the colonizer – Black vs 

White…realise en route that some blacks can be whiter than whites and that the prospect of a national flag or independence does not automatically result in certain segments of the population giving up their privileges and their interests. 

The people realise that there are indigenous elements in their midst who, far from being at loose ends, seem to take advantage of the war to better their material situation and reinforce their burgeoning power. These profiteering elements realise considerable gains from the war at the expense of the people who, as always, are prepared to sacrifice everything and soak the national soil with their blood. The militant who confronts the colonialist war machine with his rudimentary resources realises that while he is demolishing colonial oppression he is indirectly building another system of exploitation. 

Such a discovery is galling, painful and sickening.

The people…cry treason, but in fact the treason is not national but social, and they need to be taught to cry thief. On their arduous path to rationality the people must also learn to give up their simplistic perceptions of the oppressor.

The colonist is no longer simply public enemy number one. Some members of the colonialist population prove to be closer, infinitely closer, to the nationalist struggle than certain native sons (and daughters). The racial and racist dimension is transcended on both sides.

The task of bringing people to maturity is facilitated by rigorous organisation as well as the ideological level of their leaders. The power of ideology is elaborated and strengthened as the struggle unfolds.

The leadership demonstrates it strength and authority by exposing mistakes, and through experience, learning better ways of going forward every time consciousness takes one step backward.

The insurrection proves to itself its rationality and demonstrates its maturity every time it uses a specific case to advance the consciousness of the people. In spite of those within the movement, who sometimes are inclined to think that any nuance constitutes a danger and threatens popular solidarity, the leadership stands by the principles worked out in the national struggle and in the universal fight conducted by man for his liberation. 

There is a brutality and a contempt for subtleties and individual cases which is typically revolutionary but there is another type of brutality with surprising resemblances to the first one which is typically counterrevolutionary, adventurist and anarchist. If this pure, total brutality is not immediately contained it will, without fail, bring down the movement within a few weeks.

The militant…discovers in the field a new political orientation which in no way resembles the old. This new politics is in the hands of cadres and leaders working with the tide of history who use their muscles and their brains to lead the struggle for liberation. It is national, revolutionary and collective. This new reality…exists by action alone.

The people whose struggle enacts this new reality, the people who live it, march on, freed from colonialism and forewarned against any attempt at mystification or glorification of the nation. (Struggle) alone, perpetrated by the people…organised and guided by the leadership, provides the key for the masses to decipher social reality. 

Without this struggle, without this praxis there is nothing but a carnival parade and a lot of hot air. All that is left is a slight readaption, a few reforms at the top, and down at the bottom a shapeless, writhing mass, still mired in the Dark Ages.

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     Frantz Fanon