Posts Tagged ‘Martinique Island’
“Women stand; always standing”
Posted by: adonis49 on: February 23, 2010
“Women stand; always standing” (Feb. 21, 2010)
“Our women are standing up in holds, in cabins, in kitchen, on the bridge, facing the wind, the sun, and standing in the blood: Always standing but free. Life is not a spectacle. A suffering shouting man is not a bear dancing. My “negritude” is not a stone, a tower, or a cathedral: It plunges in the red flesh of soil. We did not invent or explore the moon but earth would not be earth without us. ”
Aime Cesaire (1913-2008) was born in the French Martinique Island. Brilliant student, he received a grant to attend the university of Louis-le-Grand in Paris in 1931. Aime met the future and late President of Senegal Sedar Senghor in this school.
“Black Paris” of the 30’s was an opportunity and an eye opener to black transcontinental. He befriended Leon-Gontran Damas and founded in 1934 “The Black Student”, encouraging black students to revise the effects of white dominated culture on the “Negritude” or Negro culture. His “Notebook of a return to mother land” was the work of a life time and propelled Cesaire into politics.
Cesaire wrote:
“Europe in the last 3 centuries was very lucky in one aspect: It became the crossroad for all kinds of philosophies, cultures, ideas, feelings, and the distributor of human energy. The question remains: has colonization actually got divergent cultures in contact? I think not.
Not a single human value was a success among all the colonial procedures and elaborates plans. The colonizer ended up a degraded man; he got in touch with his base deepest vile emotions and instincts.
The colonizer resurfaced his racial hatred, endemic violence, and picked and chose moral values that suited the vanquisher.
Two sets of values were adopted relative to rape, violence, human dignity, and human rights: one set befitting the European and another applicable and accepted for the colonized people.
Europe wallows in statistics of infrastructure achievements. I am interested in the human dimensions. It is in the sacrifices in health, safety, and miseries of the colonized that did the infrastructure work to facilitate trade and commerce for the colonizers.
I am interested in the millions who learned to fear, to feel helpless, to kneel down, and to developing inferiority complexes. I am interested in how tribalism was deepened and expanded to accelerate the divide and rule strategies.
It is such a shame that only finance and mass industrialization prompted Europeans to come in contact with Africa. Colonizing Europe replaced archaic injustices with modern abuses; it confused old inequalities with the odious racism. Colonization has definitely de-civilized the colonizer.”
“Black skin, white mask of the damned on earth” by Frantz Fanon (1925-61)
Posted by: adonis49 on: February 19, 2010
“Black skin, white mask” by Frantz Fanon (1925-61)
“Decolonization process affects the individual and modifies him fundamentally: it transforms crushed and unessential spectators into privilege actors.
Decolonization introduces a proper rhythm to the newly created man, to the new languages, and a newer humanity. Man is liberated through the process and demands revisiting a set of questions in the integrally of the new situation: The damned spectators in the last rows want to edge to the first rows and then become full actors on the scene.
The damned of the earth want to smash the tribal and clannish conditions that colonial powers maintained to divide and subjugate.
This kind of violence is a de-intoxicating phase to get rid of the inferiority complex. This initial violence tends to unify the damned of the earth toward national unity regardless of tribal and sectarian roots.
Thus, this violence has no pity to reactionary forces that struggle to maintain colonial statue-quo.
The damned needs the post colonial violence to re-gaining self-esteem: he wants to believe that success was the work of all the damned, even if not a single shot was fired in many decolonization conditions.
The damned is elevated to the rank of leader and refuses to confirm any single person as the “liberator”, simply because he wants to understand everything and then to decide on every issue.
The conscience of the damned, illuminated by violence, does rebel against any sort of pacification program. The de-colonized damned of the earth intend to demand from the colonial powers to rehabilitate man, his dignity, and his human rights. (1961)”
Frantz Fanon (1925-61) was born in French Martinique Island and died of cancer at the Bethesda hospital in Washington DC. He was buried, according to his will, in Algeria where he practiced as psychiatrist for four years (1954-57). Algeria acquired its independence the following year to Fanon’s death.
Fanon was engaged in the French Liberation Army in 1943 and received the war medal in 1945. He then studied psychiatry in Lyon and he adopted the vision of his mentor Francois Tosquelles (1912-94) that says that hospital should be the center of unifying the sick, nurses, and physicians for the sole objective of rehabilitating and re-inserting the sick to normal society.
Frantz was incensed to witnessing Creole people (mixed blood) in French colonies trying to behave as class apart of blacks and be accepted as white to the heavy price of deep amputation in their heritage and culture.
Thus, Fanon published in 1952 his “Black skin, white mask” which is a study of the alienation of black people whose identity is defined by the others (white prejudiced culture).
“Race is a prison for black man; he is radically alienated into becoming an object. Black man should refuse to shoulder the burden of past slavery and thrives to catch up as man among men. Nigger is not; White too is not!
Mother, look at this nigger; I am scared: he wants to eat me live. Every white child is scared when he sees me. When a black man shivers of cold then the kid thinks that the black man is shivering of rage. I tended to get amused first, but quickly this game turned impossible to suffer. It dawned on me that every apartheid attitude is fundamentally not based solely on color but on every culture that is different of the mainstream culture. (1952)”
Note: Fifty years after acquiring independence, most African States have reverted to tribalism and religious antagonism. The colonial and imperial powers have been at it indirectly: the enemy is not that obvious, because black foremen and black intellectual are doing the maligning and the work hired by multinationals that are mostly directly backed by their respective powerful governments.
“The damned of the earth”
Posted by: adonis49 on: February 18, 2010
“The damned of the earth”; (Feb. 19, 2010)
“Decolonization process affects the individual and fundamentally modifies him; it transforms crushed and unessential spectators to privilege actors. Decolonization introduces a proper rhythm to the newly created man, to the new languages, and a newer humanity. Man is liberated through the process and demands revisiting a set of questions in the integrality of the new situation: The damned spectators in the last rows want to edge to the first rows and then become full actors on the scene.
The damned of the earth want to smash the tribal and clannish conditions that colonial powers maintained to divide and subjugate. This kind of violence is a desintoxicating phase to getting rid of the inferiority complex. This initial violence tends to unify the damned of the earth toward national unity regardless of tribal and sectarian roots. Thus, this violence has no pity to reactionary forces that struggle to maintain colonial statue-quo.
The damned needs the post colonial violence to re-gaining self-esteem; he wants to believe that success was the work of all the damned, even if not a single shot was fired in many decolonization conditions. The damned is elevated to the rank of leader and refuses to confirm any single person as the “liberator” simply because he wants to understand everything and then to decide on every issue.
Illuminated by violence the conscience of the damned rebels against any sort of pacification program. The decolonized damned of the earth intend to demand from the colonial powers to rehabilitate man, his dignity, and his human rights. (1961)”
Frantz Fanon (1925-61) was born in French Martinique Island and died of cancer at the Bethesda hospital in Washington DC. He was buried, according to his will, in Algeria where he practiced as psychiatrist for four years (1954-57). Algeria acquired its independence the following year to Fanon’s death.
Fanon was engaged in the French Liberation Army in 1943 and received the war medal in 1945. He then studied psychiatry in Lyon; he adopted the vision of his mentor Francois Tosquelles (1912-94) that says that hospital should be the center of unifying the sick, nurses, and physicians for the sole objective of rehabilitating and re-inserting the sick to normal society.
Frantz was incensed to witnessing Creole people (mixed blood) in French colonies trying to behave as class apart of blacks and be accepted as white to the heavy price of deep amputation in their heritage and culture. Thus, Fanon published in 1952 his “Black skin, white mask” which is a study of the alienation of black people whose identity is defined by the others (white prejudiced culture).
“Race is a prison for black man; he is radically alienated into becoming an object. Black man should refuse to shoulder the burden of past slavery and thrives to catch up as man among men. Nigger is not; White too is not!
Mother, look at this nigger; I am scared: he wants to eat me live. Every white child is scared when he sees me. When a black man shivers of cold then the kid thinks that the black man is shivering of rage. I tended to get amused first but quickly this game turned impossible to suffer. It dawned on me that every apartheid attitude is fundamentally not based solely on color but on every culture that is different of the mainstream culture. (1952)”
Note: Fifty years after acquiring independence, most African States have reverted to tribalism and religious antagonism. The colonial and imperial powers have been at it indirectly: the enemy is not that obvious because black foremen and black intellectual are doing the maligning and the work hired by multinationals that are mostly directly backed by their respective powerful governments.
Note 2: Check my newest category “Black culture/Creole”
Adonis Diaries 