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Reading Fanon's "On Violence" has got me thinking about the terms "Modernism" and "Postcolonialism" in another way tonight.

But let me first say the first half of the essay was rather pessimistic and dreary to read! Generally, "On Violence" came across as a very angry and vengeance-seeking text, and Fanon's constant reiteration that violence is the only way the colonised can break free of the colonisers' grip was like another gloomy touch to an already gloomy (rainy) Thursday evening. This is obvious when he writes that "between oppressors and oppressed, force is the only solution" (32), or that there exists only a "single combat between the colonized and the colonist" which is "clearly and plainly an armed struggle" (42). Surely violence could not be the be-all and end-all?

As a result of all this pessimistic talk about violence, I began searching the text to see if Fanon offered an alternative to violence. Surprisingly, Fanon does offer such an alternative, which actually makes him sound rather schizophrenic. I wonder if he deliberately started the essay pessimistically for dramatic effect. The second half of the essay suddenly shifts its focus to the practical plight of the nations seeking independence. This is where the term “Postcolonialism” took on a new meaning for me. “Postcolonialism” has always had the connotation of nations seeking independence struggling against their colonial masters, but now I am thinking also in terms of post-colonial; of what literally happens in real time and real places after colonisers withdraw from the colonised nations. For example, Fanon astutely points out that these young/new nations seeking independence are facing difficulties from all sides - the immediate problems of a sudden withdrawal of law enforcement, administration, infrastructure and capital (i.e. $$$), and also the gargantuan task of having to build their nation all over again:

"[W]hat we actually see is the colonizer withdrawing his capital and technicians
and encircling the young nation with an apparatus of economic pressure." (54)

They also face the challenges of etching their presence in a modern (and this was where “Modernism” took on a different meaning for me too), capitalist world. The young nation “sees the modern world penetrate the remotest corners of the interior, he becomes acutely aware of everything he does not possess” (34).

So instead of violence, Fanon seems to be proposing (if I'm not mistaken!) an alternative that might actually help the de-colonising nations. He proposes the "redistribution of wealth" (55), and then goes on to list his many grievances against the colonisers' "capitalist exploitation" (55), saying how "[c]olonialism and imperialism have not settled their debt to us once they have withdrawn their flag and their police force from our territories" (57). I thought this all made sense, especially relating back to Passage. After all, what are the British in Forster’s India without their native slaves to wait on them; what is their military if not for the Indians who enlisted and made its numbers?

However, I have a problem with this money-as-compensation proposition of Fanon’s. How is it possible to measure in dollars and cents years of invasion, exploitation, forced slavery and many other immeasurable forms of “violence” that the colonisers have done to the colonised? How much money will ever be enough to soothe such anger as Fanon's? He claims that “moral reparation” (58) is not enough, and immediately I think of today's developing African nations that are receiving plenty of NGO and UN aid, but are nevertheless still heavy in debt. The thing is, how can money ever right moral wrongs? Now, Fanon sounds just like the Indians in Passage who keep demanding poor Adela compensate her accusation of Aziz, and it leaves me wondering if these new/young nations, in their bid to re-create themselves, fall in the same trap everyone, coloniser or colonised, gets caught in: the trap of Capitalism.

-edit- Melissa (refer to post above) says empire is all about space. I think empire is all about money!