Racism and violence. The image of a colonised human in the eyes of Frantz Fanon and Enrique Dussel ..

Abstract

Colonialism left a singular mark on the fates of the world. The condition of the societies inhabiting the former European colonies is a direct outcome of the contactEurope– the rest of the world, which, although setting out from commendable premises and lofty ideas (civilising the “savages”, Christianization, bringing aid), had a darker side as well. First and foremost, the latter encompasses two phenomena of power: racism and violence. The author of the article, through the analysis of the works of Frantz Fanon and Enrique Dussel demonstrates how the French and the Spaniards, in referring to both of these categories,  attempted to build their colonial societies with all related consequences. Fanon, describing colonisation as a phenomenon of violence saw its core precisely in racism. The Martinique-born researcher demonstrates how the French claimed the right to represent indigenous cultures in its overseas colonies and departments, especially in theAntilles. In this context, the author of the article placed a particular emphasis on studying the phenomenon of two worlds – the white and the black one – as Fanon puts it. The matter in question are the mechanisms by means of which a white European created a black skinned person, causing the latter to desire to become a “new white” by renouncing their race. The author argues that the French, in colonising, as it were, “through the body”, induced a singular suspended intercultural state between the European and the native.   In turn, the reference to the works of Dussel’s demonstrates that in 1492Americawas “covered” byEurope, which at the time was embodied by the Spaniards. Thus the whole project of colonisingAmericawas founded on the so-called myth of modernity, which made the victims (the pre-Columbian peoples) into the guilty ones, while the persecutors who proceeded with violence (the Spaniards) were innocent. The author analyses the arguments which in the opinion of the Argentinian-Mexican philosopher the Spaniards employed to describe and classify the New World (evangelization, the concept of America as the utopia of Europe, the concept of the just war etc. ) and which were largely nothing else than justification of the phenomenon of violence that the Europeans administered to the non-European cultures.   In the conclusion, the author attempted a comparison of the Spanish and the French visions of colonisation, particularly in view of how the societies of Latin America and francophoneAfricacome to terms with their post-coloniality.