Post 05/09

In his speech, Fanon says “While at the  beginning the native intellectual used to produce his work to be read exclusively by the oppressor, whether with the intention of charming him or of denouncing him through ethnical or subjectivist means, now the native writer progressively takes on the habit of addressing his own people” (at the end of para. 7). He goes on to explain how that, when the writer begins to address his own people, it becomes “a literature of combat”, where the oppressed group begins to struggle for their existence as a nation.

This made me think of the difference between being the “essential” and being the “other”. Prior to addressing their own people, Fanon thinks native writers (and I assume other artists, as well) write to and for their oppressor. By doing this, they continue to measure and define their identity against that of their oppressor, even when it is explicitly hostile to the oppressor—they continue being the other. Once they begin writing for themselves and their own people, they begin creating an essential identity. It is “literature of combat, because it moulds the national consciousness,” because it is creating a new and essential identity, free and distinct from the identity of the oppressor.