The Colonized Intellectual

“National culture is the collective thought

process of a people to describe,

justify,

and extol the actions

whereby they have joined forces

and remained strong…

National culture in the under­developed countries,

therefore,

must lie at the very heart of the liberation struggle

these countries are waging.” (National Culture, Fanon)

This quote was quite interesting to me because it could easily be applied to modern day music and Shange. Awhile back, I had a small discussion with my friends about Nigerian music being called African music or Jamaican music being simply referred to as Caribbean music. Interestingly, the conversation shifted into talking about race, music, locality, etc. This quote also brought up two questions for me: what power does the collective have that an individual would not? To what extent or in what situations is the collective force necessary or needed? Shange And Fanon have two completely different writing styles. Though Shange’s writing might be a bit of an easier read, both writers and thinkers are intellectual and revolutionary thinkers.

Going back to the entire reading by Fanon, Fanon details three stages in what he called the “colonized intellectual”. Fanon explained that in the first stage, the intellectual mimics the colonist and conforms to colonial tastes. This is a stage where the colonized tries to be like the Europeans, extolling and admiring European culture. In the second stage, Fanon explains,  the colonized reacts against this assimilation and desire. This is the Négritude phase in which, in reaction to the European casting of African culture as inferior, the intellectual extols each and every thing about African culture as superior. In the third stage, this love for culture finally moves to a fight for liberation. The intellectual begins to write “combat literature, revolutionary literature” that hopes to galvanize and motivate the people into fighting the colonists. In this stage, Fanon explains is the hope that developing a new culture will begin to shape a new nation.