Fanon actually talks about the role that radicalized settlers can play in the decolonial struggle. The settler can smuggle weapons to the colonized or hide fugitives in her residence because she isn't going to be searched by the colonial occupation. Nothing to see here, just an ordinary French citizen!
Settlers is much more pessimistic, seeing settlers as inherently untrustworthy because of their material relation to colonialism. It essentially forecloses on the idea of settlers class traitors.
I think the events of the last 96 hours adequately justifies the utter lack of faith in the western settler, frankly; between exit polls and all of the "enjoy deportation" said settlers have been posting to all corners of the internet.
:this:
All criticism of settlers is basically “not all men” for white leftists.
There’s a big jump to “inherently” while immediately noting the very real material conditions that lead settlers to behave a certain way. It’s not saying white settlers are inherently anything, it’s correctly pointing out that have a material position that is exploited by capital and that only settlers themselves can deal with that and to do that you have to acknowledge it as a real problem.
Settlers are still settlers, yeah.
Fanon's point was that settlers can be reached by the decolonial struggle and join it. I'm reading Huey P. Newton's biography right now and he actually has a similar observation about white radicals. The danger, of course, is that settlers will take over the struggle and sheepdog it into electoralism. I think the true role of settlers in the decolonial struggle must be subordinate to the colonized.
Not even just settlers, plenty of Black folks coming out with similar takes about Palestinians and Arabs, someone posted abunch of screenshots of comments about buying Starbucks and not feeling guilty about funding the genocide because Arab voters didn't get Kamala in office. The settlerfication has taken root deep into even colonized subjects, not even just the bourgeois comprador strata as it was when Fanon was writing about them.
Is it not in the Bourgeois’ material interest to support capitalism, regardless if there are bourgeois class traitors?
Fanon doesn't go into the distinctions, per se, but I have my own.
Being bourgeois is always a choice and they can stop being bourgeois any time they want. Some are born into their material relations by inheritance, of course, but any business owner can get a real job whenever they want or could give up their ownership of the means of production to their workforce. Being bourgeois is not just something they are, it's something they choose to do.
Settlers, by contrast, can only stop being settlers if they leave the settler colony. The ones that migrated obviously can just go back home, but what about their children? For a settler born on the settlement, being a settler is something they are and was never something they chose to do. If the child of settlers wants to stop being a settler, the only choice is to become a traitor.
I think that puts settlement-born-settlers into a distinct material position that can't be related to being bourgeois.
I've been reading both Settlers and Wretched of the Earth since last week and it jokerfied me. Now that the election has passed I keep thinking about the US calling Venezuelans election illegitimate a couple months ago meanwhile my ballot has still not been counted.
I've been reading both Settlers and Wretched of the Earth
This is the way. The real answer to the question is: por que no los dos
why read fanon when you can watch dune
The journey of knowledge isn’t about reading a bunch of “correct” books. Read anything and everything, critically, and take what knowledge you can. Sakai’s work isn’t as useful as Fanon’s imo but I definitely got something out of it.
Read anything and everything, critically, and take what knowledge you can.
Didn't realize all the erotic Sonic the Hedgehog fanfics I read were part of my political education.
contrapositives can sneak up on you like that
Fanon will teach you the theory of hating crackers, Sakai will teach you the praxis.
Cosigned
haven't read either but its my impression that settlers is basically a polemic while Fanon's work is more like hard theory?
I think that’s valid, but tbf most of all of parenti work is also polemics but he’s universally loved around here for the most part. It’s not perfect but most criticism against it is overblown. I’ve known a lot of poc communists who like it, tho probably not as much as fanon. Like someone else said one can just take what they feel is useful or whatever
yeah i didn't mean it in any negative sense, polemics can obviously be very useful. just im pretty sure thats the category it fits in
I think Fanon is more compelling and providing material evidence whereas settlers wasn't saying anything I hadn't already gathered from studying other works, Fanon especially
The US history that Settlers covers is really useful especially when paired with Gerald Horne's books and can help you build that material conception of whiteness and settlerism. I also appreciate that it breaks the orthodox view on the white American proletariat that they're simply "tricked by racist lies" with no material interest in siding with the bourgeoisie. Labor aristocracy is a very useful concept in the Marxist conception of classes.
Honestly for white communists especially in America it's a topic severly undereducated on despite how important it is for them to learn, so the more the better. I see that a lot of people aren't aware of their settler colonial biases and it obfuscates praxis, tricks people into joining deeply settler orgs (ACP, CPUSA), and infects the platforms of more advanced orgs but with large settler bases like PSL and FRSO's platform which includes Chicano Nationalism.
On top of Fanon and Settlers I would also suggest Marx at the Margins and EFF theorist Lwazi Lushaba's decolonial lectures on youtube (his book too) on top of the aformentioned Gerald Horne's books and just generally being more open to this applying settler colonialism as the principle contradiction -- starting with native/black liberation and using dialectical materialism as the mode towards achieving it, reading texts even marxist critical texts from these perspectives, and seeing the failures of euro-american marxist theory and practice that have allowed it to be co-opted, declawed, and even perpetuate the "civilizing mission of progressive society" such as the case of the labor Zionists that carried out the nakba and the LaRouchites/MAGAcom grifters.
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
Can't afford him; there's a.....Fanon tax
I used to be able to run Golgari, but now I can't due to WOKE.
Whoops, wrong post.
