Speech by Frantz Fanon at the Congress of Black African Writers, 1959
Wretched of the Earth

Reciprocal Bases of National Culture and the Fight for Freedom


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Source: Reproduced from Wretched of the Earth (1959) publ. Pelican. 
Speech to Congress of Black African Writers.



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Colonial domination, because it is total and tends to over-simplify, 
very soon manages to disrupt in spectacular fashion the cultural life 
of a conquered people. This cultural obliteration is made possible by 
the negation of national reality, by new legal relations introduced by 
the occupying power, by the banishment of the natives and their customs 
to outlying districts by colonial society, by expropriation, and by the 
systematic enslaving of men and women.

Three years ago at our first congress I showed that, in the colonial 
situation, dynamism is replaced fairly quickly by a substantification 
of the attitudes of the colonising power. The area of culture is then 
marked off by fences and signposts. These are in fact so many defence 
mechanisms of the most elementary type, comparable for more than one 
good reason to the simple instinct for preservation. The interest of 
this period for us is that the oppressor does not manage to convince 
himself of the objective non-existence of the oppressed nation and its 
culture. Every effort is made to bring the colonised person to admit 
the inferiority of his culture which has been transformed into 
instinctive patterns of behaviour, to recognise the unreality of his 
'nation', and, in the last extreme, the confused and imperfect 
character of his own biological structure.

Vis-à-vis this state of affairs, the native's reactions are not 
unanimous While the mass of the people maintain intact traditions which 
are completely different from those of the colonial situation, and the 
artisan style solidifies into a formalism which is more and more 
stereotyped, the intellectual throws himself in frenzied fashion into 
the frantic acquisition of the culture of the occupying power and takes 
every opportunity of unfavourably criticising his own national culture, 
or else takes refuge in setting out and substantiating the claims of 
that culture in a way that is passionate but rapidly becomes 
unproductive.

The common nature of these two reactions lies in the fact that they 
both lead to impossible contradictions. Whether a turncoat or a 
substantialist the native is ineffectual precisely because the analysis 
of the colonial situation is not carried out on strict lines. The 
colonial situation calls a halt to national culture in almost every 
field. Within the framework of colonial domination there is not and 
there will never be such phenomena as new cultural departures or 
changes in the national culture. Here and there valiant attempts are 
sometimes made to reanimate the cultural dynamic and to give fresh 
impulses to its themes, its forms and its tonalities. The immediate, 
palpable and obvious interest of such leaps ahead is nil. But if we 
follow up the consequences to the very end we see that preparations are 
being thus made to brush the cobwebs off national consciousness to 
question oppression and to open up the struggle for freedom.

A national culture under colonial domination is a contested culture 
whose destruction is sought in systematic fashion. It very quickly 
becomes a culture condemned to secrecy. This idea of clandestine 
culture is immediately seen in the reactions of the occupying power 
which interprets attachment to traditions as faithfulness to the spirit 
of the nation and as a refusal to submit. This persistence in following 
forms of culture which are already condemned to extinction is already a 
demonstration of nationality; but it is a demonstration which is a 
throw-back to the laws of inertia. There is no taking of the offensive 
and no redefining of relationships. There is simply a concentration on 
a hard core of culture which is becoming more and more shrivelled up, 
inert and empty.

By the time a century or two of exploitation has passed there comes 
about a veritable emaciation of the stock of national culture. It 
becomes a set of automatic habits, some traditions of dress and a few 
broken-down institutions. Little movement can be discerned in such 
remnants of culture; there is no real creativity and no overflowing 
life. The poverty of the people, national oppression and the inhibition 
of culture are one and the same thing. After a century of colonial 
domination we find a culture which is rigid in the extreme, or rather 
what we find are the dregs of culture, its mineral strata. The 
withering away of the reality of the nation and the death-pangs of the 
national culture are linked to each other in mutual dependences. This 
is why it is of capital importance to follow the evolution of these 
relations during the struggle for national freedom. The negation of the 
native's culture, the contempt for any manifestation of culture whether 
active or emotional and the placing outside the pale of all specialised 
branches of organisation contribute to breed aggressive patterns of 
conduct in the native. But these patterns of conduct are of the 
reflexive type; they are poorly differentiated, anarchic and 
ineffective. Colonial exploitation, poverty and endemic famine drive 
the native more and more to open, organised revolt. The necessity for 
an open and decisive breach is formed progressively and imperceptibly, 
and comes to be felt by the great majority of the people. Those 
tensions which hitherto were non-existent come into being. 
International events, the collapse of whole sections of colonial 
empires and the contradictions inherent in the colonial system 
strengthen and uphold the native's combativity while promoting and 
giving support to national consciousness.

These new-found tensions which are present at all stages in the real 
nature of colonialism have their repercussions on the cultural plane. 
In literature, for example, there is relative over-production. From 
being a reply on a minor scale to the dominating power, the literature 
produced by natives becomes differentiated and makes itself into a will 
to particularism. The intelligentsia, which during the period of 
repression was essentially a consuming public, now themselves become 
producers. This literature at first chooses to confine itself to the 
tragic and poetic style; but later on novels, short stories and essays 
are attempted. It is as if a kind of internal organisation or law of 
expression existed which wills that poetic expression become less 
frequent in proportion as the objectives and the methods of the 
struggle for liberation become more precise. Themes are completely 
altered; in fact, we find less and less of bitter, hopeless 
recrimination and less also of that violent, resounding, florid writing 
which on the whole serves to reassure the occupying power. The 
colonialists have in former times encouraged these modes of expression 
and made their existence possible. Stinging denunciations, the exposing 
of distressing conditions and passions which find their outlet in 
expression are in fact assimilated by the occupying power in a 
cathartic process. To aid such processes is in a certain sense to avoid 
their dramatisation and to clear the atmosphere. But such a situation 
can only be transitory. In fact, the progress of national consciousness 
among the people modifies and gives precision to the literary 
utterances of the native intellectual. The continued cohesion of the 
people constitutes for the intellectual an invitation to go farther 
than his cry of protest. The lament first makes the indictment; then it 
makes an appeal. In the period that follows, the words of command are 
heard. The crystallisation of the national consciousness will both 
disrupt literary styles and themes, and also create a completely new 
public. 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.

It is only from that moment that we can speak of a national 
literature. Here there is, at the level of literary creation, the 
taking up and clarification of themes which are typically nationalist. 
This may be properly called a literature of combat, in the sense that 
it calls on the whole people to fight for their existence as a nation. 
It is a literature of combat, because it moulds the national 
consciousness, giving it form and contours and flinging open before it 
new and boundless horizons; it is a literature of combat because it 
assumes responsibility, and because it is the will to liberty expressed 
in terms of time and space.

On another level, the oral tradition - stories, epics and songs of the 
people - which formerly were filed away as set pieces are now beginning 
to change. The storytellers who used to relate inert episodes now bring 
them alive and introduce into them modifications which are increasingly 
fundamental. There is a tendency to bring conflicts up to date and to 
modernise the kinds of struggle which the stories evoke, together with 
the names of heroes and the types of weapons. The method of allusion is 
more and more widely used. The formula 'This all happened long ago' is 
substituted by that of 'What we are going to speak of happened 
somewhere else, but it might well have happened here today, and it 
might happen tomorrow'. The example of Algeria is significant in this 
context. From 1952-3 on, the storytellers, who were before that time 
stereotyped and tedious to listen to, completely overturned their 
traditional methods of storytelling and the contents of their tales. 
Their public, which was formerly scattered, became compact. The epic, 
with its typified categories, reappeared; it became an authentic form 
of entertainment which took on once more a cultural value. Colonialism 
made no mistake when from 1955 on it proceeded to arrest these 
storytellers systematically.

The contact of the people with the new movement gives rise to a new 
rhythm of life and to forgotten muscular tensions, and develops the 
imagination. Every time the storyteller relates a fresh episode to his 
public, he presides over a real invocation. The existence of a new type 
of man is revealed to the public. The present is no longer turned in 
upon itself but spread out for all to see. The storyteller once more 
gives free rein to his imagination; he makes innovations and he creates 
a work of art. It even happens that the characters, which are barely 
ready for such a transformation - highway robbers or more or less 
antisocial vagabonds - are taken up and remodelled. The emergence of 
the imagination and of the creative urge in the songs and epic stories 
of a colonised country is worth following. The storyteller replies to 
the expectant people by successive approximations, and makes his way, 
apparently alone but in fact helped on by his public, towards the 
seeking out of new patterns, that is to say national patterns. Comedy 
and farce disappear, or lose their attraction. As for dramatisation, it 
is no longer placed on the plane of the troubled intellectual and his 
tormented conscience. By losing its characteristics of despair and 
revolt, the drama becomes part of the common lot of the people and 
forms part of an action in preparation or already in progress.

Where handicrafts are concerned, the forms of expression which 
formerly were the dregs of art, surviving as if in a daze, now begin to 
reach out. Woodwork, for .example, which formerly turned out certain 
faces and attitudes by the million, begins to be differentiated. The 
inexpressive or overwrought mask comes to life and the arms tend to be 
raised from the body as if to sketch an action. Compositions containing 
two, three or five figures appear. The traditional schools are led on 
to creative efforts by the rising avalanche of amateurs or of critics. 
This new vigour in this sector of cultural life very often passes 
unseen; and yet its contribution to the national effort is of capital 
importance. By carving figures and faces which are full of life, and by 
taking as his theme a group fixed on the same pedestal, the artist 
invites participation in an organised movement.

If we study the repercussions of the awakening of national 
consciousness in the domains of ceramics and pottery-making, the same 
observations may be drawn. Formalism is abandoned in the craftsman's 
work. Jugs, jars and trays are modified, at first imperceptibly, then 
almost savagely. The colours, of which formerly there were but few and 
which obeyed the traditional rules of harmony, increase in number and 
are influenced by the repercussion of the rising revolution. Certain 
ochres and blues, which seemed forbidden to all eternity in a given 
cultural area, now assert themselves without giving rise to scandal. In 
the same way the stylisation of the human face, which according to 
sociologists is typical of very clearly defined regions, becomes 
suddenly completely relative. The specialist coming from the home 
country and the ethnologist are quick to note these changes. On the 
whole such changes are condemned in the name of a rigid code of 
artistic style and of a cultural life which grows up at the heart of 
the colonial system. The colonialist specialists do not recognise these 
new forms and rush to the help of the traditions of the indigenous 
society. It is the colonialists who become the defenders of the native 
style. We remember perfectly, and the example took on a certain measure 
of importance since the real nature of colonialism was not involved, 
the reactions of the white jazz specialists when after the Second World 
War new styles such as the be-bop took definite shape. The fact is that 
in their eyes jazz should only be the despairing, broken-down nostalgia 
of an old Negro who is trapped between five glasses of whisky, the 
curse of his race, and the racial hatred of the white men. As soon as 
the Negro comes to an understanding of himself, and understands the 
rest of the world differently, when he gives birth to hope and forces 
back the racist universe, it is clear that his trumpet sounds more 
clearly and his voice less hoarsely. The new fashions in jazz are not 
simply born of economic competition. We must without any doubt see in 
them one of the consequences of the defeat, slow but sure, of the 
southern world of the United States. And it is not utopian to suppose 
that in fifty years' time the type of jazz howl hiccupped by a poor 
misfortunate Negro will be upheld only by the whites who believe in it 
as an expression of nigger-hood, and who are faithful to this arrested 
image of a type of relationship.

We might in the same way seek and find in dancing, singing, and 
traditional rites and ceremonies the same upward-springing trend, and 
make out the same changes and the same impatience in this field. Well 
before the political or fighting phase of the national movement an 
attentive spectator can thus feel and see the manifestation of new 
vigour and feel the approaching conflict. He will note unusual forms of 
expression and themes which are fresh and imbued with a power which is 
no longer that of invocation but rather of the assembling of the 
people, a summoning together for a precise purpose. Everything works 
together to awaken the native's sensibility and to make unreal and 
inacceptable the contemplative attitude, or the acceptance of defeat. 
The native rebuilds his perceptions because he renews the purpose and 
dynamism of the craftsmen, of dancing and music and of literature and 
the oral tradition. His world comes to lose its accursed character. The 
conditions necessary for the inevitable conflict are brought together.

We have noted the appearance of the movement in cultural forms and we 
have seen that this movement and these new forms are linked to the 
state of maturity of the national consciousness. Now, this movement 
tends more and more to express itself objectively, in institutions. 
From thence comes the need for a national existence, whatever the 
cost.

A frequent mistake, and one which is moreover hardly justifiable is to 
try to find cultural expressions for and to give new values to native 
culture within the framework of colonial domination. This is why we 
arrive at a proposition which at first sight seems paradoxical: the 
fact that in a colonised country the most elementary, most savage and 
the most undifferentiated nationalism is the most fervent and efficient 
means of defending national culture. For culture is first the 
expression of a nation, the expression of its preferences, of its 
taboos and of its patterns. It is at every stage of the whole of 
society that other taboos, values and patterns are formed. A national 
culture is the sum total of all these appraisals; it is the result of 
internal and external extensions exerted over society as a whole and 
also at every level of that society. In the colonial situation, 
culture, which is doubly deprived of the support of the nation and of 
the state, falls away and dies. The condition for its existence is 
therefore national liberation and the renaissance of the state.

The nation is not only the condition of culture, its fruitfulness, its 
continuous renewal, and its deepening. It is also a necessity. It is 
the fight for national existence which sets culture moving and opens to 
it the doors of creation. Later on it is the nation which will ensure 
the conditions and framework necessary to culture. The nation gathers 
together the various indispensable elements necessary for the creation 
of a culture, those elements which alone can give it credibility, 
validity, life and creative power. In the same way it is its national 
character that will make such a culture open to other cultures and 
which will enable it to influence and permeate other cultures. A non-
existent culture can hardly be expected to have bearing on reality, or 
to influence reality. The first necessity is the re-establishment of 
the nation in order to give life to national culture in the strictly 
biological sense of the phrase.

Thus we have followed the break-up of the old strata of culture, a 
shattering which becomes increasingly fundamental; and we have noticed, 
on the eve of the decisive conflict for national freedom, the renewing 
of forms of expression and the rebirth of the imagination. There 
remains one essential question: what are the relations between the 
struggle - whether political or military - and culture? Is there a 
suspension of culture during the conflict? Is the national struggle an 
expression of a culture? Finally, ought one to say that the battle for 
freedom, however fertile a posteriori with regard to culture, is in 
itself a negation of culture? In short is the struggle for liberation a 
cultural phenomenon or not?

We believe that the conscious and organised undertaking by a colonised 
people to re-establish the sovereignty of that nation constitutes the 
most complete and obvious cultural manifestation that exists. It is not 
alone the success of the struggle which afterwards gives validity and 
vigour to culture; culture is not put into cold storage during the 
conflict. The struggle itself in its development and in its internal 
progression sends culture along different paths and traces out entirely 
new ones for it. The struggle for freedom does not give back to the 
national culture its former value and shapes; this struggle which aims 
at a fundamentally different set of relations between men cannot leave 
intact either the form or the content of the people's culture. After 
the conflict there is not only the disappearance of colonialism but 
also the disappearance of the colonised man.

This new humanity cannot do otherwise than define a new humanism both 
for itself and for others. It is prefigured in the objectives and 
methods of the conflict. A struggle which mobilises all classes of the 
people and which expresses their aims and their impatience, which is 
not afraid to count almost exclusively on the people's support, will of 
necessity triumph. The value of this type of conflict is that it 
supplies the maximum of conditions necessary for the development and 
aims of culture. After national freedom has been obtained in these 
conditions, there is no such painful cultural indecision which is found 
in certain countries which are newly independent, because the nation by 
its manner of coming into being and in the terms of its existence 
exerts a fundamental influence over culture. A nation which is born of 
the people's concerted action and which embodies the real aspirations 
of the people while changing the state cannot exist save in the 
expression of exceptionally rich forms of culture.

The natives who are anxious for the culture of their country and who 
wish to give to it a universal dimension ought not therefore to place 
their confidence in the single principle of inevitable, 
undifferentiated independence written into the consciousness of the 
people in order to achieve their task. The liberation of the nation is 
one thing; the methods and popular content of the fight are another. It 
seems to me that the future of national culture and its riches are 
equally also part and parcel of the values which have ordained the 
struggle for freedom.

And now it is time to denounce certain pharisees. National claims, it 
is here and there stated, are a phase that humanity has left behind. It 
is the day of great concerted actions, and retarded nationalists ought 
in consequence to set their mistakes aright. We, however, consider that 
the mistake, which may have very serious consequences, lies in wishing 
to skip the national period. If culture is the expression of national 
consciousness, I will not hesitate to affirm that in the case with 
which we are dealing it is the national consciousness which is the most 
elaborate form of culture.

The consciousness of self is not the closing of a door to 
communication. Philosophic thought teaches us, on the contrary, that it 
is its guarantee. National consciousness, which is not nationalism, is 
the only thing that will give us an international dimension. This 
problem of national consciousness and of national culture takes on in 
Africa a special dimension. The birth of national consciousness in 
Africa has a strictly contemporaneous connexion with the African 
consciousness. The responsibility of the African as regards national 
culture is also a responsibility with regard to African-Negro culture. 
This joint responsibility is not the fact of a metaphysical principle 
but the awareness of a simple rule which wills that every independent 
nation in an Africa where colonialism is still entrenched is an 
encircled nation, a nation which is fragile and in permanent danger.

If man is known by his acts, then we will say that the most urgent 
thing today for the intellectual is to build up his nation. If this 
building up is true, that is to say if it interprets the manifest will 
of the people and reveals the eager African peoples, then the building 
of a nation is of necessity accompanied by the discovery and 
encouragement of universalising values. Far from keeping aloof from 
other nations, therefore, it is national liberation which leads the 
nation to play its part on the stage of history. It is at the heart of 
national consciousness that international consciousness lives and 
grows. And this two-fold emerging is ultimately the source of all 
culture. 

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