Let’s watch a video together, then check out my analysis afterwards:
Yes, Frantz Fanon was an anti-colonialist writer, activist and fighter who worked to liberate both Martinique and Algeria from French colonialism.
His two famous anti-colonial books (which I have read), The Wretched of the Earth and Black Skin, White Masks, advocated violence as the necessary means for overthrowing western, colonial rule throughout Asia and Africa.
On the basis of this association, the Christianity Today (CT) video implicitly assumes that, like Fanon, all anti-colonial movements must advocate and engage in violence, by definition. Since this particular video is set within the broader context of CT’s current pro-Israel, pro-Zionist video series, I can only assume that this critique of “violent” anti-colonial ideology is somehow related to Israel’s current war in Gaza.
The most common framing of anti-Zionist criticism of Israel nowadays is to describe the country as a settler-colonial state in need of an anti-colonial deconstruction. Hamas is sometimes described as an anti-colonial, revolutionary movement.
Implicitly, then, CT is portraying the Hamas attack against southern Israel on October 7, 2023 as a contemporary example of Frantz Fanon’s violent, anti-colonial philosophy working itself out before our very eyes.
Again, by saying that “anti-colonialism is not value neutral” we are meant to conclude that all anti-colonialism embraces Fanon’s perspective on the use of violence. Hamas becomes the implicit proof of this implied conclusion.
So, what’s wrong with all of this?
First, notice how much of the heavy lifting in this CT presentation is being done through implication. Very little is said explicitly. The supposed lessons to be learned about the inherent violence of anti-colonial movements today – which includes the majority of folks, like me, who are criticizing Israel’s treatment of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank – are a subtle subtext resonating between the lines of what CT is saying out loud.
This method of communication is a common feature of political propaganda: don’t openly accuse your opponents of being horrible monsters, but sprinkle enough rhetorical breadcrumbs to lead your listeners to the intended, malicious conclusion. It will become embedded in their consciousness as an “obvious” conclusion they arrived at under their own steam.
The second, more important problem with the CT video is its implication that Frantz Fanon’s embrace of violence is representative of all anti-colonial movements. But, of course, this is not true. One of the largest and most successful anti-colonial movements of the twentieth century was led by Mahatma Gandhi, a staunch advocate of non-violent resistance. Gandhi led the campaign to shed India of British colonial control and succeeded through using a variety of non-violent actions.
It is simply alse to suggest, as this video does, that all anti-colonial activists embrace violence as a legitimate means of resistance.
It is also worth noting that this argument is not only historically false, it is also illogical. The CT video draws out its false implication by means of something called a false syllogism. Here is an example of a false syllogism:
- Socrates is a philosopher
- Socrates is Greek
- Therefore, all Greeks are philosophers.
The conclusion (C) is obviously false even though the two premises (A, B) are both true. That is the essence of an illogical false syllogism.
The illogical argument embedded in the CT video goes something like this:
- Frantz Fanon was an anti-colonialist
- Frant Fanon was an advocate for violence
- Therefore, all anti-colonialists advocate violence
The scurrilous accusation implicitly embedded in the CT video – that I, for instance, encourage violence and warfare because I embrace an anti-colonial philosophy – is a politically conservative, pro-Zionist attempt to demonize my criticisms of the way Israel is prosecuting its war against the people of Gaza.
It is also ignorant of, or deliberately ignoring, the many Palestinian activists who follow the way of Gandhi by embracing non-violence in their anticolonial, anti-Zionist activities. Some of these brave men and women are my friends, and I have seen how frequently they are physically assaulted by violent Israeli soldiers while maintaining their peaceful behavior.
In this way, the video perpetuates American misinformation regarding the Palestinian people and the oppressive circumstances under which they live in Gaza and the West Bank.
In any case, according to international law, the Palestinian people have every legal right to employ violent measures in their attempts to rid themselves of Israeli colonial rule. Personally, I am a passivist, and my sympathies lie with my non-violent friends who are pursuing peaceful means of resistance.
And, yes, Hamas committed war crimes on October 7th for which the guilty should be prosecuted. But as a matter of law: Palestinians have a right to use force to free themselves, despite the video’s protestations. Here is another matter where American’s display their ignorance of Israel’s history and the current realities on the ground.
Israel is the blatant aggressor in the current Gaza conflict.
No amount of scare-mongering, illogical argument, false syllogism, or historical falsehoods can change that fact. Don’t allow yourself to be fooled by CT’s lazy, malicious tomfoolery.
Oliver Tambo, President of the African National Congress (ANC) said in an interview, 4/11/1985: The unfortunate thing is that people tend to be worried about the violence of the oppressed … really there would be no violence at all if we did not have the violence of the Apartheid system.’
There is a lot to be learned from the negotiations held in the run-up to elections in South Africa in 1994.
Thank you Maggie for this quote. They are very wise words. Yes, the violence of colonialism is so generally accepted in western societies that we become blind to it. Labeling legitimate resistance to oppression as “violent aggression” becomes the standard party trick of colonial rule.