Frantz Fanon on Colonialism

“The colonial regime owes its legitimacy to force and at no time does it ever endeavor to cover up this nature of things.”

“Colonialism and imperialism have not settled their debt to us once they have withdrawn their flag and their police force from our territories.”

“The famous dictum which states that all men are equal will find its illustration in the colonies only when the colonized subject states he is equal to the colonist.”

“Colonialism is not a thinking machine, nor a body endowed with reasoning faculties. It is violence in its natural state, and it will only yield when confronted with greater violence.”

“The colonized protect themselves from colonial alienation by going one step better with religious alienation, with the ultimate end result of having accumulated two alienations, each of which reinforces the other.”

“When the native hears a speech about Western culture he pulls out his knife—or at least he makes sure it is within reach. The violence with which the supremacy of white values is affirmed and the aggressiveness which has permeated the victory of these values over the ways of life and of thought of the native mean that, in revenge, the native laughs in mockery when Western values are mentioned in front of him.”