By: Geoffrey Yonil

If you wanna know how nationalism and socialism can be fused into one political system, then read Frantz Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth. Published in 1961 as a rallying call for Algerian liberation from French (and Western) colonization, the book still has prevalence within contemporary politics, being used in the Pentagon in dealing with radicalism and fundamentalism in the Middle East—specifically in Afghanistan. Fanon will make you question the very existence of what it means to live in the West and to support capitalism—a supposedly “corrupt and racist system of exploitation.”

Fanon, a psychoanalyst educated in Paris, maps out the conflict not only between Algeria and France but the entire colonialist system. Taking you on a ride through the minds of the many victims of Western exploitation, Fanon describes the many syndromes and psycho-symptomatic disorders that the West has afflicted upon Africa and the East. From Algerian boys (no older than thirteen) who kill a white friend of theirs for no other reason than his race to men and women on the brink of insanity—to say the least—questioning their very identities as human beings, The Wretched of the Earth expounds upon the very nature of corruption and deviance from ‘civilized’ society.

You’ll be amazed at the claims towards violence that Fanon—a supposedly mild-mannered, educated psychoanalyst—makes in rallying for non-Western societies’ liberation, at which you’ll probably at times agree with what could be misconstrued as terroristic acts perpetrated by the main protagonists, the FLN (or the Front de Libération Nationale ). A book that inspired Malcolm X and the Black Panther movement of the sixties, Fanon is sure to mesmerize you in his documentation of the crimes of Western civilization. His book is an absolute must for those wanting to know about revolution, radicalism, decolonization (or Post-Colonization), and racial differences—possibly even similarities. As Jean-Paul Satre issues the challenge on the cover, “Have the courage to read this book.”