![]() Fouzi Slisli unpacks the numerous cultural and historical references that Fanon makes to Algeria without acknowledging their connection to Islam. Fanon praised the self-organization of Algerian peasants in their involvement in the anti-colonial resistance but failed to understand that the origin of these movements was Islam. He did not fully understand the degree to which the tradition of anticolonial struggle in modern history of Algeria was deeply Islamic in nature. His limited understanding of the intricate interaction between religion and culture, particularly of Islam, partly overshadows his views. He acknowledged Islam’s contribution to revolution despite his lack of a deep understanding of Islam and the full extent of its connection to the revolution. Fanon’s treatment of Islam was different from Christianity as Islam played a significant role in the Algerian revolution. The latter is often an object of shame and abhorrence for Fanon. We can see this in his different treatments of institutional religions (such as Catholicism and Islam) and indigenous religions. He was at times critical of the problematic association of native religions with irrationality made by western critics even as he simultaneously reproduced the same questionable associations himself. This is a man who is constantly negotiating the negative colonial affects of denial, refusal, shame, and the desire to restore to wholeness a self split between the two radically contrasting worlds. The ambivalent understanding of religion that fluctuates between two contrasting views reflects perhaps his own ongoing personal anxiety about the subject, an anxiety that often overwhelms the man who inhabits the crossroad of conflicting desires. Here he gives one of his most sympathetic accounts of religion, sketching out the constructive function that religion plays by providing the foundation for community, security, and order (379–81). In “ Daily Life in the Douars,” Fanon offers a comprehensive report on the general socio-cultural constitution of the Muslim community bound by a unifying religious identity. As Federico Settler observes, Fanon “recognized the significance of the sacred in cohering social collectivities and in the recovery of the black self” (5). At the same time, Fanon acknowledges religion’s place in culture as a vital ingredient that fosters national identity. He seems mostly critical of the role religion plays within the colonial order and often expresses strong repugnance against indigenous religions, identifying them with myth, superstition, and magic. Beyond the Western-Secularist Frameworkįanon’s work reveals an ambiguous view of religion overall. Both his critique of the pernicious presence of religion in social-political life and his gesture to repurpose it (as a vessel to resignify Blackness) remain understudied in contemporary Fanonian scholarship. The various streams of decolonial struggles he sets his feet in-be that a political movement or an intellectual tradition-are already entangled in a dynamic and complex interaction with religion. He constantly appeals to religion even as he deliberately turns away from it. In short, Fanon’s relationship with religion is far more complex and complicated. The rather simplistic, yet widely held view on Fanon’s relationship with religion, overlooks the numerous nuanced references to religion that he makes. The prevailing misunderstanding or bias that pits religion against decoloniality often fails to recognize the ideological (that is, colonial) baggage of the secular and its episteme. This is likely due to the misunderstanding informed by the normative secularist epistemic framework that dictates conversations in humanities and social sciences. Religion remains an underattended area in contemporary study of Frantz Fanon. ![]() Poster for a presentation titled “Who was Frantz Fanon.” London, May 2017.
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