thank you for writing this. it's very important work. i especially appreciate the lens of evolutionary psychology that you apply to anger as an emotion.
Such an interesting and important read. I feel like even allies often forget that anger and the resistance that follows is a logical response to the tragedy and frustration faced under colonization. Anger is not weakness or "giving them what they want," it's agency surviving in one of the only forms it can. I feel like you can't truly be an ally without creating a space for that anger, and to try and soften the people or the movement would be doing a disservice to both. So glad this is being discussed!
Thank you for this profound reflection Zahra. Mr. Fanon was spot on, the victims of the insidious and brutal colonial system have a natural desire to protect and defend their families and dignity, and this defense is denied to them by design, along with their agency as human beings. Then, when they act out in defiance, the occupiers label them as "barbarians", "savages" "foes" to justify their violent suppression, as if they are "civilizing" said uncultured, uncouth people (though they want their own populace to think of the indigenous populations as less than human). It is a despicable paradox, and it is readily apparent in the genocidal occupation of Palestine
Agreed, and in that demonization and dehumanization, the colonists "justify" their horrific treatment of native populations. The colonized/oppressed are already framed as "the enemy" or "the uncivilized hordes" from the beginning, their every action in defiance of their subjugators termed as hostility and insurrection.
Thank you for this, I’ve been thinking about righteous rage, and the expression of anger coming from a marginalised background. We are constantly policed, picked apart and told what the appropriate response is to colonialism. How insidious it is…
Am excellent piece. My question is a bit of an abstraction of Fannon's work that you elaborated upon. His and your frame is colonizer/native. However if we are looking at the disruption of natural human processing/resolution/cycles the relevant frame for our age seems to be the systems of control from governments/media/tech/consumerism. Put differently, could Fannon and your framing not also apply to the contemporary death of ritual that applies to native and colonized alike?
The problem here is not Fanon. It is how selectively Fanon is being used.
Fanon’s insight was not a poetic observation limited to European settler colonialism, nor a diagnosis confined to Algeria or Gaza. It was a universal psychological claim:
When anger is justified but structurally forbidden from acting upon its source, it becomes pathological.
That mechanism does not belong to one geography, one people, or one historical moment. It applies wherever power provokes injury while monopolizing legitimate outlets for response.
Yet this essay treats Fanon descriptively, not structurally. His framework is frozen in time and place, invoked only where it produces a politically comfortable conclusion.
If Fanon is taken seriously, then his analysis applies just as clearly to:
women trapped under Islamic family law, where injury is recognised but resistance is criminalised,
dissidents living under blasphemy regimes, where moral outrage is framed as heresy,
queer Muslims whose very existence is named a transgression,
apostates whose refusal is treated as treason,
religious minorities whose anger is denied legitimacy by divine law rather than military courts.
In all of these cases, the structure is identical to the one Fanon diagnosed: provocation without redress, injury without agency, anger without outlet. The resulting psychological fallout, internalized violence, self-destruction, lateral aggression, collapse, which are the predictable outcome of a system that forbids defense while demanding submission.
To invoke Fanon while exempting religious power from his critique is not nuance. It is misapplication.
Fanon did not offer a language for choosing the “right” oppressor. He offered a diagnostic tool for identifying any system that produces psychic injury by denying justified anger its rightful object.
To quote him repeatedly while refusing that universality is not fidelity to his work.
Your analysis is on target also with the hideous repression in the UK Police and the USA/ Tel Aviv ICE thugs, in addition to the unspeakable illegal entity. That entity is ever daring in its competition with itself to provoke severe rage and violence in response. What is the proper response to seeing a child kidnapped and: raped by prison dogs; raped by proud guards with their penises and metal objects; their bodies showing where their organs were removed to be sold in Eastern Europe because it is not kosher for a Jew to donate an organ to another at death; mutilated corpses by bulldozer; bodies returned in a pile of severed limbs. It appears to be a grand gesture to dare the people with souls in this world to rise up and kill the rabid dogs who perpetrate this. They lie; cover up; delay; and manipulate their fake religious beliefs and need to be taken seriously. They ache to see a Mau Mau style rebellion or a nuclear war.
The DPRK who helped the Palestinian resistance design effective tunnels; sniper rife manufacture in Gaza with ammo; and anti-tank RPG's and mortars is utterly heroic and vilified for daring to help the wretched of the Earth, not at all unlike the Cubans who helped liberate South Africa from the Afrikaners. The Hamas videos of partisans taking out tanks and setting remote explosive devices, in addition to the sniper slayings of the IDF, is altogether humanizing. Hopefully, the DPRK can help Iran get nuclear submarines, so the Little Marco Rubio and his illegal entity masters can declare peace, a la Cold War mutual assured destruction. So civilized!
thank you for writing this. it's very important work. i especially appreciate the lens of evolutionary psychology that you apply to anger as an emotion.
I’m glad you think so! Anger and protest are expressions of dignity and integrity. They should be defined that way.
Thank you for this piece, translated in French here : https://zanzibar.substack.com/p/frantz-fanon-guerisseur-de-lame-colonisee
Incredible thank you so much!
You are welcome !
This thing applies to Gaza on a one to one basis. Israelis are also a perfect Fanonian case study in that sense.
Such an interesting and important read. I feel like even allies often forget that anger and the resistance that follows is a logical response to the tragedy and frustration faced under colonization. Anger is not weakness or "giving them what they want," it's agency surviving in one of the only forms it can. I feel like you can't truly be an ally without creating a space for that anger, and to try and soften the people or the movement would be doing a disservice to both. So glad this is being discussed!
Wonderfully put!
Excellent read, glad i got recommended this
Thank you! Means a lot
Thank you for this profound reflection Zahra. Mr. Fanon was spot on, the victims of the insidious and brutal colonial system have a natural desire to protect and defend their families and dignity, and this defense is denied to them by design, along with their agency as human beings. Then, when they act out in defiance, the occupiers label them as "barbarians", "savages" "foes" to justify their violent suppression, as if they are "civilizing" said uncultured, uncouth people (though they want their own populace to think of the indigenous populations as less than human). It is a despicable paradox, and it is readily apparent in the genocidal occupation of Palestine
Absolutely! Before defence, even the impulse to defend is throttled and demonised.
Agreed, and in that demonization and dehumanization, the colonists "justify" their horrific treatment of native populations. The colonized/oppressed are already framed as "the enemy" or "the uncivilized hordes" from the beginning, their every action in defiance of their subjugators termed as hostility and insurrection.
wonderful work, author. thank you!
Thank you for reading!
Thank you for this, I’ve been thinking about righteous rage, and the expression of anger coming from a marginalised background. We are constantly policed, picked apart and told what the appropriate response is to colonialism. How insidious it is…
Absolutely. Righteous rage is reserved for some and denied in others. Thank you for reading 🙏🏻
Am excellent piece. My question is a bit of an abstraction of Fannon's work that you elaborated upon. His and your frame is colonizer/native. However if we are looking at the disruption of natural human processing/resolution/cycles the relevant frame for our age seems to be the systems of control from governments/media/tech/consumerism. Put differently, could Fannon and your framing not also apply to the contemporary death of ritual that applies to native and colonized alike?
yes
The problem here is not Fanon. It is how selectively Fanon is being used.
Fanon’s insight was not a poetic observation limited to European settler colonialism, nor a diagnosis confined to Algeria or Gaza. It was a universal psychological claim:
When anger is justified but structurally forbidden from acting upon its source, it becomes pathological.
That mechanism does not belong to one geography, one people, or one historical moment. It applies wherever power provokes injury while monopolizing legitimate outlets for response.
Yet this essay treats Fanon descriptively, not structurally. His framework is frozen in time and place, invoked only where it produces a politically comfortable conclusion.
If Fanon is taken seriously, then his analysis applies just as clearly to:
women trapped under Islamic family law, where injury is recognised but resistance is criminalised,
dissidents living under blasphemy regimes, where moral outrage is framed as heresy,
queer Muslims whose very existence is named a transgression,
apostates whose refusal is treated as treason,
religious minorities whose anger is denied legitimacy by divine law rather than military courts.
In all of these cases, the structure is identical to the one Fanon diagnosed: provocation without redress, injury without agency, anger without outlet. The resulting psychological fallout, internalized violence, self-destruction, lateral aggression, collapse, which are the predictable outcome of a system that forbids defense while demanding submission.
To invoke Fanon while exempting religious power from his critique is not nuance. It is misapplication.
Fanon did not offer a language for choosing the “right” oppressor. He offered a diagnostic tool for identifying any system that produces psychic injury by denying justified anger its rightful object.
To quote him repeatedly while refusing that universality is not fidelity to his work.
It is a profound misunderstanding of it.
Your analysis is on target also with the hideous repression in the UK Police and the USA/ Tel Aviv ICE thugs, in addition to the unspeakable illegal entity. That entity is ever daring in its competition with itself to provoke severe rage and violence in response. What is the proper response to seeing a child kidnapped and: raped by prison dogs; raped by proud guards with their penises and metal objects; their bodies showing where their organs were removed to be sold in Eastern Europe because it is not kosher for a Jew to donate an organ to another at death; mutilated corpses by bulldozer; bodies returned in a pile of severed limbs. It appears to be a grand gesture to dare the people with souls in this world to rise up and kill the rabid dogs who perpetrate this. They lie; cover up; delay; and manipulate their fake religious beliefs and need to be taken seriously. They ache to see a Mau Mau style rebellion or a nuclear war.
The DPRK who helped the Palestinian resistance design effective tunnels; sniper rife manufacture in Gaza with ammo; and anti-tank RPG's and mortars is utterly heroic and vilified for daring to help the wretched of the Earth, not at all unlike the Cubans who helped liberate South Africa from the Afrikaners. The Hamas videos of partisans taking out tanks and setting remote explosive devices, in addition to the sniper slayings of the IDF, is altogether humanizing. Hopefully, the DPRK can help Iran get nuclear submarines, so the Little Marco Rubio and his illegal entity masters can declare peace, a la Cold War mutual assured destruction. So civilized!