"The reason being that the colonized intellectual has thrown himself headlong into Western culture. Like adopted children who only stop investigation their new family environment once their psyche has formed a minimum core of reassurance, the colonized intellectual will endeavor to make European culture his own. Not content with knowing Rabelais of Diderot, Shakespeare or Edgar Allen Poe, he will stretch his mind until he identifies with them completely" (Fanon 156). When this fails, the intellectual tends to fixate an idealized version of native culture, creating a romanticized, but ultimately false version of the past. "Seeking to cling close to the people, he clings merely to a visible veneer. This veneer, however, is merely a reflection of a dense, subterranean life in perpetual renewal" (Fanon 160). However, the colonial intellectual does not realize that even when he attempts to perceive the 'pure' past, he is still using the aesthetic standards and language of the oppressor, having internalized them to such a great degree. "The colonized intellectual who returns to his people through works of art behaves, in fact, like a foreigner" (Fanon 160). The third part of the cycle is when the intellectual becomes a 'galvanizer' of the people, who tries to make his fellow natives aware of the unfair changes wrought to their nation by force, and encourages them to revolt against their oppressors. The intellectual uses "combat literature" and revolutionary literature -- and, most importantly a truly national literature emerges (Fanon 158-159). Fanon clearly believes that this final stage is the truest source of national identity in formerly...
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