The Wretched of the Earth

¶ … Wretched of the Earth by Frantz Fanon is another short essay about imperialism in the world, and it takes "Things Fall Apart" one step further by telling the reader just how imperialism happens and what it does to the native people of a country. Fanon puts it very well when he writes, "decolonization is quite simply the replacing of a certain 'species' of men by another 'species' of men. Without any period of transition, there is a total, complete, and absolute substitution" (Fanon 129). Reading this essay made the situation in the Middle East a little more clear, and a little more frightening, because it is a form of decolonization going on in Afghanistan and Iraq right now, and just like the author says, it creates chaos and great change, and it "never takes place unnoticed" (Fanon 130). That is what is happening in Iraq right now, and why so many people in the world are protesting, because the happenings are not unnoticed.

The author writes about the differences between the white towns and the native towns, and it sounds like much of Southern American before the Civil Rights movement. It also sounds like a terrible place to live if you are a native, and that anyone who lived there would want to get away and make their lives much better. He talks about the world "cut in two" often in the essay, and his pictures of the poor cities where the "wretched of the earth" live really make his words come to life and become real for the reader. In fact, they are so real that you can almost see them and smell them, and that is the mark of good writing. He also talks about how decolonization turns the natives into animals, and this is very real to the reader, too. This also carries along the same thread as Achebe's "Things Fall Apart," when the villagers allow one of their best men to die because of customs and beliefs. This is also a sad essay to read because it seems that there is little hope for countries that are decolonized, and little hope for the people who live there. It makes this reader wonder what is really in store for the Middle East, and if there will ever really be a peaceful coexistence there between religious beliefs and cultures.