弗朗茨·法农是个很有挑衅性的人。In his most influential work,The Wretched of the Earth, Fanon says that “Decolonization reeks of red hot cannonballs and bloody knives. For the last can be first only after a murderous and decisive confrontation between the two protagonists.” He also said this: “For the colonized, life can only materialize from the rotting cadaver of the colonist.” Personally, I prefer Gandhi’s model of resistance. His anti-colonialist bona fides are just as strong as Fanon’s. And he resisted colonialism without violence.

Strikingly, though as far as I know Fanon never commented on Gandhi himself, he dismisses the very idea of non-violence as a creation of colonialism—which is a little paradoxical seeming at first glance, since Fanon sees colonialism itself is a system of violence, one that can only be maintained by the forces of “guns and bayonets,” as he puts it. So how can it possibly create the idea of nonviolence?

这个想法是这样的。当殖民者意识到阴谋已成定局时，他们就会拉拢当地的精英——知识分子、牧师或布道者、政治阶层的推动者和有影响力的人。这些人被殖民的程度如此之深以至于他们与殖民者合作来控制事情。他们这样做是因为他们的殖民条件，他们把革命视为对尊严、平等、个人主义和合理性等价值观的威胁。

我个人认为这些价值观非常重要，值得保存。但法农的看法完全不同。他会说，为了使这些西方价值观稳定，我就像另一个被殖民的黑人知识分子一样说话。他会告诉我要拒绝我的欧洲白人殖民者的价值观。他会告诉我要加入其他必须创造新价值的殖民地人民的行列。但他知道，被殖民的精英们不太可能听从这样的建议。他们让他们的殖民者深入到他们的意识中，以至于他们认可这些外来的价值观，就好像它们是自己的价值观一样。

Now I myself bristle a bit at the thought that values like equality or individualism are “alien.” They seem more like universal values to me. But that, Fanon, would say, is precisely what the colonizers want the colonized to believe. Not because it’s true. But because once you swallow the lie that revolution is a threat to these sham universal values, it’s easier to believe that nonviolent reform is the only legitimate way forward.

We should push back on Fanon here and ask him why exactly we should reject values like individualism or reasonableness as lies. He seems to offer two different answers to that question. For one thing, he clearly thinks that those who preach such values as universal are hypocritical. They claim them for themselves but deny them to the colonized. But his deeper criticism is that the supposedly universal values function as weapons in the hands of the colonizers by means of which they atomize and divide the colonized. The colonized elite in the urban centers of the colonies imbibe the values of the colonizers as essential to “modernization,” while the rural peasants cling to more traditional values and ways.

他认为，难怪殖民精英更喜欢改革而不是革命。他们在谈判桌上获得了一个合理的席位，并与殖民者谈判改革的条件，这些条件无疑将有助于巩固他们自己的权力和特权。但是试图与殖民者达成合理的妥协，被殖民者的精英因为成为了殖民者的工具。最后，改革不会带来根本的改变，至少对大众来说不会。这就是为什么在法农看来，引领革命的总是群众，而不是被拉拢的精英。这就是为什么在他看来，非暴力改革是为叛徒准备的，他们对自己的殖民化视而不见，不仅串通一气地压迫自己，还压迫大众。

我承认法农对西方价值观的批判和他对革命改革的呼吁都具有强烈的力量。但我还是不相信。你可以叫我被殖民，但比起暴力革命，我还是更喜欢非暴力改革。非暴力改革保证了两个世界的好处——在潜在的共同价值观的基础上，被殖民者和殖民者之间的和解，所有这些都不需要流血。

Of course, Fanon would dismiss this all as a nonsensical dream, rooted again, in my colonized consciousness. He would insist that in reality rather than in the world as we might dream it to be, the worlds of the colonized and colonizer are completely incompatible. The only path to liberation for the colonized is to completely smash the colonial world.

I’m not entirely sure what his argument for this bleak conclusion is. He tends not to engage in the sort of argumentative back and forth that we anal analytic philosopher fetishize. Indeed, at times, he even dismisses the very idea of argument. The colonists may offer high-minded arguments and pretty speeches, Fanon says, but “when the colonized hear a speech on Western culture, they draw their machetes!”

虽然殖民者可能不喜欢法农的话，但世界各地的殖民地人民都觉得它真的很鼓舞人心。你站在哪一边?请收听并加入我们的对话，我们将探讨这位极具煽动性、挑战性和影响力的思想家的观点。