Analysis Of Frantz Fanon's The Wretched Of The Earth

Comparing and Contrasting the Views on the Problem of Inequality In the writings of Frantz Fanon’s “The Wretched of the Earth,” Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” and Malcom X’s “The Ballot or the Bullet,” there are three distinctive lines of argumentation that attempt to address the issue of inequality within a society. In this essay, it is my intent to compare and contrast the views expressed by these thinkers, and to point out the strengths and weaknesses of each perspective. This will culminate in my support, and defense, of King’s approach to addressing the problems of inequality in a society using nonviolent methods. In “The Wretched of the Earth,” Fanon claims that violence is necessary to achieve both decolonization and personal liberation. Fanon’s assertion comes from his historical examples of the “armed and open struggle[s]” that took place in “Indo-China, Indonesia, and…North Africa”. In these cases, Fanon explains, “He of whom they have never stopped saying that the only language he understands is that of force, decides to give utterance by force. In fact, as always, the settler has shown him the way he should take if he is to become free.” In other words, the oppressed are taught, by example, that violence is the only trustworthy method; because

This is an all too common acceptance of an interpretation of justice, from an inequality standpoint, that allows deleterious ideals such as vengeance, hatred, and envy to be the expression of the change desired. Yet, if violence is the means through which a proposed peaceful end is intended, then the entire ideology collapses. Perhaps, in the words of Friedrich Nietzsche, this incoherent ideology becomes more apparent, “He who fights with monsters should be careful lest he thereby become a monster. And if thou gaze long into an abyss, the abyss will also gaze into