Violence: A resolution to the state of alienation

Abstract

The materialisation of violence is usually an indication that endeavours or attempts to avoid and resolve conflict have been rendered unsuccessful and that violence itself has become the solution of the last resort. In the relation between the coloniser and the colonised, we note that the former makes use of violence in order to force the latter to subjugation and dominate over the conquered territory. This reality has prompted anti-colonial thinkers to argue and to justify the use of counter violence in an attempt to regain the humanity and freedom of the oppressed. For, as is argued in this paper the category ‘race’ or ‘colour’ proves so definitive in shaping the colonisers’ apperception of colonised cultures such that there can be no authentic dialogue or negotiation among the conflicting groups and that the struggle against domination or white supremacy must necessarily take the form of considered violence. It is with this context in mind that thinkers like Frantz Fanon begin advocating for violence as a solution to the colonial state of oppression. It is thus with this in mind that the current paper revisits the phenomenology of war and violence in the social thought of Fanon.