The 20th-century psychiatrist, who saw violence as necessary to liberation from colonialism, is routinely quoted in conversations about Gaza. A new book considers the complexities of an icon
Everyone sees what they want to see in Frantz Fanon.
The anti-colonial icon is endlessly quoted by leftists tweeting about Black Lives Matter or Palestine. He is the father of ongoing efforts to “decolonize psychiatry”. He has even been invoked by the far-right conspiracy theorist Renaud Camus, the father of the “great replacement theory”, to support his calls for depopulating Europe of non-white immigrant “occupiers”.
