11(158-162)Note for Authors THE VIOLATED UNIVERSE: FANON AND GANDHI ON VIOLENCE IN COLONIAL SITUATIONS Dipo Irele University of Ibadan, Nigeria Abstract There is in man the perennial quest for freedom and self- actualization and this lies at the root of the urge to destroy oppressive institutions and unjust arrangements and re- create in their places a humane society which allows for freedom, for freedom alone is the ultimate pre-condition for meaningful creativity. The aim of this paper, therefore, is to carry out a critical assessment of Fanon’s violent approach and Gandhi’s non-violent approach in colonial situations with a view to determining whether both or either of them are relevant to the contemporary post- colonial situation. Violence is other-directed, insofar as it is exercised by an already constituted “Ego” whose interests and identity are thoroughly defined at the onset of the process. A liberation struggle aims not only to achieve external objective of liberating the people from alien rule, but first and foremost to transform the individuals who participate in it, for this guaran- tees that the struggle will result in a new man whose humanity would be restored. Given this, it is important to understand in what respect Fanon and Gandhi parted ways. We shall try to clarify the socio - historical reasons and the value system that are at the origins of either model. There is now a revival of interest in Frantz Fanon due to a dis- course known as post-colonial discourse. Frantz Fanon is generally re- 84 Prajñâ Vihâra, Volume 8, Number 2, July-December, 2007, 84-99 © 2000 by Assumption University Press garded as one of the greatest African revolutionary theorists as well as an irrepressible activist. Fanon was born in the French colony of Martinique and he grew up not just as a nationalist fighting the African cause, but also a revolutionary and a relentless advocate for the total liberation of the African continent. To Fanon, liberation struggle ought not to end with decolonization but must manifest in the well-being of the people, freed from all forms of alienation, domination and on the whole neo-colonialism. Before he died on 6th December 1961, at the age of thirty-six, he had exerted a great influence on the course of the liberation struggle in Africa and other parts of the world. Fanon’s views on revolutionary practice are widely known for their emphasis on violence as a sine qua non for authentic decolonization. These views were expressed in his writings which include Black Skin, White Mask, A Dying Colonialism, The Wretched of the Earth and Towards the African Revolution.1 The institutionalization of violence by the colonizer in the colonized society not only enthrones the supremacy of the ruling class - which is also a racial category in Fanon’s analysis – but facilitates the process of oppression and dehumanization of the colonized people. Now, we may ask, what does Fanon mean by violence? The issue of violence is an important one in Fanon’s thought.2 It is in view of this that it becomes necessary for us to make a distinction between his thesis that the colonial situation is an inherently violent one and his ethical justification of violence as a potent instrument of liberation. For as L.A. Jinadu puts it: “Failure to make this distinction, or to emphasize it, is a major defect in much of the discussion of the aspect of Fanon’s thought.” One reason for this one-sided treatment of violence in Fanon, according to Jinadu, is that much of the discussion is devoted not so much to Fanon’s claim that the colonial situation is by definition violent as to his claim that violence is degenerating and spiritually purifying. What we see in Fanon is a total condemnation of the violence inflicted on the colonized people by the colonizer. He believes that such violence is not conducive to the self-realization of the colonized. He rec- ognizes the instrumental value of violence as a means to a desirable end when socially organized and ideologically directed to achieve the libera- tion of the colonized. In this sense Fanon regards violence as the praxis of Irele 85 decolonization and freedom as self - realization. To discover what Fanon’s conception of violence in colonial situ- ation is one need to appreciate his three-fold categorization of violence, which helps to clarify those socio-political phenomena that in his view constitute violence in the colonial situation. In short, a reading from most of works of Fanon, especially The Wretched of the Earth, suggests that Fanon makes a distinction between physical, structural and psychological violence and this we shall turn to presently. Physical violence involves bodily injury inflicted on human beings, the most radical manifestation of which is the killing of an individual. This conception of violence as involving the killing or wounding of human be- ings is reflected in many passages in The Wretched of the Earth. Thus, when Fanon claims that “colonialism…. is violence in its natural state”3 part of his meaning is that colonial rule was preceded, inaugurated and maintained by the use of physical violence. According to Fanon, to “pacify” indigenous people and force them to accept the new alien order, the colo- nizer often found it necessary to wage wars against them. This situation was clearly evident when indigenous people resisted the establishment of colonial rule and violence was used to subjugate them. It is in view of this that Fanon advocates the use of force to liberate the colonized from the colonizer. Fanon deduced his advocacy of the use of physical force to re- place the colonial situation precisely from his thesis that the colonial situa- tion, together with the social roles and institutions that define it, rests on the basis provided by physical violence. As he wrote, “… it is obvious here that the agents of government speak the language of pure force.”4 According to him, appeals to the conscience of the colonizer are, in cer- tain contexts, misplaced and misdirected. This is because such appeals cannot bring about the termination of colonial rule. Structural violence, on the other hand, is what Fanon refers to as the Manichaeism of the colonial situation. Used in this sense, structural violence is a condition of social injustice. According to Fanon, the abject poverty of the colonized is in stark contrast to the affluence of the colo- nizer: The colonial world is a world divided into compartments. It is 86 Prajñâ Vihâra probably unnecessary to recall the existence of native quarters and European quarters, of schools for natives and schools for Europeans: in the same way we need not recall apartheid in South Africa.5 In Fanon’s view the purpose of colonialism, indeed the essence of the colonial state, is the perpetuation of this condition of social injustice. And according to Fanon, the colonizers are less concerned with bridging the gulf that separates them from the colonized than with sapping the colony of its economic wealth. This assumption obviously runs counter to the view that colonies were economically unprofitable and therefore burden- some to the colonizer. According to Fanon, “in every concrete way Eu- rope has stuffed herself inordinately with the gold and raw materials of the colonial countries.”6 The question that readily comes to mind now is the question of whether there is any connection between physical and structural violence. One answer to this involves yet another reference to Fanon’s belief in the influence of socio-economic and political structures on the behavioral cal- culus of individuals. For example, Fanon’s thesis is also partly that struc- tural violence as a condition of social injustice invariably drives the colo- nized people to desperate ends and to the conviction that one way to redress the condition is to resort to the use of physical violence. The truth is that the privileged position of the colonizer is envied by the colonized who, as a result, is likely to run to radical political action to change the situation. In the case of psychological violence Fanon means the injury or harm done to the human psyche. According to Jinadu7 this includes brain- washing, indoctrination of various kinds and threats, all of which not only serve to decrease the victim’s mental potentialities but also constitute “vio- lence that works on the soul.”8 In other words, this form of violence moulds the consciousness of the colonized. This psychological violence represents the attempt, conscious or unconscious, by the colonizer to cre- ate alienated colonized individuals who reject indigenous values and insti- tutions because they are deceived or brainwashed into believing these values and institutions are inferior to those of the colonizer. The colonized people, therefore, embrace the values and institutions of the colonizer and Irele 87 also “wear white masks.” Psychological violence then becomes a form of cultural imperialism in the context of the colonial situation, and this, ac- cording to Fanon, prevents its colonized victims from achieving self-real- ization. This situation becomes very pathetic when one recalls what Fanon wrote: In the man of color there is constant effort to run away from his own individuality, to annihilate his own presence.9 In developing his thesis on psychological violence or psychic alien- ation, Fanon owes much toSartre-the existentialist philosopher. Sartre had argued that a person, in this case the Jew, is defined by the gaze of the Other, namely the Anti-Semite. According to Sartre, the mistake of the “inauthentic” Jew is to have allowed himself to be poisoned by the stereo- type that the Other had for him. It is in this sense that the action of the “inauthentic” Jew is over-determined from the inside.10 It is in the same vein that Fanon says that the alienated colonized individual accepts the stereotype view that equates Black with evil, he or she becomes the object of the Other’s view that denies him or her of humanity. Fanon’s arguments, however, go further than Sartre’s in that the Blackman experiences alienation as an individual as well as outside himself because of his colour. On the question of whether there is any relationship between psy- chological and structural violence, Fanon says that the nature of the rela- tionship is to be found in the fact that the attempt to become white reflects the superior socio-economic and political status of the colonizer. We may also ask: Is there a relationship between psychological and physical vio- lence? Again Fanon thinks so. Some commentators on Fanon, like Jinadu, agree with Fanon. According to Jinadu, “His thesis is that the effective disalienation of the Black person demands the use of physical violence, the extent and scale of which should be viewed situationally.”11 Thus, Fanon looks upon physical violence which, when utilized under certain conditions and just not indiscriminately, should free the colonized from their inferior complex and confer on them again their self-respect and restore their humanity. We can now pose the question: To what extent is Fanon’s three- 88 Prajñâ Vihâra fold categorization of violence useful. To Jinadu the categorization is use- ful for heuristic purposes. According to him, this is particularly so with the distinction between physical and psychological violence. It makes sense to say that violence has been done to one’s soul or humanity in more than a metaphorical sense. This is an important dimension of violence in the colonial situation and elsewhere for that matter; it focuses on all kinds of indoctrination to which the colonizers are exposed without their necessar- ily suffering physical or bodily harm.12 The categorization though useful for heuristic purposes, may give rise to confusion and ambiguity when it comes to employing it for empiri- cal purposes. Thus, the dividing line between the three types of violence may be a tenuous one. For example, how do we classify action of a government that secures compliance to its orders by threatening, without really intending to do so, to use force to disperse a group of protesters? Secondly, there was a glaring and abominable condition of social injustice in the colonial situation. The force of Fanon’s analysis of structural vio- lence, for example, lies in his identification of, and emphasis on, its racial basis, and on the fact that the colonizers are not responsible, that is not accountable to the colonized, which is to say that the question of redress- ing or equalizing the structural polarity was hardly posed. Again, Fanon’s references to structural violence raises some in- teresting questions about intentionality and motivation which have some consequences. It is one thing to claim that a structure performs certain functions; it is another thing to say it is specifically set up to perform those functions. It is, therefore, not clear whether Fanon is referring to the objective consequences of the colonial situation or to the subjective inten- tions of the colonizer’s; or even to both. What makes the distinctions a useful one to make is that it is not always the case that there is congruence between intentionality and consequences. Fourthly, it has been argued that Fanon’s categorization makes no distinction between violent and non-violent behavior. Some non-violent acts may even involve as much bodily harm or injury as violent acts. For example, a fast-unto–death can involve doing harm to one’s body. Now let us turn to Gandhi at this point. Mahatma Gandhi is one of the foremost political philosophers Irele 89 advocating non-violent approach to liberation in a colonial situation. After 1857 when Britain ruthlessly put down the Indian rebellion and acquired direct control over India, many Indians began to feel that their freedom could be attained by means of violence and that such violence was fully justified. Although India’s struggle for independence was largely non- violent, it was dominated and periodically vitalized by a small but vocal terrorist movement. When Gandhi later appeared on the scene, he at- tacked terrorism and justified his uncompressing insistence on non-vio- lence. Though Gandhi was familiar with the terrorist movement, he was wholly unpersuaded by their arguments. However, he was convinced that they had a great appeal to his countrymen, and that their advocacy of violence was likely to receive support unless their advocacy of violence was effectively countered. Even though Gandhi agreed with the “school of violence” that the liberal methods of rational discussion, parliamentary opposition and elec- toral pressure were either not available or ineffective in India, he was convinced that violence was not the answer for two reasons. First, vio- lence was in principle unacceptable, and second, it was inappropriate and undesirable in the specific context of India’s struggle for independence. Gandhi disapproved of violence on four grounds, namely the ontological, the epistemological, the moral and prudential. His ontological argument is hinged on his belief that the universe is grounded in and sustained by a Supreme Principle, which he calls Reality or Truth and, as a concession to convention, God. The Supreme Prin- ciple regulates the movement of the natural world and is manifested in living beings in the form of a soul. Gandhi also believes that both animals and human beings have souls; the difference between them is that the soul of an animal is dormant and ‘unself conscious’. All living organisms thus embody the divine and are sacred. For Gandhi then all men are “sons of the same God”, and ‘kith and kin’, ‘ourselves in a different form’, and ‘ultimately one.’13 Gandhi goes further to say that since all men are one, their relations can only be based on love and good-will not hatred and ill-will. According to Gandhi, love springs from and sustains human unity, whereas hatred and ill-will are divisive. Now love implies care and concern for others, an active desire to help them grow and flourish, and thus rules out violence. Gandhi be- 90 Prajñâ Vihâra lieves that the use of violence is incongruous with man’s spiritual nature and detracts from his dignity as a human or spiritual being. For Gandhi, violence ultimately rests on the assumption that some men are so fallen that they can never be won over by love and must be destroyed by force. In his view, these amount to denying the fundamental ontological fact about men, namely that each of them embodies a spirit which, however deeply buried under the thick crust of prejudices, can eventually be awakened.14 Gandhi also advances an epistemology argument against violence. The argument is that the use of violence implies a belief in the absolute and infallible knowledge. That in order to be justified in taking the extreme step of harming or killing someone, one must assume that one’s objectives are absolutely right, violence will definitely achieve them and that one’s opponent is totally mistaken. That the consequences of violence are irre- versible in the sense that a life once terminated or damaged can never be revived or easily put together. And irreversible deeds require infallible knowledge to justify them. For Gandhi such infallible moral and empirical knowledge is denied to man. To Gandhi fallibility of man undermines the very basis of action, for a man can never act if he constantly entertains doubt that his objectives might be wholly wrong. We must, therefore, acknowledge our fallibility and leave room for reflection and reconsidera- tion, a sort of reflective equilibrium, to use Rawls’s phrase. In his view, violence does not allow this. It generates bitterness which ‘blurs our vi- sion’ and prevents us from appreciating the opponent’s point of view. For Gandhi then violence is doubly flawed; it assumes infallibility and rules out corrigibility. Gandhi also bases his rejection of violence on moral grounds. For him, morality consists, not merely in doing what is right, but doing so because one believes it to be right. For Gandhi, therefore, morality re- quires the unity of character and conduct, harmony between belief and behavior. In his view violent disrupts this unity. By creating a split be- tween belief and character on the one hand and conduct on the other, violence undermines a person’s moral integrity and diminishes his status as a moral being. Finally, Gandhi rejects violence on the ground that it can never achieve lasting results. According to him, when we describe a particular act of violence as successful, we mean that it has achieved a specific Irele 91 objective. Judged within the context of this narrow framework, the act of violence has no doubt been successful. Gandhi contends that if we are to view it in terms of its long term consequences and the kind of society it creates, our judgment would be very different. Its apparent success en- courages the belief that violence succeeds and it alone succeeds, and it develops that habit of using it every time when one runs into resistance. Gandhi also claims that violence has a habit of generating a vicious spiral. With every apparently successful act of violence, the community con- cerned comes to accept it as inevitable and becomes used to it. Its toler- ance of violence increases, and overtime an increasingly larger amount of it becomes necessary to achieve the same objective. According to Gandhi, each act of violence adds to an escalating spiral and contributes to the eventual disintegration of the community from which no one benefits. It may also become part and parcel of the society after independence might have been achieved. As we have noted, Gandhi not only objected to the use of vio- lence in general, but also in the specific context of India’s independence struggle. For him independence means absence of foreign rule; and if it involves nothing more than replacing the foreign with indigenous masters and exploiters, it does not make a significant improvement and is hardly worth dying for. In Gandhi’s view Indian independence is desirable to arrest the utter moral degradation of the colonized by the colonizer and to educate the colonized against accepting an alien civilization being forced on them by the colonizer. For Gandhi then, independence is necessary for the regeneration of the Indian character and civilization. He subsumes both these under the concept of swaraj. Swaraj which means self-rule or self-government implies a form of polity in which self-disciplined and ‘manly’ people con- duct their personal and collective affairs. According to Gandhi, indepen- dence is merely legal and political, whereas swaraj is a moral concept referring to the quality of the character and civilization of a community. He believes that independence can be given, swaraj can only be won; inde- pendence can be a gift, swaraj is an achievement; independence is essen- tially negative, swaraj is positive. In Gandhi’s view then, the struggle for independence cannot be dissociated from the far more important struggle for swaraj. Since inde- 92 Prajñâ Vihâra pendence is only desirable as a condition of ‘swaraj’ the struggle for it must be organized that it facilitates the achievement of swaraj, for other- wise independence would only lead to the rule by arrogant minority just as keen as their colonial predecessors to keep their subjects ‘unmanly’ and just as out of sympathy with the indigenous civilization. Violence, in Gandhi’s view, is by its very nature confined to a few and does not actively involve the vast masses of men. It is thus elitist in orientation, encourages the cult of leadership and likely to do little more than replace the British with a small minority of indigenous rulers. Further, since the masses are not actively involved, the violent struggle for inde- pendence cannot arrest their moral degrading, let alone develop ‘manly’ qualities in them. Nor can it generate a sense of community based on solidarity of suffering, and the consequent sense of having a stake in politi- cal power. For Gandhi then, violence was not a proper method of struggle against the British. It was morally undesirable, incapable of achieving swaraj and, given the enormous disparity in the instruments of violence at the disposal of the government and the people, unlikely to achieve inde- pendence either. Gandhi then went on to propose an alternative method which, he claimed, was in accord with man’s spiritual nature and sure to achieve both swaraj and independence. He called this method satyagraha. It required that the goals of struggle should be just or truth- ful, and those engaged in it guided by love for and desire to ‘convert’ their opponents by patiently suffering whatever punishment was meted out to them. Gandhi developed several forms of action which collectively con- stitute his method of satyagraha. Of these, non-cooperation, civil dis- obedience and fast were the most important. Gandhi’s view is that a government cannot exist and operate suc- cessfully without the cooperation of the subjects. This is because the authority of any government draws its base from the subjects, that is their consent is necessary. It is the moral responsibility of the subjects to refuse to co-operate with the government is if it is unjust. In Gandhi’s view, non- cooperation can take many forms which include among others refusal to serve in the armed forces, boycotting of schools and surrendering of hon- ors and titles conferred by the government. The refusal to obey the laws of the government is also a form of Irele 93 non-cooperation, and this leads to civil disobedience. According to Gandhi, civil disobedience means an open, peaceful, principled and courteous vio- lation of laws believed to be unjust. Civil disobedience, Gandhi claims, can “bring the whole legislative and executive machinery to a stand-still.”15 In addition to the methods of civil disobedience and non-cooperation is the method of fasting. According to Gandhi, fast –unto-death was an expression of courage at an evil practice, and it was also a last desperate attempt to stir the ‘sluggish conscience’ of his opponent. He does not believe that fast was a cowardly suicide, nor a quasi-Romantic gesture of self-immolation, but an act of martyrdom for a cause. Having outlined Gandhi’s critique of violence and his alternative theory of satyagraha we are now in a position to ask: To what extent are his arguments tenable? In fact many criticisms have been raised against Gandhi. One line of criticism, for example, against his position is his at- tempt to link swaraj with the rejection of industrial civilization which is considered as anachronistic. He is wrong to suggest that violence is es- sentially Western and that India civilization is basically non-violent. Again, Gandhi fails to appreciate the fact that the struggles for independence and swaraj are rather different in nature, cannot be easily integrated and that his attempts to combine them lead to confusion and lack of direction. His belief that violence somehow remains confined to a few terrorists and does not require the more or less active support of the community at large, and that non-violent struggle avoids elitism, are also mistaken. Apart from the above criticisms raised against Gandhi’s critique of violence, his own alternative theory of non-violence or satyagraha suffers from other severe limitations. First, he was wrong to regard vio- lence as a carnal and non-violence as spiritual in nature. Second, it could be argued that he exaggerated the difference between non-violence and violence. Third, he failed to fully appreciate the nature and role of vio- lence in human affairs. And finally, although he did not intend it, his theory of satyagraha tended to glorify suffering. There is necessarily a sense in which political thinkers are prod- ucts of their social milieu. Their thoughts and writings are profoundly affected by the complex nature of the various so- cial influences and forces to which they are exposed and sub- 94 Prajñâ Vihâra jected.16 In the case of Fanon, his theory of violence in colonial situation was rooted in the socio-economic and political milieu created by French colonial rule in Martinique and Algeria. The theory of French colonial rule, reflected in the French colonial policies of assimilation and associa- tion, is based primarily on the assumption of the superiority of French culture and civilization, an assumption that rests on the denial of the au- thenticity of indigenous culture. Fanon’s experiences in Martinique and France pointed to the gap between the theory and practice of assimilation. Although he had ‘assimi- lated’ French values in Martinique, he discovered in Martinique and France that colonialist society was a rigidly stratified or racist society in which the color question was an overriding one that precluded his admission to, and mobility within, French society on equal socio-economic and political terms with white Frenchmen, despite the fact that one puts on white mask though having black skin.. The portrait of Fanon that should emerge is that of a moralist and humanist. He had a passionate concern for, and commitment to, humanity and the human condition; he felt uneasy in a hypocritical world where lip service was paid to the ideals of social justice, equality and freedom. He brought moral concerns to bear on the social and political questions. Gandhi also was a humanist. He felt for his people’s subjugated condition. He had the feeling that India’s rich civilization was not allowed to flourish during the colonial period. His discourse on non-violence relied on the rich heritage of India though he tapped from other cultures, especially the western culture which he was familiar with. He was able to innovate Indian culture through his vast knowledge of it which he combined with other cultures, and he formed an integrated discursive strategy on non- violence. Fanon’s position is best understood when contrasted with Gandhi’s, which presents us with an opposite model of anti-colonial struggle. For Gandhi did not approach the question of liberation from the viewpoint of a population dispossessed, but from the view point of a na- tion endowed with a rich cultural heritage and a unique civilizing mission in the world. Gandhi was always inspired by a deep sense of national and Irele 95 personal value as well as the belief that the mind has primacy over the body and the individual can achieve inner freedom in the face of all exter- nal constraints. Thus, he was convinced that India’s culture embodied universal values, that, once realized, should provide a source of strength, a “soul force” for its masses, and become a key element in their emanci- pation. Gandhi was also influenced by the Hindu creed that life in the body is an imperfect status from which only death can liberate us. Not only is the individual a battlefield of two opposite natures: higher self- eternal, imperishable, and a lower self caught in the life-death cycle. As life in the flesh is a chain which binds us to our essential freedom, the aim of our existence is to overcome the body and manifest in the course of history, our true, divine nature.17 From this conception of the self and national identity - where selfhood and India’s honor are deeply intertwined - stems both Gandhi’s rejection of violence and his doctrine of satyagraha, which he first devel- oped in South Africa in the course of his long campaign for Indian rights. The two models of violence have had a lasting impact on the struggles of people of the Third World countries. Besides, both Fanon’s and Gandhi’s positions still continue to have an impact in the socio-eco- nomic political landscapes of African countries and India. Violence has become part and parcel of African political system, where the violent struc- tures of colonial system are still being used by the African elites against their people. The African elites have turned the state into a personal fiefdom.18 African psyche is still affected by the historical encounter with the West. Gandhi’s romanization of suffering as a means of political change has had an impact on the psyche of his countrymen. Suffering has become so much a part of life that death and misery no longer arouse any response in people. People have turned suffering into a ritual, a cult in that part of the world and despite the recent economic growth of India, majority of the people are still wallowing in poverty. There is still large scale poverty in India that it is unimaginable considering the economic growth that is highly enormous and has not transformed the life of the ordinary people in all areas of their life. There is class stratification now and the gap between the elite and the poor has widened greatly. This situation has not made the majority to be conscious of the need to change it because, as earlier pointed, suffering has become part and parcel of the normal life in that part of the 96 Prajñâ Vihâra world.19 Gandhi’s theory has had this kind of effect on the people in that they do not think that the system can be changed. In a nutshell, the two models still continue to have an impact and here lies their relevance to the post-colonial situation.* Endnotes 1 F. Fanon, Black Skin, White Masks (N.Y.:Grove Press, 1967; F. Fanon, A Dying Colonialism (N.Y.: Grove Press, 1967); F. Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth (N.Y.: Grove Weidenfield, 1961); F. Fanon, Towards the African Revolution (N.Y.: Grove Press, 1964). 2 L. A Jinadu, In Search of the African Revolution. (Enugu: Forth Dimen- sion, 1980) p.42. I am much indebted to Jinadu for the numerous borrowings of his idea in this paper, but have used them in my own way. For other works on Fanon see, N. Gibson (ed), Rethinking Fanon: The Continuing Dialogue (Amherst, N.Y.: Humanity Books, 1999); R. Zahar, Frantz Fanon: Colonialism and Alienation trans. W.F.Feuser (N.Y.: Monthly Review Press, 1974); T. Serequeberhan, The Herme- neutics of African Philosophy (N.Y.: Routeledge, 1994). Some thinkers have con- demned Fanon for his espousal of violence, for this see E. Kedourie, Nationalism in Asia and Africa (N.Y.: World Publishing Co., 1970). 3 F. Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth (N.Y.: Grove Press, 1961), p.61. 4 Ibid, p.40. 5 Ibid, p.37. 6 Ibid, p.102. 7 L. A Jinadu, op. cit, p.47. 8 J.T Galtung, “Violence, Peace and Peace Research”, Journal of Peace Research, Vol.3, 1964, p.167. 9 F. Fanon, Black Skin, White Mask. (N.Y.: Grove Press, 1967), p.60. 10 Jean-Paul Sartre, Anti-Semite and Jew. trans. G.J. Becker (N.Y.: Shocken Books, 1965) p.90. 11 L. A Jinadu, op.cit, p.50. 12 Ibid. 13 Culled from Young India (18th December, 1924), p.3. I gained a lot from the works of A.J. Parel, Gandhi’s Philosophy and the Quest for Harmony (Cam- bridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006) and Gandhi: Struggling for Autonomy (Cambridge: CUP, 2002). See also Bhikhy Parekh, Gandhi’s Political Philosophy: A Critical Examination (London: Macmillan Academic Press & Professional Ltd, 1989). Gandhi is recognized for his position of non-violence and because of this U.N.O. has declared Oct 3rd every year as Gandhi’s day. 14 Gandhi, Young India. op. cit. p.8. Irele 97 15 M. K. Gandhi, Constructive Programme. (Navajivan, 1948), p.8. 16 For this line of position, see M.H. Lessnoff, Political Philosophers of the Twentieth Century. (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1999); see also my work, Dipo Irele, Introduction to Contemporary Social and Contemporary Thinkers (Ibadan: New Horn Press, 1993). 17 G. Richards, The Philosophy of Gandhi. (N.Y.: Curson Press, 1982), pp.32- 35. 18 For some positions along this line see Chinua Achebe, The Trouble with Nigeria. (London: Heinemann Press, 1983) Jean-Francois Bayart, The State in Af- rica: the Politics of the Belly (London: Longman, 1993); G.B. Ayittey, Africa Be- trayed (N.Y.: St. Martins Press, 1992). Jean-Francois Bayart, S. Ellis, B. Hibou, The Criminalization of the State in Africa (London Bloomington: James Currey and Indiana University Press, 1999). See chapters 1, 2, 4; S Ellis (ed) Africa Now (Lon- don: James Currey, 1996); P. Bond, Looting Africa (London Books Ltd, 2006), chap- ter 5. F. Fanon, A. Cabral and Walter Rodney had foreseen this kind of scenario before independence and had warned people about this. For their position on this, see Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth, especially chapter 3 entitled “Pitfalls of National Consciousness” for Cabral’s position, see his works, Revolution in Guinea: Selected texts (N.Y.: Monthly Review to the Press, 1973); Unity and Struggle (Lon- don: Heinemann, 1980). W. Rodney, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa (London: Bogle L’o Uverture Publications, 1972). 19 For some positions along this line, see some papers in State of the Nation in the Context of Social Change (ed) T.V. Sathyamurthy Vol.1 (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1977) See also Armartya Sen position his text, Development as Freedom (N.Y.: Anchor Books, 1999). * I wish to thank my brother Prof. Abiola Irele of Harvard University, U.S.A., for his comments and suggestions for the improvement of this paper. 98 Prajñâ Vihâra