The Wretched of the Earth

The pinnacle of anti-colonial text. A key book on the shelf of the revolutionary.

While this book has a lot of key messages that are useful in fighting the class war, I think it's far more valuable to people in the underdeveloped world. And as a 5th-generation colonizer on land that required a lot of genocides to steal and slave labor to develop, it really feels like this book isn't FOR me. It's for people far more oppressed than me. While a lot of the content is timeless, he occasionally makes references to timely events with little to no contextualization, usually because he's trying to build a bigger point so the contextualization necessary for those out of the know would have derailed the point.

Regardless I still got some good stuff out of it. Here are some of the quotes I highlighted:

“...it only needs the newly born to fear living a little more than dying, and for the torrent of violence to sweep away all the barriers.” As relevant as ever. Deteriorating material conditions will inevitably spark revolution. Whether the state crackdown that follows extinguishes the revolution, that is circumstantial.

“Imperialism and capitalism are convinced that the fight against racism and national liberation movements are purely and simply controlled and masterminded from ‘the outside.'” We see this any time the corporate media repeat the propaganda of “outside agitators” trying to fight for human rights, like during the 2020 BLM protests.

“Europe's well-being and progress were built with the sweat and corpses of blacks, Arabs, Indians, and Asians. This we are determined never to forget. When a colonialist country, embarrassed by a colony's demand for independence, proclaims with the nationalist leaders in mind: ‘If you want independence, take it and return to the Dark Ages,' the newly independent people nod their approval and take up the challenge. And what we actually see is the colonizer withdrawing his capital and technicians and encircling the young nation with an apparatus of economic pressure.” This is how the world works. Get dominated by a stronger country, and either accept it or fight for your independence and get economically crushed. Hello Cuba.

“Colonialism and imperialism have not settled their debt to us once they have withdrawn their flag and their police force from our territories. For centuries the capitalists have behaved like real war criminals in the underdeveloped world. Deportation, massacres, forced labor, and slavery were the primary methods used by capitalism to increase its gold and diamond reserves, and establish its wealth and power.” Indeed.

“In order to invest in the independent countries, private companies demand terms which from experience prove unacceptable or unfeasible. True to their principle of immediate returns as soon as they invest “overseas,” capitalists are reluctant to invest in the long term. They are recalcitrant and often openly hostile to the so-called economic planning programs of the young regimes. At the most they are willing to lend capital to the young nations on condition it is used to buy manufactured goods and machinery, and therefore keep the factories in the metropolis running.” This was talked about a lot more in “How Europe Underdeveloped Africa” by Walter Rodney (1972). Europe bought the raw material form underdeveloped countries for cheap, then sold the processed goods back for far more. They had no interest in helping other countries develop. They just wanted to exploit them. They still exploit underdeveloped countries. Exploitation is inevitable under Capitalism.

“The more the people understand, the more vigilant they become, the more they realize in fact that everything depends on them and that their salvation lies in their solidarity, in recognizing their interests and identifying their enemies. The people understand that wealth is not the fruit of labor but the spoils from an organized protection racket. The rich no longer seem respectable men but flesh-eating beasts, jackals and ravens who wallow in the blood of the people.” I love this one. I have nothing of value to add to this. I just really liked it.

Read this book if you're interested in anti-colonialism/post-colonial nationalism.
See also:
• “How Europe Underdeveloped Africa” by Walter Rodney (1972)
• “Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent” by Eduardo Galeano, (1971)
• “Christopher Columbus and the Afrikan Holocaust: Slavery and the Rise of European Capitalism” by John Henrik Clarke (1992)