AMERICAN IMPERIALISM, THIRD WORLD, AND THE POLITICS OF VIOLENCE AND DECOLONIZATION: A FANONIAN READING OF THE COLONIAL WORLD OF RED BIRDS

Abstract

In his seminal essay On Violence in The Wretched of the Earth, Frantz Fanon explicates the colonial sector not only a compartmentalized, dehumanized but also an evil place in Manichaean terms for being swarming with the colonized subject whose dreams are overflowing with an aggressive vitality to counter the colonist’s agenda. In this article about Red Birds, I argue that Muhammad Hanif’s portrayal of Momo and Bro Ali’s quest of peace and freedom in a colonial world of the Camp exerts the view of their preoccupation to subvert the colonist’s authority. Critical to understanding this novel is Fanon’s notion that the colonizer’s violence not only helps maintain his power but also precipitates the process of decolonization – in tandem exacerbates aggressive vitality of the incarcerated subject in much greater strength and force than that of the colonizer to counter the violence of oppression.