Friday, April 17, 2009

Frantz Fanon

We all know about how Franz Fanon thought education was most important, and later using his education to help educate people about what he faced in life. But, only some know about how the arts such as music and contemporary art are used to remind use about Franz's life. For example, a new age metal band "Rage Against the Machine" references Franz Fanon to help enrich the imagery in their music. "Grip the canon like Fanon and pass the shell to my classmate", Rage Against the Machine uses the Reference of Fanon to make the connection of the violent insurrection in our world today. Also, another modern band (C.I.A) uses Franz Fanon to bring up what Franz advocated in his book "Black Man, White Masks". "I bring the sun at red dawn upon the thoughts of Frantz Fanon, So stand at attention devil dirge, You'll never survive choosing sides against the Wretched of the Earth." Not only do we see/hear Franz Fanon in music, his ideas were portrayed in art. For example, Jimmie Durham, an American Indian conceptual artist created a painting called "Often Durham Employs" which points to Fanon's references to colonialism. Jimmie Durham later commented on the painting saying that Fanon's quote saying "The zone where the natives live is not complementary to the zone inhabited by the settlers" was wrong and that his people faced the same conditions and hardships that Fanon did when the Native Americans were driven from their lands. Mainly, we see the ideas and philosophies of Franz Fanon in our world today.