Frantz Fanon's Economic, Psychic, and Cultural Problematic of Decolonization in Ahlam Mosteghanemi's Memory in the Flesh (1993)

Muhammed Abbas, Mai

doi:10.21608/aafu.2022.280760

Frantz Fanon's Economic, Psychic, and Cultural Problematic of Decolonization in Ahlam Mosteghanemi's Memory in the Flesh (1993)

Document Type : Original Article

Author

Mai Muhammed Abbas

10.21608/aafu.2022.280760

Abstract

Decolonization illustrates the attempt of the colonized to dismantle colonization and obtain economic, psychic, and cultural liberty. The first type of domination is economic. Fanon claims that in colonial days, the national leader reflects the colonized expectations for freedom. However, after independence, the national leader turns into a businessman. In Memory in the Flesh, Khalid Ibn Tobal, describes the character of Si Sharif who is redefined from a free revolutionary fighter to a businessman. The second type of domination, according to Fanon, is psychic. First of all, he correlates psychic alienation with the colonized loss of freedom. This is evident in Khalid's psychic alienation when his writings are officially censored. Moreover, Fanon mentions that physical torture stimulates psychic trauma. After independence, Khalid is shocked when he is tortured by his Algerian fellowmen. The third type of domination refers to the process of cultural assimilation that entails the erasure of indigenous knowledge structures and traditions, replacing them with European modes of thought. The most feasible sign of acculturation is the colonized use of the colonizer's language. This is evident when Khalid refers to the Algerian elites' use of the French language. When his beloved, Hayat/Ahlam is married to a nouveau riche, Khalid realizes that she belongs to the new, culturally assimilated, Algerian new generation. Although the ending seems to promote the inevitability of cultural assimilation, the fact that the novel is written by a young Algerian in the Arabic language gives hope to the possibility of a counter-hegemonic discourse.

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