Franzt Fanon lives. . . . .

All this talk of war and remembrance and the overwrought reactions that I have received to my rather unpopular positions has reminded me of the great Frantz Fanon. Fanon was born in Martinique and was trained as a psychiatrist in France. He became an anti-colonial activist and writer whose book The Wretched of the Earth inspired generations of anti-colonial activists and helped to define post-colonial thought. Jean-Paul Sartre wrote an introduction for Fanon's famous book and warned his fellow Europeans that the history of colonial and neo-colonial exploitation would eventually give rise to terrible violence if the words of Fanon were not heeded. Well they have not really been heeded, though the Western Powers have done their best to hide the real relations of exploitation.

Read his books. Neo-Colonialism is real and we are part of it. Of course, like real colonialism it comes with its own pre-made excuses about 'goodness' and development, but it is all spin. I once had a CIDA official in San Salvador sit right in front of me and calmly admit that foreign development funding was almost exclusively about developing markets for Western companies. Of course, it wasn't the kind of thing that he would admit to in front of Third World media people but it was the reality that he worked in for many years.

Each generation spins its exploitation and military effort and every war has its own excuse.