Table Of ContentAlbert Camus and Franz Fanon, world-famous authors shaped by French
colonialism, are compared in this profoundly philosophical book. They
came to opposite conclusions about Algeria’s war against French colo-
nial rule, but both were idealists who, in their own distinct ways, sought
impossible solutions. Had they lived to see the consequences of this war
both would have been terribly disheartened. Today, we still face the same
dilemma: How can we deal with terrible injustice without falling into
the same trap as too many revolutions which replace old forms of brutal
exploitation with new, awful tyrannies that betray their original ideals?
Professor Daniel Chirot, Emeritus Herbert J. Ellison Professor of
Russian and Eurasian Studies at the Jackson School of International
Studies that is part of the University of Washington, Seattle
“Even as the anti-colonialism that so much drove Fanon has become
a powerful force in today’s world, so too do we seem, in recent times,
to have been plunged back into what is almost a replay of the events
of the 1930s and 1940s that so shaped Camus’ thinking. Algeria is
the landscape in which the contrast between Camus and Fanon was
largely played out historically and biographically; that contrast is
now being played out, in broader terms, across the world. Tabensky’s
ground-breaking, rigorous, and thoughtful book is thus a timely
intervention in a past debate that nevertheless remains very much
alive – a book for the present and for the future.”
Jeff Malpas, Emeritus Distinguished Professor,
University of Tasmania, Australia
“This book puts two significant writers, Camus and Fanon, in con-
versation for the first time. Tabensky moves us beyond superficial or
anachronistic depictions to consider the options for social change in
the face of entrenched colonial structures. These two would not, and
did not, agree on much apart from the necessity of foreign and racial
domination to disappear, but considering the two together allows us
to see the options for resistance.”
Bruce B. Janz, University of Central Florida, USA
Camus and Fanon on the
Algerian Question
This is the first book to offer a systematic comparison of the philosophies
of Albert Camus and Frantz Fanon. It shows how the ethical, political,
and psychological outlooks of these two influential thinkers can further
our understanding of how to bring about justice in the face of deep power
imbalances.
The author foregrounds the bloody Algerian war of independence in
his analysis of the philosophies of Camus and Fanon. Although neither
supported the French colonial occupation of Algeria, they held radically
different views of the conflict. Fanon supported emancipation through
violence, which the author argues has been uncritically romanticized.
Camus, on the other hand, supported an ethics of moderation that
shunned indiscriminate violence. The author argues that Camus has been
unfairly accused of being an apologist for colonialism. Finally, the author
draws out the common endorsement of humanist values that drive both
Camus’s and Fanon’s thoughts.
Camus and Fanon on the Algerian Question will appeal to scholars
and advanced students interested in 20th-century continental philosophy,
postcolonialism, existentialism, and African philosophy.
Pedro Tabensky is Director of the Allan Gray Centre for Leadership
Ethics, Department of Philosophy, Rhodes University in South Africa. He
has drawn on the work of Fanon and Camus intellectuals in recent publi-
cations. Tabensky is currently working on a book exploring the relation-
ship between education, ethics, and freedom.
Routledge Studies in Twentieth-Century Philosophy
Wittgenstein’s Liberatory Philosophy
Thinking through the Philosophical Investigations
Rupert Read
Walter Benjamin’s First Philosophy
Experience, Ephemerality and Truth
Nathan Ross
The Legacy of Nietzsche’s Philosophy of Laughter
Bataille, Deleuze and Rosset
Lydia Amir
Heidegger’s Ecological Turn
Community and Practice for Future Generations
Frank Schalow
Lectures on a Philosophy Less Ordinary
Language and Morality in J.L. Austin’s Philosophy
Niklas Forsberg
Heidegger and the Contradiction of Being
An Analytic Interpretation of the Late Heidegger
Filippo Casati
Camus and Fanon on the Algerian Question
An Ethics of Rebellion
Pedro Tabensky
For more information about this series, please visit: https://www.routledge.
com/Routledge-Studies-in-Twentieth-Century-Philosophy/book-series/
SE0438
Camus and Fanon on the
Algerian Question
An Ethics of Rebellion
Pedro Tabensky
First published 2023
by Routledge
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and by Routledge
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Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an
informa business
© 2023 Pedro Tabensky
The right of Pedro Tabensky to be identified as author of this
work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78
of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted
or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic,
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including photocopying and recording, or in any information
storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing
from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be
trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for
identification and explanation without intent to infringe.
ISBN: 978-0-367-74598-1 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-0-367-74991-0 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-003-16067-0 (ebk)
DOI: 10.4324/9781003160670
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by SPi Technologies India Pvt Ltd (Straive)
To Sally, Lithalelanga and Noah
viii
To go back to the Encyclopaedists and the Marxists and all the
other movements the purpose of which is the perfect life: it seems
as if the doctrine that all kinds of monstrous cruelties must be
permitted, because without these the ideal state of affairs cannot
be attained – all the justifications of broken eggs for the sake of
the ultimate omelette, all the brutalities, sacrifices, brain-washing,
all those revolutions, everything that has made this century perhaps
the most appalling of any since the days of old … all this is for
nothing, for the perfect universe is not merely unattainable but
inconceivable, and everything done to bring it about is founded on
an enormous intellectual fallacy.
Isaiah Berlin (2020: 27–28)
Reference
Berlin, Isaiah. 2001. The Power of Ideas. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Contents
1 Introduction 1
PART I
Fanon 17
2 The Pure Peasant-Warrior-Philosopher 19
3 Dreams, Lies and the “New Man” 36
4 “The Trials and Tribulations of National Consciousness” 49
5 The Therapeutic Function of Violence? 58
6 The New Man? 69
7 Liberation Psychiatry 78
PART II
Camus 87
8 Almost Brushing Shoulders 89
9 Bad Faith 93
10 Sisyphus 106
11 An Unlikely Solution 112
