Fanon's perspective on intercultural communication in postcolonial South Africa
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Date
2014
Authors
Sonderling, Stefan
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Department of Communication Science, University of the Free State
Abstract
This article develops a Fanonian perspective to understand intercultural communication
in postcolonial South Africa. Apartheid’s demise is communicated as a
moral victory over evil and South African whites are persuaded to confess their
past immorality. This article argues that moral interpretation is inappropriate
and the demise of apartheid must be evaluated as a political power game. Furthermore,
it explicates Fanon’s rejection of moral evaluations and his conception
of the violent dialectic of colonisation and decolonisation and applies this
framework to analyse intercultural communication in the postcolony. Fanon’s
Hegelian violent dialectic of master and slave constructs human identities and
provides the prototype for intercultural communication. Fanon’s political realism
also explains the mass African migration from the postcolonial necropolis to the
promised good life in the land of their former European masters. African leaders
promote the migration as a rightful revenge for colonisation and the migrants are
represented as warriors on a crusade to conquer the lands of former colonisers
inspired by communication of memories of their glorious past colonial wars: from
Hannibal’s invasion of Rome to the Muslim’s conquest of Spain.
Description
Keywords
Colonialism, Apartheid, Violence of identity, White guilt, Master-slave dialectics, Fanon, Hegel, Postcolonial
Citation
Sonderling, S. (2014). Fanon's perspective on intercultural communication in postcolonial South Africa. Communitas, 19, 42-59.