Paulo Freire and Frantz Fanon: Two Faces of Emancipation

In Paulo Freire’s emancipatory model, violence as a mode of struggle is rejected. The revolutionary movement should never appropriate violence in pursuing prospects of emancipation. For Freire, an authentic struggle for emancipation and autonomy does not utilize the praxis of the oppressor which is mainly characterized by dehumanization and violence. This emancipatory model also contends that the oppressor should also be subjected to emancipation as they have also been dehumanized in their subjection of the oppressed. Thus, liberation does not only pursue the humanization of the oppressed but also their oppressors. It follows, therefore, that physical violence is out of the picture as the revolutionary movement recognizes the humanity of the oppressed and her oppressor. Therefore, the movement headed by the oppressed does not operate within the praxis of their oppressors which, for Freire, is a negation of humanity. An alternative position, however, contends that violence is an indispensable aspect of the emancipatory movement. In fact, violence is not only a consequence of the conflict but, for Frantz Fanon, the overarching dynamic over the colonized order. An oppressive paradigm which, for Fanon, could only be overturned by counter-violence. The dismantlement of the colonial order implies the destruction of the “colonist’s sector†which in so doing, necessitates the utilization of violence in the struggle. This work, therefore, challenges the pacificist inclination of Freirean emancipatory model through the lenses of Fanon’s Wretched of the Earth. This paper argues that though ideal emancipatory politics should be discursive and dialogical which Freire advocates, violence remain to be an indispensable aspect of liberation and resistance. In order to ground these arguments, this paper will appropriate the case of the revolutionary movement of the Katipunan vis-à -vis the Reformists.