Human Architecture: Journal of the Sociology of Self-KnowledgeVolume 5Issue 3 Reflections on Fanon Article 11

6-21-2007

The Transcendent and the Postcolonial: Violencein Derrida and FanonAndreas KrebsUniversity of Ottawa, akreb092@uottawa.ca

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Recommended CitationKrebs, Andreas (2007) "The Transcendent and the Postcolonial: Violence in Derrida and Fanon," Human Architecture: Journal of theSociology of Self-Knowledge: Vol. 5: Iss. 3, Article 11.Available at: http://scholarworks.umb.edu/humanarchitecture/vol5/iss3/11

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ISSN: 1540-5699. © Copyright by Ahead Publishing House (imprint: Okcir Press). All Rights Reserved.

HUMAN ARCHITECTURE

Journal of the Sociology of Self-

A Publication of OKCIR: The Omar Khayyam Center for Integrative Research in Utopia, Mysticism, and Science (Utopystics)

I. I

NTRODUCTION

In his article “The Force of Law: theMystical Foundation of Authority” (2002)Jacques Derrida presents his most compre-hensive statement on violence, law, and thestate, and makes the argument that the justexercise of force by the state is impossible.There remains in his text a problematic con-cept of violence which has not been suffi-ciently dealt with either by him or in theinterpretive literature: divine violence. Al-though Derrida’s article has been inter-

preted widely by legal and politicalscholars (see LaCapra 1990; Cornell 1993;Maley 1999; McCormick 2001; Corson2001), the possibility for the manifestationof divine violence remains unclear.

I will attempt to address the possibilityof this divine violence proposed by Derridathrough an introduction of Frantz Fanon’sanalysis of anti-colonial violence, showingthat anti-colonial violence allows for amanifestation of divine violence. I will alsoargue that both Derrida and Fanon intro-duce a certain transcendence in their dis-cussion of anti-colonial/divine violence

Andreas Krebs is a Ph.D. candidate in political thought at the École des études politiques, University ofOttawa, Canada. His thesis, titled “Colonialism and the Psychic Life of the Canadian Citizen Subject,” exam-ines how colonialism persists through the formation of the dominant subjectivity in the Canadian context.

The Transcendent and the PostcolonialViolence in Derrida and Fanon

Andreas Krebs

University of Ottawa, Canada––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

akreb092@uottawa.ca

Abstract: In his article “The Force of Law: the Mystical Foundation of Authority,” Jacques Derr-ida introduces the concept of divine violence. The conditions of, and possibility for, the manifes-tation of divine violence, however, remain unclear. This article aims to elucidate divine violencethrough an appeal to Frantz Fanon’s writings on anticolonial violence, arguing that anticolonialviolence is a direct manifestation of Derrida’s concept of divine violence. I will also argue thatboth Derrida and Fanon introduce complementary concepts of transcendence in their discussionof anti-colonial/divine violence which works against the violence of the state and towards a pol-itics that crushes vertical structures of domination. For Derrida, only divine violence has thecapacity to escape recreating the violence of the state; for Fanon, anticolonial violence escapesthis recreation through constructing a “national consciousness,” a shared subjectivity that cir-cumvents the work by nationalist leaders to recapture power and re-institute the violence of thecolonial apparatus. This synthetic reading will introduce a new framework for the analysis ofanti-colonial violence, and show that Fanon and Derrida may be read complimentarily for adecolonization of colonized minds, bodies and spaces.

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which works against the violence of thestate and towards a politics that crushesvertical structures of domination. Both au-thors recognize that revolutionary violencehas little hope of anything but recreatingthe violent conditions against which it al-legedly works. To move beyond this cyclerequires, for Fanon, a horizontal spread ofpower through universal action against co-lonial violence; for Derrida, a Levinasianrecognition of the universal value of theOther. Thus both authors appeal to thetranscendent: for Derrida, this is God, forFanon, the ‘national consciousness.’

I will attempt to show that these con-ceptions of the transcendental are comple-mentary, and, through their mutual denialof the violent domination of the state, arepotential means towards a truly postcolo-nial situation. Finally I will briefly analyzerecent violence committed against Westerntargets by Islamic militant groups given thepreceding discussion of divine violence.Through this synthetic reading, I hope tointroduce a new framework for the analysisof anti-colonial violence, and show thatFanon and Derrida may be read compli-mentarily for a decolonization of colonizedminds, bodies, and spaces.

II. J

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Derrida’s article “Force of Law” is anindictment of the state and the legal estab-lishment as inherently violent. His argu-ment begins with a decoupling of law andjustice in which he questions the very pos-sibility of justice being enacted throughlaw. This is followed by an interpretation ofWalter Benjamin’s “Critique of Violence”(1978), in which Derrida addresses how theviolence of the law manifests itself. Accord-ing to Derrida (and Benjamin) this violenceis not only displayed in the specifics of thestate’s power, such as the death penalty orthe figure of the police. The state, and there-

fore the legal establishment, depends on anexercise of violence for its very existence;this violence is at once a preservation of thepower of the state and a constant founda-tion of it. Every founding act includes in itthe requirement of preservation, of general-ization, and every preservation refoundsthe order which it preserves. Derrida isthus denying both the possibility of found-ing a state without recourse to violence,and of moving beyond this initial violenceonce a state has been founded. The revolu-tionary and therefore terribly violent mo-ment of every founding act, when theprevious order is overturned, remains em-bedded within every action of the newlyfounded state. These founding acts are al-ways justified, but only through self-refer-ential, circular arguments. Thus they arejustified, or rationalized, but can neverclaim to be just. The only potentially just vi-olence is transcendental: only God cancommit just violence. This divine violence,linked with the Judeo-Christian-Islamictradition, strikes without warning andtreats every case as unique. It is bloodlessand expiatory while at the same time anni-hilatory; “divine violence is exercised on alllife […] for the sake of the living” (Derrida2002: 288).

Contrasted with the justice of divine vi-olence is the mythic violence of the state:the state creates its foundational myth inorder to preserve itself; its violence is an ex-pression and a desire for power. The vio-lence of the state is fateful, which is to sayarbitrary; this arbitrariness pervades eachaction committed by the state, from itsfoundation through to its daily exercise ofbureaucratic and judicial process. Thefoundational myths which sustain its legit-imacy have no essential or universal con-tent; the foundational story serves simplyas a placeholder for the requisite self-refer-ential justification of legal violence, or theacquisition and monopolization of power.

This discussion of mythic and divineviolence in the second section of “Force of

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Law” is preceded by an interpretation oftwo other distinctions made by Benjamin:between founding and preserving violence,and between the general political strike andthe general proletarian strike. Founding vi-olence is expressed in the moment when anew political order asserts itself, in the pro-cess destroying the old order. Preservingviolence is at root the “exercise of violenceover life and death” (Benjamin 1978: 286)by the state; it threatens action while retain-ing a sense of arbitrary action, a sense offate. Benjamin holds that this mixture offounding and preserving violence in thepolice is an “ignoble, ignominious, revolt-ing ambiguity” (Derrida 2002: 277). Derr-ida, however, goes further than Benjaminand (characteristically) denies the distinc-tion between founding and preserving vio-lence altogether. The problem withBenjamin’s distinction is that of iterability,which predicts and requires a preservationin every act of foundation, and every pres-ervation of the founding act is likewisefoundational.

This discussion of founding and pre-serving violence, and their collapse into asingular type of violence, state violence,that always founds and preserves itself inacting, is informed by a discussion of thegeneral strike. Following Georges Sorel,Benjamin distinguishes between two typesof general strike: the general

political

strike,and the general

proletarian

strike. Theformer corresponds with a desire to re-found the state, the latter to destroy it. ForBenjamin, the political general strike is sim-ply a change of masters, while “the prole-tarian general strike sets itself the sole taskof destroying state power” (Benjamin 1978:291). Derrida, however, denies that the pro-letarian general strike is without an end inmind. As with Benjamin’s distinction be-tween founding and preserving violence,Derrida argues that there is no distinctionbetween these types of general strike; bothseek to refound the state, to initiate a newset of rules to be followed. Both are in-

formed by the desire to be implicated in thefoundational moment. They both also workfor something that, as it is founded, must bepreserved.

Thus Derrida holds that anti-founda-tional or revolutionary violence can onlyresult in a re-creation of the violence of thestate, and is therefore actually founda-tional. These foundations become myths,acting to immortalize the state, ensuring itssurvival through an ideological recovery ofthe founding moment after the fact. Thesefoundations/preservations are instances ofmythic violence: “the manifestation of di-vine violence in its mythic form founds alaw […] rather than ‘enforces,’ an existinglaw” (Derrida 2002: 287). Mythic violencefounds a law without representing a law; itis based on privilege, manifested in royalauthority, which is itself totally arbitrary.This mythic violence corresponds directlywith all founding actions, and lays thegroundwork for the means for law to justifyits use of violence. Legitimating of such vi-olence always works backwards from thelegislation or decision in question to thefounding moment (cf. Cornell 2003).

This mythic violence is contrasted dia-metrically with divine violence. Divine vio-lence is pure violence, the expression ofviolence as pure means and without thepossibility of rational recuperation, “themanifestation of self, the in some way dis-interested, immediate and uncalculatedmanifestation of anger” (Derrida 2002:287). This uncalculated anger, which pre-sents itself solely for its own presentation(and cannot be re-presented) destroys allthat mythic violence seeks to found: law,limits, boundaries. “[I]nstead of leading tofault and expiation, it causes to expiate; in-stead of threatening, it strikes” (ibid: 288).This purely divine violence works for thesake of life and of the living, as opposed tomythic violence, which is exercised againstlife, and for the sake of power. Importantly,divine violence works beyond the level ofjudgment; as Derrida indicates, the biblical

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imperative against murder is one whichdoes not sanction violent retribution in caseof its contravention. Finally, divine violenceis distinguished from mythic violence in itsrelationship to blood. Divine violence anni-hilates without bloodshed; mythic violenceritualizes bloodshed in the form of sacri-fice.

This point about bloodshed is impor-tant for Derrida’s interpretation of divineviolence, and the linkages to be made be-tween it and anti-colonial violence. In shed-ding blood, mythic violence makes thesacrificial victim representative, denyingthe uniqueness of the individual. This is thethreat principle at work; the victims ofmythic violence ensure that the potentialfor violence remains foregrounded by thestate. Divine violence strikes withoutbloodshed; however, this lack of bloodshedmust be viewed as a figurative statement.Literally, divine violence must shed bloodin the course of its annihilatory expiation.

1

However, this shedding of blood is not forthe sake of any representational effect itwould have. In annihilating for the sake ofthe living, divine violence liberates both thevictim

and

the living: “it never attacks—forthe purpose of destroying it—the soul ofthe living” (ibid). Mythic violence workstowards domination, of continual conver-gence of politics around the state. Divineviolence annihilates the limits to politicsimposed by the state, ushering in “a newpolitical era on the condition that one notlink the political to the state” (ibid: 290).

Thus divine violence is aligned withjustice and with decidability; mythic vio-lence is aligned with law’s inherent unde-cidability, and the inherent impossibility ofjustice in systems of law. The undecidabil-ity of law refers to its incapacity to adhereto one or the other of the poles in the found-ing violence/preserving violence dialectic.This undecidability ultimately leads to theauto-destruction of law through a constantweakening of founding violence throughthe refounding present in preservation. Thedecidable in divine violence is defini-tional—divine violence is the only possiblyjust decision that can be made. All other de-cisions depend on recourse to prefiguredrules, no matter how much they account forthe particularity of each situation. This pre-sents a problem which is located in the es-sence of the divine. Derrida points out thatin the final pages of Benjamin’s text, the po-tential of revolutionary violence to be pure,immediate, unmediated, divine violence isspoken of in the conditional. This potentialis always conditional precisely because thedecision to define violence as divine is notopen to any human individual. To proclaima violence as divine is an example of a ratio-nal justification of that violence, a mytholo-gizing of it, and a founding of a new orderbased on that violence. This problem of de-cidability means that divine violence re-mains only a possibility, as does justice, inthe realm of politics.

III. F

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Frantz Fanon’s ground breaking theo-rizing on subjectivity, violence, and revolu-tion has inspired debate by critics andtheorists from a wide range of theoreticalbackgrounds (Ziarek 2002). Being informedby psychiatry, psychoanalysis, phenome-nology and Marxism, Fanon’s approach topolitics and the self moves beyond the uni-versal humanism of historical materialism,

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In the post-scriptum of Derrida’s article,he seems to condemn the vagueness of Ben-jamin’s concept of divine violence. This con-demnation is a result of the bloodless nature ofthe horrible techniques of the “final solution.”However, Derrida’s argument denies the func-tion of the Nazi system which worked to dehu-manize (deny the uniqueness) of its victims,numbering them, essentializing them based on asingle identity category. I hold that this violence,although bloodless, does not correspond to theother facets of divine violence; in this case,blood does not “make all the difference” (Derri-da 2002: 288).

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and recognizes the multiplicity of the sub-ject. However, in the colonial situation, theself-identities of both colonized and colo-nizer are essentialized through their race.Fanon characterizes this situation as Man-ichean rather than dialectical; the nature ofcolonialism divides identities based ontheir ‘essential’ characteristics: black/white, settler/native (Gibson 2003). Thisessentialism overdetermines the colonized,reducing any potential action or thought ofthe colonized individual to race. Thismakes reciprocity impossible, and there-fore denies dialectical movement towardsmutual recognition.

Any capacity of the colonized for self-realization or agency is thus nullifiedthrough the colonial process. The colonizeris likewise trapped in his relationship withthe colonized. Fanon adopts a Lacanian ap-proach to identity formation in contendingthat humanism, the intellectual currentmost responsible for the definition of theEuropean self, relies upon the antonym ofthe non-European for its own definition.Homi Bhabha elaborates: the “post-En-lightenment man [is] tethered to,

not

con-fronted by, his dark reflection, the shadowof colonized man” (2004: 62). Fanon claimsthat the only means of moving beyond thisintransigence is through action on the partof the colonized. In some respects, this re-flects the means through which Fanoncame to terms with his own psychologicalinjuries, which were linked to his experi-ence as a black man in white French society.For Fanon, the action which he prescribeswas expressed in the writing of his autobio-graphical, phenomenological account ofthe inferiority complex of the black,

Peaunoir, masques blancs

(1951). In order to heal,the individual must come to terms with hisinjuries, and this coming to terms can onlybe through action (Bulhan 1985). However,unlike his own experience of healingthrough writing, Fanon’s later work

Lesdamnés de la terre

, explains how violent ac-tion against the symbols of colonialism is a

means towards the transformation of theManichean framework and therefore theindividual consciousnesses which consti-tute it and are constituted by it. This trans-formation allows for the inculcation ofpreviously impossible agency, and the tran-scendent recognition of the national con-sciousness. The following section explainsfirst how this anti-colonial violence enablesthe realization of the agent, and secondhow this violence corresponds to Derrida’sconcept of divine violence.

Through the colonial process, the colo-nized individual’s physical and mental en-ergies are bound. The daily violence of thecolonial police and military forces, of apart-heid and poverty, contain the mental andphysical potential of the colonized. Theseenergies never cease working towards ex-pression and release. Even the dreams ofthe colonized reveal this desire for release:“les rêves de l’indigène sont des rêves mus-culaires, des rêves d’action, des rêvesagressifs. Je rêve que je saute, que je nage,que je cours, que je grimpe” (Fanon 2002:53). The expression of these energies is ini-tially realized with a death-reflex, an auto-destruction (Seshadri-Crooks 2002); this isthe spontaneous lashing out by colonizedindividuals against themselves and theirown communities.

Fanon also states that the dreams of thecolonized constantly turn towards the de-sire to take the place of the colonizer. Thisdesire of ‘becoming-Other’ is mirrored inthe colonizer, who wants to become the col-onized, making the

colonized

into the threatto the ‘natural order’ (Krautwurst 2003).This mutual desire of becoming is also amutual desire of destruction. The colonizer,says Fanon, would like nothing better thanto annihilate the colonized:

le colon demande à chaquereprésentant de la minorité quiopprime de descendre 30 ou 100 ou200 indigènes [et] il s’aperçoit quepersonne n’est indigné et qu’à l’ex-

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trême tout le problème est desavoir si on peut faire ça d’un seulcoup ou par étapes. (Fanon 2002:81-82)

However, this annihilation would re-sult in suicide. The colonizer requires thecolonized at two levels of existence: eco-nomic and psychological. The labourpower of the colonized is required in orderfor the colony to be viable. Also, elimina-tion of the colonized would be eliminationof the opposite end of the colonizer’s iden-tifying binary. Similarly, the logic of the col-onized is couched in the capacity ofswallowing the colonizer through the sheerforce of numbers.

This desire for mutual destructionmarks the beginning of anti-colonial vio-lence and decolonization—not just of land,but also of mind and body. Anti-colonial vi-olence, for Fanon, is a kind of “self-rehabil-itation of the oppressed [which] begins indirectly confronting the source of his dehu-manization” (Bulhan 1985: 147). This reha-bilitation is expressed through the act ofviolence. This violence demonstrates to thecolonized that the colonial structures arenot impervious to harm, and that her infe-riority, entrenched through colonial ideol-ogy, is not essential. What becomesessential is that both colonized and colo-nizer are mortal, and that both shed blood.Thus through (violent) action against thesymbols of colonialism, the colonized be-comes more than a mere thing or animal.

Therefore, at some level, Fanon is con-cerned with the transformation of the colo-nized individual into ‘man,’ whichcorresponds to a certain humanism in histhought: “la ‘chose’ colonisé devienthomme dans le processus même par lequelelle se libère” (Fanon 2002:40). However, ashis thought develops over the course of

Lesdamnés de la terre, it becomes clear that this‘becoming man’ by no means correspondsto a simple desire for recognition by the col-onizer, or to fit within the category of ‘man’

as determined by universal humanism. Thenecessary violence to which the colonizedresorts is a process of becoming. Throughthis process, the colonized becomes anagent, experiences that which is required torealize oneself in the world. This agent-making, anti-colonial violence worksagainst the existing structures of violence,both colonial and humanist. Through thisviolence there transpires a mutual transfor-mation of both sides of the previously Man-ichean binary. As will be discussed in thefinal section, the transformative, anti-colo-nial violence is accompanied by the blos-soming of a ‘national consciousness’ whichis neither exclusionary nor a refounding ofthe violent structures of the state.

As Kalpana Seshadri-Crooks states,anti-colonial violence as presented byFanon is “utterly beyond good and evil[and] does not avail of a self-justifyingmeta-narrative” (2002: 85). This recognitionof the pure nature of anti-colonial violenceis the opening necessary for a discussionlinking it to Derrida’s concept of divine vi-olence. The spontaneous outbursts of vio-lence that are the initial expressions of anti-colonial violence have no ends in mind; thisis violence as pure means, as pure expres-sion, as pure anger, it has “no other aimthan to show and show itself” (Derrida2002: 287). Anti-colonial violence destroysthe colonial law, the expression of universalhumanism, through demonstrating its un-tenable inconsistencies. The boundaries ofthe colonial state are destroyed; violencebegins to be perpetrated in the métropoleitself (viz. the café bombings in France dur-ing the Algerian war of independence). Theboundaries between colonizer and colo-nized are likewise destroyed. As men-tioned, each becomes no less mortal thanthe other. In language strangely similar tothat used by Derrida, Fanon states thatonce anti-colonial violence begins, the “en-terprise of mystification” practiced by the“demagogues, opportunists, magicians”becomes “practically impossible” (Fanon

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2002: 91; translation mine).The violence against the colonial struc-

ture pits divine violence against mythic vi-olence; as the thousands of colonized arefelled by machine gun fire, the founding/preserving mythic violence of the colonialstate works against itself. Its arbitrary na-ture becomes clear through its constantshedding of representative blood. Each vic-tim of colonial violence represents all colo-nized individuals, in the consciousness ofthe colonizer and colonized. For the colo-nizer this is because the shapeless masses ofthe colonized are indistinguishable onefrom the other; for the colonized, colonialmassacres work as the threat principle ofthe state. In this orgy of violence, which isat once both founding and preserving, thecolonial state drives itself towards suicide.The foundational becomes all the morepresent in each preservation of order, andnecessarily demystifies the foundation ofthe colonial state from the sheer quotidianpresence of mythic fate. Each victim of anti-colonial violence, however, is killed with-out warning, without threat. Anti-colonialviolence does not threaten, and is never ar-bitrary. This violence is expiatory: throughhis death, the colonizer receives the capac-ity for atonement for his complicity in theviolence of the colonial structure. The onlypossible characteristic of divine violenceoutlined by Derrida which presents a prob-lem is bloodshed; for Derrida, “[b]loodwould make all the difference” (2002: 288).Anti-colonial violence does not seem capa-ble of escaping from the shedding of blood.However, it is clear that, as with divine vio-lence, anti-colonial “violence is exercisedon all life but to the profit of for the sake ofthe living” (ibid).

The lack of a “self-justifying meta-nar-rative” (Seshadri-Crooks 2002: 85) in anti-colonial violence, far more than bloodshed,seems to really ‘make all the difference.’This is not to say that Fanon does not recog-nize that attempts are constantly made toideologically channel anti-colonial violence.

This channeling comes for the most partfrom the national (colonized) bourgeoisieand nationalist political parties, who at-tempt to pacify the colonized, and seize therole of ‘interlocutor’ between those work-ing against the colonial structures, andthose representing those structures. Theseactors work to re-orient the violence of thecolonized towards a non-radical, passiveacceptance of the terms of decolonization asdetermined by the colonizing power itself.Fanon characterizes the national bourgeoi-sie and mainstream political actors as “unesorte de classe d’esclaves libérés individuel-lement, d’esclaves affranchis” (Fanon 2002:60-61). This ideological recuperation ofspontaneous, divine, anti-colonial violenceresults not in the potential for a completeannihilation of the violence of colonial/state structures, but a recreation of them.Just as Derrida states that “all revolutionarysituations, all revolutionary discourses […]justify the recourse to violence by allegingthe founding, in progress or to come, of anew law, of a new state” (2002: 269), Fanonrecognizes that:

[l]e militant qui fait face, avec desmoyens rudimentaires, à la ma-chine de guerre colonialiste se rendcompte que dans le même tempsoù il démolit l’oppression colonialeil contribue par la bande à constru-ire un autre appareil d’exploitation(2002: 138-9)

For Fanon, prevention of the foundingof a new ‘apparatus of exploitation’ is onlypossible through the inculcation of a na-tional consciousness. This national con-sciousness denies the accumulation ofpower, and the rational recuperation, of thefoundational violence of the state through ahorizontal spread of capacity, responsibil-ity and agency. This links with the mutualrecognition achieved through the transfor-mative process of anti-colonial violence,and with Derrida’s requirement of a recog-

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nition of the unique in any possible non-vi-olent politics.

IV. THE POSSIBILITY OF THE TRANSCENDENT IN DERRIDA AND FANON

The preceding has attempted to showthat the void left in both Derrida’s articleand the interpretive literature surroundingit regarding the problematic concept of di-vine violence can be filled through recourseto the work of Frantz Fanon. Certain ques-tions remain, especially relating to the po-tential for divine violence to truly escapethe violent political structures of the state.This escape is dealt with differently by eachtheorist, but their approaches share a cer-tain transcendental character. For Fanonand Derrida the transcendental is both theresult of divine violence and what makes itpossible. For Derrida, this is clear throughthe name given to divine violence—it auto-matically appeals to the transcendent,which allows for and initiates divine anni-hilation of violent political structures. ForFanon, the transcendent appears throughthe inculcation of a national consciousness,which instantiates itself through anti-colo-nial violence, and is also the only means ofpreventing a slip from the postcolonial,horizontal relationships of recognition backto further exploitation in a neo-colonialstate. This final section will explore thesetwo approaches to the possibility of tran-scendental politics and how they relate.

Derrida associates justice with a wel-coming of the Other, quoting Levinas: “therelation with the other—that is to say, jus-tice” (2002: 250). This Levinasian ethicstresses a recognition of the uniqueness ofthe Other, and a commitment to treat all sit-uations as particular. Only through thiscommitment can human interaction bedeemed just. Derrida spells this out explic-itly later, while discussing Benjamin’s in-troduction of divine violence:

This sudden reference to Godabove reason and universality, be-yond a sort of Auflklärung of law, isnothing other, it seems to me, thana reference to the irreducible singu-larity of each situation. And the au-dacious thought, as necessary as itis perilous, of what one would herecall a sort of justice without law, ajustice beyond law […] is just asvalid for the uniqueness of the in-dividual as for the people and forthe language, in short, for history(ibid: 286).

Divine violence, in annihilating thestate, is an expression of justice withoutlaw, but is also necessarily accompanied bythe transcendental recognition of the divinein each unique individual. This recognitionensures that once divine violence has anni-hilated the state, the vertical structures ofdomination will not find their foundingmyth; through each recognizing theuniqueness in each individual and in eachsituation, the possibility of accretion ofpower and proceduralizing of justice is de-nied.

Likewise, Fanon’s conceptualization ofnational consciousness works to deny therefounding of the state’s structures of dom-ination. The verticality of colonial violencebecomes horizontal among the colonized(Bulhan 1985). In committing violent ac-tion, the colonized acts independently,spontaneously, but her actions are paral-leled in the actions of all colonized individ-uals who commit anti-colonial violence.This creates an organic linkage betweenthem, which makes the formation of the na-tional consciousness possible. This is con-trasted with the verticality of the violenceof the colonial structure, which has as itsapex the overseas métropole, with all otheractions existing only as representations ofthis supreme authority. While the colonialsoldier gains his authority from the mythol-ogies of foundation of the colonial state, the

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colonized committing anti-colonial vio-lence has no need of authority, since her ac-tions are not representations but, as seenpreviously, pure means.

The horizontal nature of the nationalconsciousness, linking all who haveworked in some way against the violence ofcolonial oppression, effectively precludesthe possibility of re-instantiating verticalityin the postcolonial political community. Fa-non makes the point that “[q]uand elles ontparticipé, dans la violence, à la libérationnationale, les masses ne permettent à per-sonne de se présenter en ‘libérateur.’”(Fanon 2002:91). In the collective enterprisecontra the structures of colonialism, thedomination of the state disintegratesthrough the formation of a community ofmutual recognition. This is perhaps theonly real possible postcolonial situation,where the institutional domination of thestate is denied a means of entering socialconsciousness.

This is meant to be more than simplyan ‘imagined community’ (Anderson1991)—which would be imagined througha process of ideological creativity, of my-thologizing. Fanon “is far too aware of thedangers of the fixity and fetishism of iden-tities within the calcification of colonial cul-tures to recommend that ‘roots’ be struck inthe celebratory romance of the past or byhomogenizing the history of the present”(Bhabha 2004: 13). Thus Fanon’s nationalconsciousness has little to do with national-ism as usually characterized; it is also notbased on any essential characteristic, par-ticularly race. The formation of nationalconsciousness is linked to the process ofanti-colonial violence; this means that thecreation of national consciousness does notstop with the initial spontaneous boilingover of the sentiment of the colonized: “[l]epeuple vérifie que la vie est un combat in-terminable” (Fanon 2002: 90). This processis therefore never complete, there is never apoint at which anti-colonial struggle (strug-gle against domination, against vertical po-

litical structures) realizes its goal. The transcendence of the national

consciousness is witnessed by its relation-ship with phenomenological experienceand the denial of the Cartesian basis forselfhood. Fanon’s phenomenology deniesthe separation between mind or spirit andbody. This privileges the lived experienceof the individual; however, the colonizedindividual, through participation in anti-colonial violence, is also transcending theflesh (Gibson 2003). The overdeterminationof the colonized through her racializedidentity is no longer possible once themutual mortality of colonized and colo-nizer are made clear through anti-colonialviolence. The disintegration of the immor-tality/universality of colonial structuresintroduces an infinite possibility andpotential immanent in the (previously)colonized body. This links the unique (livedexperience) to the transcendent (infinitepotential), paralleling Derrida’s appropria-tion of Levinasian transcendental ethics.The mixture of the surmounting of overde-termination by each colonized individualand the collective experience of the exerciseof anti-colonial violence links the uniqueand the transcendent. Thus a reconciliationbetween phenomenology and transcenden-tal ethics may be possible, despite Derrida’searly condemnation of phenomenology(see Derrida 1978).

V. CONCLUSION

The preceding attempt to fill the void inDerrida’s “Force of Law” through recourseto Fanon’s concept of anti-colonial violenceleaves numerous questions unresolved.Here I will attempt to address some of theseissues which present themselves.

First, and perhaps most blatantly, theproblem of decidability remains. As stated,Derrida’s concept of the divine denies thepossibility of making a decision on the di-vinity of violence; to name a violent act assuch is itself an act of rationalizing, ideolog-

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ically recuperating, and thereby mytholo-gizing it. Under Derrida’s terms, there canbe no such thing as a mortal judgment onthe divinity of a violent act. This impossibil-ity of judgment does not, however, meanthat anti-colonial violence cannot be divine.The characterization of anti-colonial vio-lence by Fanon matches Derrida’s charac-terization of divine violence; however it isthe action, and not the characterization, thatcannot be assuredly affirmed as divine. Di-vine violence cannot be recognized as such,and of course its recognition has no bearingon its fact or presentation. Recognizing thedivine in an action has not the slightest im-portance in relation to recognition of the di-vine in the Other.

Second, violence in Fanon and Derridaremains an intensely ambivalent thing.Even though Fanon espouses violence em-phatically for its salutary effects on the indi-vidual consciousness, he realizes that thesame violence has the potential for horribledamage to that consciousness. His experi-ences treating torturers and torture victimsat the Blida hospital in Algeria is testamentto this. But Fanon’s concept of violence hasbeen interpreted in numerous ways in theliterature (Gibson 2003); in fact, anti-colo-nial violence, in its correspondence with theHegelian concept of ‘work’ by Fanon, mayeven include non-violent action (such asFanon’s own writing project). Of course thisdoes not solve the problem of his insistenceon the necessity of violence to rupture the in-transigence of the Manichean colonialstructure. However, recognition of the ex-tremity of the case of Algeria, to whichFanon often specifically referred, may allowfor a continuum between non-violent anti-colonial action and anti-colonial violence,all of which may have the same positive ef-fect on the consciousness of the colonized.In Derrida’s case, his entire project has beenworking against violence, first in the acad-emy, then, during the last years of his life, inthe more overtly political realm. This maybe why, in the post-scriptum to “The Force

of Law,” he seems to retreat from an en-dorsement of divine violence, opening thepossibility of its association with the tech-niques of the Shoa (see note 1 above). Butthis may be seen as remaining consistentwith his insistence of the problem of decid-ability. Denouncing violence, unveiling theviolence of law and of the state, is a neces-sity, since not to do so is to remain complicitin the mythic violence structuring modernpolitical life. Divine violence, however, can-not be named and remains exterior to hu-man understanding. In this way, Derrida’sseeming inconsistency may be retrieved.

Finally, there remains a difficulty in rec-onciliation between the two projects at thelevel of the individual’s subjectivity/agency. Even the most creative interpreta-tion of Fanon cannot completely mould himinto a poststructuralist. He undoubtedly re-mains committed to a certain realization of‘man in the world’ that perpetuates modernviews of the cause/effect relationship. Myown characterization of anti-colonial vio-lence as agent-making reinforces this aspectof Fanon. However, although Fanon him-self states that anti-colonial violence is sub-ject-creating violence, I take issue with thischaracterization. It is my view that anti-co-lonial violence works to destroy both sub-jecthood and subjectivity in all senses of theterm. First, through the use of violence thecolonized agent affirms that she is no longersubject to the laws of the colonial state. Sec-ond, through a crushing of the Cartesiandualism inherent in colonialism and hu-manism,2 the subject/object dichotomy be-comes irrelevant. Fanon’s phenomenologyis one that simultaneously unifies the indi-vidual through a lived experience of theflesh, and fragments her through recogni-

2 Viz. the mutually defining relationship be-tween colonizer and colonized, which is an ex-pression of the value laden binary of mind/body. Also, through the overdetermination ofthe colonized through her skin, the binary Car-tesian experience is crushed into a conscious-ness which does not separate the physicalexperience from the mental. See Khalfa 2004.

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tion of the multifaceted nature of thepsyche. As mentioned above, anti-colonialviolence allows a rupture with the overde-termining racial identity towards an infini-tude of possible expressions of identity.This possibility hints strongly at Derrida’s(and other poststructuralists’) project ofrupturing the self-sameness of the subject.

Anti-colonial violence thus understoodallows for a far more nuanced conception ofviolence against colonial structures. How-ever, there is an intriguing question that re-mains to be addressed: given the parallelsbetween divine and anti-colonial violence,what can be said about terrorism, particu-larly the attack which took place on Sep-tember 11th, 2001? This is a particularlyimportant question given that so many so-called terrorist actions justify themselvesthrough appeal to divinity. However, asshould be clear, an appeal to divinity isnever enough to make an action divine—and for Derrida, its enunciation as suchpoints towards a mythologizing workingtowards the foundation of another violentorder. The potential for such attacks, even ifthey can be taken to be anti-colonial in someway or another, to work towards Fanon’sown transcendent ideal is also doubtful.The physical distance between the colo-nizer and the colonized (in this case per-haps the West and the rest) makes thephenomenological experience of blood-shed, so central to Fanon’s ideal of recogni-tion, impossible. Also, it is clear that theviolence of September 11th, and the violencethat continues to be claimed as retaliation,are both made for mythological recupera-tion. Given these two limitations on the po-tential for anti-colonial violence to becomedivine in this so-called postcolonial age, thequestion must remain whether divine vio-lence once possible in the performance ofanti-colonial violence—violence that can becharacterized as pure means acting for thesake of the living—may never find outletagain.

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