Development 3

European opulence is literally a scandal for it was built on the backs of slaves, it fed on the blood of slaves, and it owes its very existence to the soil and subsoil of the underdeveloped world.

Frantz Fanon (1963/2004: 53)

Frantz Fanon (1925-1961) was a psychiatrist, politician, writer and pioneer of anti-colonial movements who grew up in the French colony of Martinique. After fighting against fascist Germany as a soldier in the French army, he joined the Algerian liberation struggle against French colonial power in the 1950s.

Fanon described "development" and "underdevelopment" as direct consequences of colonialism after the liberation of the colonies. He took the view that development aid was not "aid" but rather compensation for colonialism’s atrocities and exploitation.

*Frantz Fanon (1963/2004): The Wretched of the Earth. New York: Grove Press.

1961