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of Nazi Germany. While serving in the military, Fanon experienced
racism on a daily basis. In France, he noticed that French women
avoided black soldiers who were sacrifi cing their lives to liberate
them. He was wounded; and was awarded the Croix de Guerre
for bravery during his service in the Free French forces.
After the War, Fanon won a scholarship to study medicine and
psychiatry in Lyon.
While still a student he met José Dublé, a French woman who
shared his convictions against racism and colonialism. The couple
married in 1952, had one son, and stayed together for the rest of
their lives. Fanon also began to use psychoanalysis to study the
effects of racism on individuals, particularly its impact on the self-
perception of blacks themselves. During the 1950s metropolitan
France was a center of revolutionary philosophy and a magnet
for writers, thinkers and activists from Africa. Fanon imbibed the
ideas of philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre; and became friends with
Octave Mannoni, French psychoanalyst and author of Psychology
of Colonization. As a young man searching for his own identity in
a racist society, Fanon identifi ed with the African freedom fi ghters
who came to France seeking allies against European colonialism.
He began to defi ne a new black identity; and became actively
involved in the anti-colonialist struggle. So when, in 1953, he
was offered a job as head of the psychiatric department of Bilda-
Joinville Hospital in Algiers he jumped at the opportunity.
Fanon arrived in Algeria just as the colony was on the verge of
a full blown, violent struggle against the French. He was appalled
by the racist treatment of Algerians and the disparity he witnessed
between the living standards of the European colonizers and
the indigenous Arab population. He developed a close rapport
with the Algerian poor and used group therapy to help, as well
as study, his patients. There was intellectual ferment too. A
major event of 1954 was the publication of Vacation de l’Islam
by the Algerian social philosopher Malek Bennabi. Published
to synchronize with the outbreak of the Algerian revolution,
Vacation de l’Islam presented the radical concept of “colonisi-
bilité”: the historical process through which Algeria, and other
Muslim countries, declined culturally and intellectually to a stage

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