critique of fanon:
Instead of decolonisation evoking for us the searing bullets and bloodstained knives which emanate from it, we could conceive of decolonisation as a fundamental societal change, a radical change in both the economy and the broader societal values regarding social relations such as race relations and class relations. It is through such a programme that colonised people find their freedom. It is not, as Fanon claims, through violence that the colonised people find their freedom
(...) Fanon argues that violence for the colonised is therapeutic, that it is a “cleansing force”. As Albert (2004) points out, this is nonsense. “…violence has horrible effects on its perpetrators, more often than not causing them to devalue human life and elevate themselves to a higher status than others….” (p. 181) Colonial societies serve as evidence to support this view. And, there is no evidence to make us believe that violence perpetrated by the other side will not have the same effects.
(...) Fanon argues that the middle-class of the new post-colonial state is under-developed because it is reduced in numbers, has no capital, and is totally opposed to the revolutionary path. Eventually it falls into deplorable stagnation. For this middle-class, nationalisation of the economy simply means the transfer into native hands of those unfair advantages which are a legacy of the colonial period. Also, this middle-class “…will be quite content with the role of the Western bourgeoise’s business agent, and it will play its part without any complexes in a most dignified manner.” (p. 122)
(...)
Fanon adds that after independence this middle-class does not hesitate to invest the money it makes out of its native soil in foreign banks. Further, the new middle-class will spend large sums of money on material things, such as cars and country houses. Fanon refers to this middle-class as the “bourgeois dictatorship”. He argues that they are not real bourgeois in the true sense of the word, but rather a “…sort of little greedy caste, avid and voracious, with the mind of a huckster, only too glad to accept the dividends that the former colonial power hands out to it.” (p. 141)
(...) The logic that underlies Fanon’s analysis is that the post-colonial government and its new middle-class betray the revolution because, among other things, they want to be white or to occupy the position formerly occupied by the coloniser. For example, he writes that before independence the “…look that the native turns on the settler’s town is a look of lust, a look of envy; it expresses his dreams of possessions – all manner of possession: to sit at the settler’s table, to sleep in the settler’s bed, with his wife if possible.” (p. 30) History teaches us (e.g., see: ‘A people’s history of the United States’ by Howard Zinn) that when people are oppressed they always rebel sooner or later. Furthermore, they do not rebel because of lust or envy or because they want to sleep with the oppressor’s wife, but because they believe in justice, equity and freedom. And, in most cases, the revolution is betrayed because of the combination of issues such as the lack of vision regarding the new institutions we want for a democratic society and a mixture of internal and external forces. Internal forces refers to sections of society that might be resistance towards the new regime due to their own selfish interests, while external forces refers to the global economy and global political climate, such a the cold-war. To view post-colonial politics from this standpoint is more revealing and enables us not only to explain but to predict political and social phenomena. A theory based on flawed assumptions and that compels us to focus on lust, envy and desires to be white, forces us to chase after psychological reductionist dead-ends. [ok, but your critique of fanon is not as powerful as you may think, in the sense that i dont see your perspective as fundamentally at-odds with his own].
(...) To escape from the hegemony of the Western culture, Fanon argues that the native intellectual feels the need to turn backwards towards his unknown roots. As a result, the native intellectual sets a high value on the African customs and traditions. “The sari becomes sacred, and shoes that come from Paris or Italy are left off in favour of pampooties, while suddenly the language of the ruling power is felt to burn your lips.” (p. 178)
(...) The appreciation of certain Western ideas and the fact that certain post-colonial writers are influenced by Western writers and write in European languages should not be presented as a failure to create an authentic post-colonial cultural work, as Fanon presents it. To write in an African language or to quote only African writers does not necessarily translate into originality. [yes fine, but you only skirt the surface].
(...) As Albert points out the only real cultural salvation lies in eliminating racist institutions, dispelling colonialist ideologies and changing the colonial environment within which historical communities relate so that they might maintain and celebrate difference without violating solidarity. A radical post-colonial theory would encourage individuals to choose “… cultural communities they prefer rather than have elders or others of any description define their choice for them….” (Albert, 2006, p. 47)
[not very useful article. straw-manning fanon, and then presenting m. albert as revolutionary, post-colonial theorist?! on the other hand, i understand the point that fanon's politics occasionally mire themselves in the sticky sectarianism of reverse essentialisms. even still, this requires much more work than has been presented here.]

on third world theories of imperialism (thomas hodgkin):
[along what lines have these theorists criticised the presuppositions of western imperial historians and apologists in general?] ...against the classic Western (particularly Western missionary) thesis that imperialism has meant the substitution of ´civilised´for ´barbarous´ systems of government, society, values, etc., these theorists asserted the antithesis that imperialism has in fact meant the destruction of valid African, or non-Western, civilisations and the substitution of new forms of Western barbarism. (103)
(...) A second element in this reinterpretation of the civilisation/barbarism antithesis is the proposition that there is no necessary connection between the level of a people´s technological development and the quality of its civilisation. This is, essentially, the cultural relativist view, which Blyden did much to foster, that terms such as ´higher´and ´lower´can be applied to levels of technological or economic development but not to civilisations that no set of criteria exists on the basis of which one can rationally argue that the civilisation of the French bourgeoisie under the their republic was qualitatively superior to, say, the civilisation of the Segu empire under Ahmadu Shehu... This view can be pushed further and developed into a Narodnik theory of the nastiness and undesirability of ´high´ civilizations in general [see Emile Faure] (105)
(...) [How far do the dominant ideas of these African and third-world theorists fit with the broad lines of Marxist, and more specifically Leninist, theory?] One [of 4 themes of disagreement/contributions] is their emphasis on the communal, anti-capitalist (and not merely precapitalist), cooperative, democratic, fraternal values and institutions of African, or non-Western, precolonial societies, ´systematically destroyed by imperialism´; their rejection of theories which assert or imply the idea of unilinear progress from ´lower´to ´higher´stages of social organisation, and thus of those interpretations (or distortions or vulgarisations?) of Marxism which fall within this category. [see Aimé Césaire] (109-110)
(...) A second theme is the notion of the dehumanising effects of imperialism on the colonised societies and the reimportation of the ideas and attitudes and institutions and techniques which have been used by the bourgeoisie of the colonising countries to impose and maintain their domination over the colonised into the metropolitan societies for use against their own people. This idea, of the specially corrupting effects of imperialism on the social and political life of the imperialists, was of course present and important in Marx and his successors... But for third-world theorists like Césaire and Fanon the idea of the terrible feedback effects of imperialism has a new and pivotal significance. (111)
(...) A third theme is the idea of a necessary, continuing, irreconcilable antagonism (in the context of a world in which imperialism remains a dominant force) between the interests of the advanced, Western, and predominantly ´white´, colonising societies and the interests of the proletarian, non-Western, and predominantly ´non-white, colonial and semicolonial societies. In a sense this means taking the contradiction between the imperialist countries and the colonial peoples and insisting that it has priority over all other contradictions, blurring (from a more ´orthodox´ Marxist point of view) the internal contradictions within both colonising and colonised societies. Thus Sultan Galiyev argued that ´since almost all classes in Muslim society have been oppressed formerly by the colonialists, all are entitled to be called proletarian... The Muslim peoples are proletarian peoples.´
(...) Towards the [Leninist conception of the essential interdependence of the interests of the working classes in the advanced capitalist countries and the exploited masses in the colonial and semicolonial countries]...these third-world theorists have tended to take up and attitude of methodical doubt... [expressing] a belief in the necessity for the colonial and former colonial peoples of the world to recover the historical initiative, and for the direction, character, pace and methods of change within the third world to be primarily their responsibility, not the responsibility of even the most radical or revolutionary sectors of the populations of the advanced countries; a new emphasis on the importance of the idea of creating wider alliances among the peoples of the third world. (113)
[in Studies in the Theory of Imperialism, eds. Roger Owen and Bob Sutcliffe, 1972]

amilcar cabral on culture and national liberation (1970):
In order to escape this choice--which may be called the dilemma of cultural resistance--imperialist colonial domination has tried to create theories which, in fact, are only gross formulations of racism, and which, in practice, are translated into a permanent state of siege of the indigenous populations on the basis of racist dictatorship (or democracy). This, for example, is the case with the so-called theory of progressive assimilation of native populations, which turns out to be only a more or less violent attempt to deny the culture of the people in question.
(...) [on giving culture a place in materialist view of history] The value of culture as an element of resistance to foreign domination lies in the fact that culture is the vigorous manifestation on the ideological or idealist plane of the physical and historical reality of the society that is dominated or to be dominated. Culture is simultaneously the fruit of a people’s history and a determinant of history, by the positive or negative influence which it exerts on the evolution of relationships between man and his environment, among men or groups of men within a society, as well as among different societies.
(...) History allows us to know the nature and extent of the imbalance and conflicts (economic, political and social) which characterize the evolution of a society; culture allows us to know the dynamic syntheses which have been developed and established by social conscience to resolve these conflicts at each stage of its evolution, in the search for survival and progress.
(...) [does he distance himself from progressive views of culture, if culture is melded to history?]
Thus it is understood that imperialist domination by denying the historical development of the dominated people, necessarily also denies their cultural development. It is also understood why imperialist domination, like all other foreign domination for its own security, requires cultural oppression and the attempt at direct or indirect liquidation of the essential elements of the culture of the dominated people.
(...) [he is confused, in my opinion: because understands that the old metrics no longer apply] In our time it is common to affirm that all peoples have a culture. The time is past when, in an effort to perpetuate the domination of a people, culture was considered an attribute of privileged peoples or nations, and when, out of either ignorance or malice, culture was confused with technical power, if not with skin color or the shape of one's eyes. The liberation movement, as representative and defender of the culture of the people, must be conscious of the fact that, whatever may be the material conditions of the society it represents, the society is the bearer and creator of culture. The liberation movement must furthermore embody the mass character, the popular character of the culture--which is not and never could be the privilege of one or of some sectors of the society.
(...) [levels of culture?] In the specific conditions of our country--and we would say, of Africa--the horizontal and vertical distribution of levels of culture is somewhat complex. In fact, from villages to towns, from one ethnic group to another, from one age group to another, from the peasant to the workman or to the indigenous intellectual who is more or less assimilated, and, as we have said, even from individual to individual within the same social group, the quantitative and qualitative level of culture varies significantly.
(...) [durkheimian claims] In societies with a horizontal social structure, such as the Balante, for example, the distribution of cultural levels is more or less uniform, variations being linked uniquely to characteristics of individuals or of age groups. On the other hand, in societies with a vertical structure, such as the Fula, there are important variations from the top to the bottom of the social pyramid. These differences in social structure illustrate once more the close relationship between culture and economy, and also explain differences in the general or sectoral behavior of these two ethnic groups in relation to the liberation movement.
(...) [much like fanon here] A reconversion of minds--of mental set--is thus indispensable to the true integration of people into the liberation movement. Such reonversion--re-Africanization, in our case--may take place before the struggle, but it is completed only during the course of the struggle, through daily contact with the popular masses in the communion of sacrifice required by the struggle.
(...) [has been working backward from this point, i suspect] Whatever may be the complexity of this basic cultural panorama, the liberation movement must be capable of distinguishing within it the essential from the secondary, the positive from the negative, the progressive from the reactionary in order to characterize the master line which defines progressively a national culture.

Amilcar Cabral on class, colonization, and reclaiming the march of history (1966):
This leads us to pose the following question: does history begin only with the development of the phenomenon of ‘class’, and consequently of class struggle? To reply in the affirmative would be to place outside history the whole period of life of human groups from the discovery of hunting, and later of nomadic and sedentary agriculture, to the organization of herds and the private appropriation of land. It would also be to consider — and this we refuse to accept — that various human groups in Africa, Asia, and Latin America were living without history, or outside history, at the time when they were subjected to the yoke of imperialism.
(...) This means that before the class struggle — and necessarily after it, since in this world there is no before without an after — one or several factors was and will be the motive force of history. It is not difficult to see that this factor in the history of each human group is the mode of production — the level of productive forces and the pattern of ownership — characteristic of that group.
(...) If we accept this conclusion, then the doubts in our minds are cleared away. Because if on the one hand we can see that the existence of history before the class struggle is guaranteed, and thus avoid for some human groups in our countries — and perhaps in our continent — the sad position of being peoples without any history, then on the other hand we can see that history has continuity, even after the disappearance of class struggle or of classes themselves.
(...) [the three stages of history - and the end of agriculture?] In politico-economic language, the first stage would correspond to the communal agricultural and cattle-raising society, in which the social structure is horizontal, without any state; the second to feudal or assimilated agricultural or agro-industrial bourgeois societies, with a vertical social structure and a state; the third to socialist or communist societies, in which the economy is mainly, if not exclusively, industrial (since agriculture itself becomes a form of industry) and in which the state tends to progressively disappear, or actually disappears, and where the social structure returns to horizontality, at a higher level of productive forces, social relations and appreciation of human values.
(...) [imperialism: colonialism and neo-colonialism] On the question of the effects of imperialist domination on the social structure and historical process of our peoples, we should first of all examine the general forms of imperialist domination. There are at least two forms: the first is direct domination, by means of a power made up of people foreign to the dominated people (armed forces police, administrative agents and settlers); this is generally called classical colonialism or colonialism is indirect domination, by a political power made up mainly or completely of native agents; this is called neocolonialism.
(...) [on imperialism arresting the march of history] While in classical colonialism this process is paralyzed, neo-colonialist domination, by allowing the social dynamic to awaken (conflicts of interests between native social strata or class struggles), creates the illusion that the historical process is returning to its normal evolution. This illusion will be reinforced by the existence of a political power (national state) composed of native elements. In reality it is scarcely even an illusion, since the submission of the local ‘ruling’ class to the ruling class of the dominating country limits or prevents the development of the national productive forces.
(...) [nationalism as that which reorients, by reinvigorating, this 'march'] On the basis of this, we can state that national liberation is the phenomenon in which a given socio-economic whole rejects the negation of its historical process. In other words, the national liberation of a people is the regaining of the historical personality of that people, its return to history through the destruction of the imperialist domination to which it was subjected.
(...) [nationalism based in this march of history] ...for us the basis of national liberation, whatever the formulas adopted on the level of international law, is the inalienable right of every people to have its own history...
(...) [on 'backwardness' and where it fits] By saying this we do not wish to diminish the importance of other internal factors which are unfavorable to national liberation, such as economic under-development, the consequent social and cultural backwardness of the popular masses, tribalism and other contradictions of lesser importance. It should however be pointed out that the existence of tribes only manifests itself as an important contradiction as a function of opportunistic attitudes, generally on the part of detribalised individuals or groups, within the national liberation movements. Contradictions between classes, even when only embryonic, are of far greater importance than contradictions between tribes.
(...) [like fanon, nationalism on the basis of shared experience] But on the other hand the necessarily repressive nature of the neo-colonial state against the national liberation forces, the sharpening of contradictions between classes, the objective permanence of signs and agents of foreign domination (settlers who retain their privileges, armed forces, racial discrimination), the growing poverty of the peasantry and the more or less notorious influence of external factors all contribute towards keeping the flame of nationalism alive, towards progressively raising the consciousness of wide popular sectors and towards reuniting the majority of the population, on the very basis of awareness of neo-colonialist frustration, around the ideal of national liberation.
(...) [in colonial situation, nationalism is to socialism, as bourgeois revolution is to revolution] The colonial situation (in which the nation class fights the repressive forces of the bourgeoisie of the colonizing country) can lead, apparently at least, to a nationalist solution (national revolution); the nation gains its independence and theoretically adopts the economic structure which best suits it. The neo-colonial situation (in which the working classes and their allies struggle simultaneously against the imperialist bourgeoisie and the native ruling class) is not resolved by a nationalist solution; it demands the destruction of the capitalist structure implanted in the national territory by imperialism, and correctly postulates a socialist solution.
(...) [on violence] We do not think we will shock this assembly by stating that the only effective way of definitively fulfilling the aspirations of the peoples, that is to say of attaining national liberation, is by armed struggle. This is the great lesson which the contemporary history of liberation struggle teaches all those who are truly committed to the effort of liberating their peoples.