Discovery, Fulfillment, and/or Betrayal: Frantz Fanon and the role of the intellectual in the struggle for freedom

And so welcome to the year 2007, 46 years after Fanon's demise. And welcome to the confusion, I would say a rich and positive confusion, that remains about the expectations of us from those who have given us so much in knowledge of all kinds. And this rich confusion flows largely from a certain fuzziness about "what time it is" historically. A world very different from that of Fanon's post-World War II globe of cold war, mutually assured atomic destruction, and all sorts of national liberation and anti colonial struggles. But let me hastily add, also a world which we suspect--and much of the discussion of these past two days may have deepened our suspicions--that is similar not only to the years in which Fanon lived, but indeed similar to the past 500 years. But whether in 2007 or in the past, recent or remote, many of the questions and expectations posed to us remain similar.