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Gibson, Nigel, Fanonian Practices in South Africa: From Steve Biko to Abahlali baseMjondolo. Scottsville: University of Kwa-Zulu Natal Press 2011, 312 pp.
Frantz Fanon, the Algerian theorist of revolution and social change, continues living through his profoundly luminous work that remains influential to the thinking and actions of many a people across the world even today.1* In Fanonian Practices in South Africa (2011 ), which comprises an introduction and five chapters, Nigel Gibson grapples with the important question of the relevance of Fanon's thought, 50 years after his death in 1961, to the South African situation especially from the time of Steve Biko to the time of the birth of the shack dwellers' movement, Abahlali baseMjondolo (Abahlali) in Durban on 19 March 2005. Gibson acknowledges that the idea of Fanonian Practices is not limited to South Africa but relevant also for other African countries. Elsewhere, Fanon's ideas have been exported to Black theology of liberation by scholars such as James Cone in the United States of America (USA) and Paulo Freire in Latin America.
In chapter one, Gibson focuses on Biko's re-creation of Fanonian Practises in contemporary South Africa. As Gibson rightfully observes, Biko's Fanonian Practices are a direct result of the influence of Fanon's conclusion in his The Wretched of the Earth that "the working out of new concepts comes from a dialogue with common people" (p 43). Given that in South Africa, the apartheid regime banned anything that promoted political radicalism, especially Marxism, Fanonian Ideas came to Biko and the emergent Black Consciousness movement as institutionalised among others in the South African Students Organisation (SASO) "through the writings of emergent American Black theologians, such as James Cone" (p 44). Unlike certain critics' ideas of Fanon as a philosopher of violence, Black theology's emphasis on Fanon's Ideas of self-consciousness, struggle and liberation, had profound influence on Biko's thought.4' Yet, besides the aforementioned Ideas, which Biko adopted from Fanon, Cone's critique of mainstream Christianity also influenced Biko. As Gibson notes, Biko like Cone, "recognised that Christianity was an effective tool for mental enslavement" (p 45) and was therefore against Christian pacifism. This does not mean that Biko was an atheist or anti-Christian as he saw in the personage of Jesus a positive "fighting God"5' for...