In the centre of Mostaganem, the colonial town as my father and those of his generation called it, there was a primary school. The building was a vestige of something whimsical, the spirit of which had survived the years. The outside walls were solid, painted a pale pink or beige; my memory not being able to decide. I never set foot in the building, but I was always intrigued by its entrance, a wooden door, as if no one would ever try to force it, and relatively small, as if the children would simply come out two by two.
Above the main entrance was a long title in Latin letters that I couldn't read before fourth grade, and which my father proudly read aloud. It read "Frantz Fanon," but I'd argue he pronounced the first name "France," which added a layer of confusion to my narrow, monolingual mind, as befits this unconventional naming. All the patriotic verses of the national anthem I sang every morning at school would be meaningless if the poshest school building I'd ever seen was named after the very country we'd rightly learned to despise.
And because shame was a cornerstone of my upbringing, I couldn't ask my father how it was that this apparently important school didn't bear the name of an Algerian chahid (martyr of the liberation war), with a bizarre Arabic nickname from the time when they were at the front. A shame that from then on was fuelled by the guilt I felt for finding that school more beautiful than my own, the 'Madrasset Chemmouma Mohamed'.
What if the coloniser was in fact superior, as space, as culture, as pink paint. Superior whiteness as it was passed on to me, as a concept of something admirable but contemptible, expelled but regretted, my first toxic relationship, you might say.
Little did I know that my little colonised brain would grow up and find in Fanon anything but a love of racial or social hierarchy, a total rejection of alienation and a determination to remain barbaric.
