In a society where there are weak individuals, individuals who see only their immediate needs and not the needs of a greater force, there arises democracy. Under the tyranny of the majority that democracy in the 19^th century liberal construction always produces the most popular ends and means are introduced and adopted rather than those which will benefit the whole of society the most nor the most ethical response.

The State responds to this in a totalitarian manner. The State intervenes in times of tyranny by the majority. The Fascist State will reassert its right as expressing the real essence of the individual.[i] The State will regulate the individual as it sees fit, because the Organic state is the primary living entity, before the individuals.

The Fascist state demands strong individuals, who will not be fooled by liberal democracies promises of liberty, or economic theorists ideas of happiness. Man’s initial predilection is to move towards the personally satisfying. Individualistic savages are where men find their heritage. Evolved, developed man, living in the organic state, must move beyond these simple actions. It is the state where true beauty and good can come from, and it is only when the individual focuses his actions on the benefit of the state will he thrive, within the state. Fascism demands much of man. Beyond the strength to move past primordial urges into a common search for good, the man must also invest his whole self into the state. The state is not a collection of individuals and the individual must understand that. Rather it is a single, organic being with a common tradition. Man must be strong enough to accept this.

The State demands three strengths from the individual; moral, physical, and intellectual. Moral strength is needed for the individual of the state because of the spiritual nature of the state. Man must be ethically strong to further the goals of the state. The individual must found himself upon moral law, which will seek duty rather than self-interest. The individual must understand that there is no easy life possible and that all actions are subject to judgment. The State is prepared for an existence of moral forces and spiritual responsibilities and therefore then individual in the state must be similarly poised. Physical strength comes in the constant progressive nature of the organic state. The State demands constant activity with full energy to overcome difficulties facing the state. As life is a struggle, the individual must be prepared to engage in a struggle for the benefit of the state. Finally intellectual strength is demanded of the individual. The individual must cast away the false promises that other ideologies offer, liberty, happiness, or class struggle. Man becomes man by what he offers to his State, particularly in means of language, records, and customs, beyond the basic functions necessary.

Ultimately, man must understand what it is to be man, and where he as man fits into the state. What happens when self-identification as man is jarred? When you are not part of the common tradition and law that is inherent to the state? When your place in the state is not immediately known? For colonized peoples, especially colonized Africans, these are the questions that face them not only in the Fascist state, but also in communities of all constructions.

When Africans existed in a time of precolonization, there was no distress over identification or roles within society. It is only when the societies and traditions of colonizers meet colonized that this oppression occurs. It is then the role of the African, colonized people to accept the psychology of oppression mounted by the colonizing, whites. In this context the basis is not just a white, universalized norm but also centralized power. Especially in colonial situations, but not limited to such, the oppression of a centralized power is based on the powers white norm, while the white norms oppression originates from its centralized power. Colonizing whites force the question, who are you, during a time of physical oppression. When the question is posed the swirl of inferiority and superiority enters the identification process. The colonizers define their superiority and use it to further their oppressive goals. They then define an entire spectrum in which all classes and races are represented on a scale of superiority. Different standing is given to whites of different cultures (Christian whites vs. Jewish whites) and blacks of different origins (Antilles vs. Senegal). The African is then forced into an acceptance of its inferior class, but with no clear reasons given for it, while dividing itself amongst various denominations of inferiority. Of the reasons proposed most often by the oppressor, two stick out as presented frequently, history and tradition removed from history. The reason most often accepted, as truth however is the white man has the proverbial gun, and superior group is most often defined in that respect.

Surprisingly though, the oppressed are able to understand their humanity based on the shared experience of oppression and a history of oppression. When Africans witness the oppression of Jews (who are much higher on the superiority scale created by the Europeans), he understands his humanity in a greater light. Since the African connects himself as a brother in oppression with other classes of people he understands a new aspect of his humanity. It is even deeper in the Africans ability, or inability to respond to other forms of oppression and racism that he finds more humanity. Both when cowardice prevents him from action and when fortitude pushes him ahead he sees himself as more human. The African can also looked at a shared experience with historical oppression in order to identify themselves as more human. Fanon illuminates the point that in the same way that his grandfather was a slave, President Lebrun’s grandfather was a slave-owner. For Fanon this opened a level of kinship available only to those who are part of a common history of slavery (based in oppression and racism).[ii]

This is the rare exception however. Most colonized peoples accept one of two distinct identifications; either a slight deviation from the white universalized norm, or completely separate from humanity. For those that strive to be closer to the norm living in a society where the only accepted history is the history of the colonizers, children accept that history as their own. Fanon points to the African school children that identify themselves with the conquerors that ‘brought civilization to the savages.’[iii] Rather than celebrating their own history before their society was jolted by the invasion of whites, African children fully accept the ideas of white culture to the extreme that they identify themselves with it rather than their native history. Further within this embrace of the white norm, African children will identify themselves within the spectrum of racial superiority that the colonizers instituted. For many African children that Fanon describes, they are not Black but rather Antillean, which is much better than existing in the class of the Senegalese (a much more savage class within the spectrum).[iv]

For the Africans that want to identify themselves most with the white norm dominated by the centralized power, the most effective way to accomplish such a feat would be to exchange vows of marriage with the dominate class. Both for men and women marriage is the biggest step one could make in throwing off the bonds of their blackness. Though it doesn’t completely erase the race of their birth, it is the best that one can do in a single generation. The African is then allowed to identify themselves positively because the dominant race does so. Since the dominant class sees them fit to marry the subordinate class-member is granted the opportunity to identify themselves through a new set of eyes, the set of eyes that the dominant class loves.

The opposite is true for many oppressed peoples. Based on a system of inferiority, the self-identification of many African peoples is one nearing a sub-human level. When presented with an image of humanity as white, and the difference between the races is acknowledged, the African can believe they fall into a separate class. Beyond separation for the white norm of humanity the African is given characteristics that resemble animal before man. When whites examine the history of Africans the initial finding is always one of cannibalism. A vice well below the level of humanity, the African is immediately identified as a descendent of a cannibal, if not a cannibal himself. Furthermore the white man sees no human aspects of Africa before the white invasion. The white man glazes over the civilization constructed by the African because it does not reflect civilization as created by the European. The white man sees no art or culture amongst the Africans, though its evidence is plentiful. If one were to believe the white man in their interpretation of African culture as a predicated to self-identification, an African would fail to see any humanity in himself with out the graces of white men.