Reading Group Week 28
Hello. We're beginning A Dying Colonialism in earnest this week with Chapter 1: "Algeria Unveiled".
If you haven't bought the book yet, you can buy it here. Purchases made through the Workshops4Gaza fundraiser give proceeds to The Sameer Project.
Schedule and format
We're reading a chapter of A Dying Colonialism every 2 weeks. Here's where we are now:
| Week | Date | Reading |
|---|---|---|
| Week 1 | July 14 | Introduction + Preface |
| Week 2 | July 28 | Chapter 1: "Algeria Unveiled" |
| Week 3 | August 11 | Chapter 2: "This is the Voice of Algeria" |
| Week 4 | August 25 | Chapter 3: "The Algerian Family" |
| Week 5 | September 8 | Chapter 4: "Medicine and Colonialism" |
| Week 6 | September 22 | Chapter 5: "Algeria's European Minority" + Conclusion |
There are a few ways to follow along:
- follow these emails (which I send on Mondays)
- signal group chat, where we'll share links and chat about the readings
- video calls (Saturdays at 12pm ET, with email and link a few hours in advance)
- discuss on social media (you can find me on bluesky, mastodon, and twitter/x)
If you're up for reading more, the signal group chat is also reading Capital: Volume 1 by Karl Marx, nominally on alternating weeks on the calendar (August 4, August 18, September 1, etc...). I think people are broadly agreeing that this is a really good pair of books to be reading together.
I'll mention Capital in passing in these emails, but the group chat is the main place to go for ongoing conversations.
So... please join the signal and say hello or something. Hope to see you there.
Readings
Chapter 1: Algeria Unveiled
After each success, the authorities were strengthened in their conviction that the Algerian woman would support the Western penetration into the native society. Every rejected veil disclosed to the eyes of the colonialists horizons until then forbidden, and revealed to them, piece by piece, the flesh of Algeria laid bare. (page 42)
A time came when some of the people allowed doubt to enter their minds, and they began to wonder whether it was really possible, quantitatively and qualitatively, to resist the occupant's offensives. Was freedom worth the consequences of penetrating into that enormous circuit of terrorism and counter-terrorism? Did this disproportion not express the impossibility of escaping oppression? (pages 56-57)
Colonialism must accept the fact that things happen without its control, without its direction. [...] The doctrinal assertions of colonialism in its attempt to justify the maintenance of its domination almost always push the colonized to the position of making uncompromising, rigid, static counter-proposals. (page 63)
... the real values of the occupied quickly tend to acquire a clandestine form of existence. In the presence of the occupier, the occupied learns to dissemble, to resort to trickery. To the scandal of military occupation, he opposes a scandal of contact. Every contact between the occupied and the occupier is a falsehood. (page 65)
I kind of struggled a little with the first part of the chapter; I think I was trying to draw a connection from the bigger picture Fanon offers of the Algerian colonizer's effort to unveil Algerian women; and some of the stuff Fanon writes about colonizers being frustrated and angry, fantasizing about particular violence against Algerian women, etc... which felt... harder for me to buy into. I guess the issue isn't that I don't believe this inner monologue exists; maybe it's more that I gravitate toward sociological analyses more than I gravitate toward psychoanalytic ones.
(Separately, nearer to the end of the chapter, Fanon writes of wearing the veil and how it "protects, reassures, isolates", and I felt like... I know in 2025 there's good writing from women who wear the hijab, and it felt conspicuous reading a man's account of what face and hair coverings like the haïk offer women. This particular passage was especially salient to me, but I'm not sure what to do with that feeling, especially as it weaves in and out of the broader conversation about the French colonization of Algeria and the use of attire as part of that project, as well as the dynamic tactics women took up in resistance. Wow, this parenthetical sure is long... I'll digress.)
I've been dwelling a lot on this idea of "the impossibility of escaping oppression". I feel almost totally hopeless these days about escaping oppression, and about a future within any of our lifetimes where we are free of oppression. I think this reflects something wrong with the world at least as much as it reflects something wrong with me, but I also wonder if at least one of the things that is wrong (in general) is my apprehension about the kinds of things we need to do to stop violent oppression.
Reading this chapter felt in part like Fanon's reflections on how much the people of Algeria had to continually change in order to maintain their resistance against the French colonial order — the inclusion of women in battle, the varying techniques and strategies, and the changing decisions about whom to involve and target in operations. I'm not sure why, but I really got swept up in his observation that colonialism demands the oppressed be static and rigid. If that's the case, then I want to deny them stasis at every possible turn. Fortunately, living is dynamic; being human is dynamic. What's not dynamic, what's not organic or sustainable, is settler colonialism and zionism.
I'll wrap up with something I found charming: I'm enamored with the idea of dissembling and tricking the occupier. I find the (let's be honest, often white) fantasies of retributive justice a little annoying and ridiculous. But carefully scratching out your escape from an oppressor — as dishonestly as you desire to be — feels... heartwarming? I honestly can't explain it. If you resonate with this feeling and feel like you can articulate it, I would love to read it.
Tell me your thoughts
I'd like to hear what feelings you have, if any, about this week (or these few weeks'?) readings. Especially the trickery stuff, but also about the topic of haïk (or hijab, or other coverings). Or about dynamism of
If you want, the Signal group chat is a great place to participate. The group chat is also where we'll discuss Capital: Volume 1 by Karl Marx.
The other book
As I said earlier in the email, concurrently with A Dying Colonialism, the signal group will be the primary place to discuss Capital: Volume 1 by Karl Marx. I'm linking the most recent translation of Capital which you can buy, but you can find earlier translations elsewhere (including for free) if you look around (or in the previous emails).
I realize this is a new format and a new thing, to possibly be reading a couple of books simultaneously; I hope you'll join us in the group chat to read and discuss Capital: Volume 1.
Okay, I think that's everything. If you're still reading, thanks for reading to the end. If you'd like to chat, I'm on signal, bluesky, twitter, mastodon, and... you can also email me, now that I think about it. And if none of that works, then we'll also have the video chat at 12pm on Saturday.
And if none of that works, then I hope you make progress escaping and helping others escape oppression. Take care this week.