The Symbolism of Violence:A Giro-Ricoeurian Reading of Frantz Fanon

ABSTRACT: For centuries, history of nationshas shown that the recourse to violence has been the sine quanon condition for the establishment of peace, order, progress, expansions, and the like. Violence, no matter itsform, is believed to be the means for peace, justice, or unity. On the contrary, this paper shows that violencecalls for violence, for it is based on the mimetic desire, which is the principle of reciprocal violence. Basing onFrantz Fanon‟s description of violence as a liberating tool for decolonisation in Africa, the present reflectionsborrow theoretical tools from R.N. Girard and P. Ricoeur to show that violence hardly achieves permanentpeace, justice, or unity in the human race. This is because its mechanism is rooted in desire for more-having,dominion, pride, cupidity, and arrogance leading to the negation of humanity in others. Any justification forviolence constitutes an apparent meaning, which hides a more fundamental desire: the desire for more-beingfuller being, that is to say, the plenitude of being. Its condition of possibility is not of material order. It is ratherof moral order: the respect of human dignity.

Keys:violence, mimetic desire, philosophical hermeneutics, Girard, Ricoeur, symbolic language.