Counter-violence against the colonial regime is liberatory because it is an act, and by acting, the absolute power of colonialism, internalized by the colonized, is shaken.

The problem in Syria, I think, is that when there is so much violence, there is not only very little chance to create spaces for liberation, but also all talk is quickly swallowed up by it. People are trying to keep their heads down because they are being bombarded all the time.

Violence is the first means and the last resort to pacify a people, and thus is something we need to continue to consider after the gunfire has ended.

The grand schemes of liberation, however indistinct and amorphous, can quickly be compromised, consumed by petty disputes and local hatreds.

If you look at social movements in Latin America, there are spaces where alternative politics are thought about on the ground, at the grassroots level, but they are always under threat. The problem in North Africa and the Middle East is the politics of oil. It means that the spaces for truly grassroots politics, involving those masses of people excluded from high politics, are very quickly closed down. They are not really allowed any kind of autonomy to develop, and that seems to be the real problem, which gets us back to the neo-colonial relationship.

The only way that we can prove the relevance of Fanon in a certain way outside of some academic circles is to ask, do people involved in social struggles engage with Fanonian concepts and find something relevant for them, even if they have never heard of Fanon because Fanon is implicitly in the struggles?

Manicheanism is like a vacuum, it is an either or situation that curtails or destroys the development of liberatory thought.