 Violence emerges as a critical concept in this moment. Part of the colonizer’s fantasy of power and control lies in a perception of weakness, of inferiority, that is inherent in the colonized. The colonized are weak and therefore, in some fundamental sense, deserve their abject condition. This is consistent with Fanon’s reflection on the inferiority complex in Black Skin, White Masks, but writ large and as a characteristic of a population and people. If the inferiority of the colonized is an assumption and psychological reality of colonial life, then revolutionary violence cannot but be a shock to the entire system. The colonizer is shocked into awareness of the humanity of the colonized in the moment in which they are willing to risk their lives for another future. The colonized are shocked into awareness of their own potential and, in that potential, find themselves capable for forming a wide cultural, social, and political identity. Identity formation is critical in Fanon’s analysis; colonialism is a total project, so the colonized find themselves adrift in abjection. But violence changes all of that. Violence is simultaneously a saying of no to colonialism and a saying of yes to the possibilities of post-colonial life. The system cannot survive this shock. And so it means everything to the three classes of colonized life. The workers see the system on which they are dependent begin to collapse. Exploitation becomes a site of resistance, rather than something to be endured for the sake of material needs. The colonized intellectual is exposed as counter-revolutionary and a key element in the oppressive system. And the lumpen find an identity for the first time, moving from disposable excess to anti-colonialism’s most potent revolutionary force.