The Voice of Resistance: How the Algerian Revolution Decolonised Family, Media, and Medicine

We have all heard the adage that history repeats itself, and whilst reading Frantz Fanon’s A Dying Colonialism, I couldn’t help seeing the parallels between the French occupation of Algeria and the israeli (and American) occupation of Palestine. Fanon wrote his book in the fifth year of the Algerian revolution, 1959, with the French digging their heels deeper into Algerian soil and claiming it as their own. The French stayed for 132 unwelcomed years in Algeria, employing state terror to maintain control. Fanon draws the reader to five colonial tactics used by the French to undermine the resistance, and how the Algerians used each of the master’s tools to dismantle the colonial chokehold.

As we have all become familiar with over the past few decades, the French have an unhealthy obsession with Muslim women and their bodies. Fanon explores this in detail in his opening chapter, “Algeria Unveiled.” He describes how the colonisers attempted to strip women of their traditional clothes and, due to their paternalistic views, underestimated veiled women as passive and harmless. These assumptions allowed the liberation movement to take advantage of veiled women being allowed to move through checkpoints completely unsuspected. They used the spacious designs of the haik (the large square veil) to transport money, hand grenades, revolvers, and documents. Whilst the veiled woman frustrated the coloniser because she was “seeing without being seen,” Algerian women also selectively chose to unveil. They assimilated into French quarters wearing Western clothes and makeup, only to carry bombs and weapons into cafes undetected. Women became deeply embedded in the Algerian Revolution. The veil wasn’t only covering women; it became a tool of liberation, a symbol of resistance, and a testament to the power and autonomy of Algerian women.

The second section of the book explores the introduction of the radio and how it eventually became a weapon of national liberation. What I really enjoyed about this section, and what I feel is relevant to us today, is the recognition of the role culture plays in the psychological and political transformation of a people. Fanon, a psychiatrist, writes affectingly on how colonial oppression systematically traumatised the human psyche, proving that mental disorders in colonised people were rooted in sociopolitical realities rather than biological flaws. Before the war of liberation, the vast majority of Algerians didn’t listen to the radio; it was considered the voice of the oppressor. Broadcasts were in French and programmes were tailored to the tastes of the settlers.

In 1956, all that changed with the launch of the National Liberation Front’s (FLN) clandestine radio station, Radio Algiers (or Voice of Fighting Algeria). Suddenly, all Algerians wanted to know what was going on in the war, and the radio became the literal “voice of the nation.” Even when the French heavily jammed the frequencies, listeners would sit for hours straining through the static, their collective imagination filling in the blanks of Algerian victories. This feels incredibly parallel to how modern occupied populations use social media today, bypassing mainstream blackouts to control their own narrative. While the radio was initially a tool of the coloniser, viewed suspiciously by the Algerians, it later became a unifying tradition and a means of political education. It no longer represented colonial propaganda, but the collective consciousness of the Algerian people.

In the third part of the book, Fanon explores “The Algerian Family.” Before the liberation, and like most societies of the time, Algerian culture was extremely patriarchal. The father was the absolute head of the home, followed by the eldest son, who was expected to follow the father’s lead. The revolution changed everything. Father and son became equals, often fighting side-by-side, and in some instances, the younger generation even took charge of political education in the home. More striking than this, as discussed above, was how the role of women changed during the war. Daughters were no longer rooted strictly in the domestic sphere; they were often absent for weeks on military missions. Their return home naturally changed their status from submissive daughters to respected comrades in arms. The war changed the very fabric of Algerian families. Fanon explains how the anti-colonial struggle proved how malleable society is when fighting for survival, showing how the nuclear family dissolved into a larger, unified national family.

The next section, “Medicine and Colonialism,” may have been my favourite in the book. Here, Fanon explores the Algerians’ justifiable suspicion of foreign doctors who were complicit in the colonial project. As a doctor himself, Fanon digs into the duality of medics, firstly from the perspective of care and responsibility, and secondly as agents of the occupying regime. Fanon describes the utter contempt French doctors had for their Algerian patients. He exposes how they served as eyes and ears for the military, in some instances even acting as torturers by keeping victims alive for further interrogation. The Hippocratic Oath clearly didn’t apply here (just as it historically hasn’t applied to women, people of colour, and poor people across the globe); instead, medicine was a tool for surveillance, covering up police brutality and unexplained deaths.

For their part, Algerians resisted by refusing to take prescribed French medicine, skipping appointments, or lying about their conditions to protect underground secrets. In time, the liberation trained up local peasants and created its own healthcare services. Under the guidance of revolutionary doctors, ordinary citizens learned how to administer penicillin, dress severe wounds, sterilise equipment, and even assist in field surgeries. The revolution turned healthcare into a democratic, collective responsibility, proving to the Algerian people that they were fully capable of managing their own society without Western oversight.

In the final section of the book, “Algeria’s European Minority,” Fanon looks into the role of European settlers and Algerian Jews who chose to defy the French colonialists and fight as part of the liberation. This chapter shatters the myth that anti-colonial wars are simple racial or religious conflicts. Fanon highlights how European doctors, lawyers, and citizens used their racial privilege to smuggle weapons, hide FLN fighters, and run underground networks right under the noses of the French military. Similarly, many Algerian Jews rejected the French strategy of “divide and rule” to stand in solidarity with their Muslim neighbours. In this chapter, Fanon brilliantly argues that true nations are not built on race, bloodlines, or religion, but by a shared political struggle for human dignity. All those who actively worked to destroy the colonial tyranny earned the right to be called Algerian, offering a beautiful, universalist vision for what a liberated society can look like.