The revolution transforms the family’s apparent weakness into strategic advantage

Evidence

The double oppression, social and sexual, of the woman cracks and is finally shattered; and its essential nature as the social oppression of the family as a whole is revealed. It is simply that its weakest parts—the children, the elderly, the women—must bear the most exaggerated forms of oppression. But in the revolutionary struggle, the relative weakness, the apparent defenselessness of these groups disappear. What was formerly a disadvantage becomes an advantage for the revolution. The old man or woman who walks with halting steps past the military patrol, the timid woman hiding behind a veil, the innocent-faced child do not seem to the enemy to be dangers or threats. So they can pass arms, information, medicine. They can prepare surprise attacks, serve as guides and sentries. They can even take up arms themselves. — Frantz Fanon, A Dying Colonialism, 14 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

What could formerly be defined as mere cohabitation today includes a multiplicity of points of communication. First and foremost is the fact of incurring dangers together, of turning over in the same bed, each on his own side, each with his fragment of a secret. It is also the consciousness of collaborating in the immense work of destroying the world of oppression. The couple is no longer shut in upon itself. It no longer finds its end in itself. It is no longer the result of the natural instinct of perpetuation of the species, nor the institutionalized means of satisfying one’s sexuality. The couple becomes the basic cell of the commonwealth, the fertile nucleus of the nation. — Frantz Fanon, A Dying Colonialism, 379 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Revolutionary committees inverted generational authority by making sons tax their own fathers; The oppressed group’s apparent weakness becomes a revolutionary advantage against the enemy — Frantz Fanon, A Dying Colonialism, 14; Revolution transformed the Algerian couple from a family contract into a revolutionary unit — Frantz Fanon, A Dying Colonialism, 379 (+1 more)

Related

• The oppressed group’s apparent weakness becomes a revolutionary advantage against the enemy (similarity 0.88)
• Revolution transformed the Algerian couple from a family contract into a revolutionary unit (similarity 0.88)
• Revolution reconstituted the conjugal couple as the cell of the nation (similarity 0.87)
• Revolutionary authority in Algeria replaced the elder brother’s automatic precedence (similarity 0.85)
• Trotsky held that a harder revolutionary struggle yields firmer post-victory power (similarity 0.83)
• The Revolution dissolved patriarchal jealousy between Algerian men and women (similarity 0.82)
• The revolution affected Algerian women’s lives more profoundly than any other domain (similarity 0.82)
• The girl’s militant commitment converted even the patriarchal father to revolution (similarity 0.81)
• Pre-revolution activist politics left paternal authority within the family untouched (similarity 0.80)
• Revolution dissolved the Algerian husband’s traditional jealousy of his wife (similarity 0.80)
• Daughters’ revolutionary service dissolved fathers’ traditional demands for virginity (similarity 0.80)
• The Revolution let love override customary paternal marriage authority in Algeria (similarity 0.80)
• Colonial ethnographers claimed a hidden matriarchy lay beneath visible Algerian patriarchy (similarity 0.79)
• Agrarian production roles determine gender hierarchy within Algerian families (similarity 0.79)
• Revolutionary struggle fused national liberation with women’s liberation in Algeria (similarity 0.79)

Broader Connections

• The oppressed group’s apparent weakness becomes a revolutionary advantage against the enemy #corroborates (0.90) — Frantz Fanon, A Dying Colonialism, 14
• Revolution transformed the Algerian couple from a family contract into a revolutionary unit #expands (0.60) — Frantz Fanon, A Dying Colonialism, 379
• Family structure mirrors and reproduces national authority in Europe #expands (0.50)