In the 1996 documentary, ‘Frantz Fanon: Black Skin, White Mask,’ sociologist and cultural theorist Stuart Hall mentions, “You can’t abstract a cultural sign from its context and no cultural sign is fixed in its meaning.” The scientist makes this claim as a response to Frantz Fanon’s false beliefs that the success of the Algerian revolution can lead to the creation of a renewed individual. It implies that the revolution would allow Algerians to rebuild relationships and abandon thoughts that existed during the country’s colonial period. Hall contests that argument as being idealistic and asserts that people’s past cannot be forgotten that easily and thus affect the present. In this vein, the film shows how women used the veil – a traditional symbol of dependence in Algerian society – during the revolution to hide the bombs and other weapons that were used against French militaries.
Indeed, Fanon himself was discussing how speaking the Creole language was viewed differently by black citizens in Martinique and immigrants from Senegal. For the former, Creole was considered inferior compared to French as the knowledge of the colonizer’s language was associated with greater prestige and opportunities. On the other hand, the latter group viewed Creole as a way to successfully integrate into the local society. Thus, as it is seen, the value of speaking Creole cannot be determined abstractly; rather, it heavily depends on the spatial and social contexts.
Then, it is fair to claim that Hall’s quote is both accurate and useful for understanding various historical and contemporary cultures. For instance, the history and present meaning of the swastika symbol showcases both the contextual and dynamic nature of cultural signs. The swastika originated in India and has symbolized the sun in Eastern Buddhist countries until today. In the West, however, this meaning differs and represents the ideology of Nazism since the 1930s.
From the perspective of language, race, and ethnicity studies, the reviewed quote invites people to be accurate concerning the interpretation of the historical events and behaviors of people from other cultures. For example, Fanon mentions that white people in France as well as in the U.S., used to talk to their black countrymates as if the latter were children. In this regard, one cannot understand the reasons for such treatment without understanding the historical and cultural context of the period.