“The revolution in depth, the true one, precisely because it changes man and renews society, has reached an advanced stage. This oxygen which creates and shapes a new humanity — this, too, is the Algerian revolution.” With these words, Frantz Fanon was talking about Algeria’s anti-colonial struggle in the 1950s. But he could easily have said the same about the popular uprising that gripped the country over the last three years.

Born in Martinique but Algerian by choice, Fanon (1925–61) wrote about the Algerian revolution against French colonialism, and his own experiences on the African continent. A radical intellectual and a revolutionary dedicated to his adoptive country’s national liberation, his transformative ideas went on to inspire Pan-Africanism, the Black Panthers, and anti-colonial struggles all over the world.

In The Wretched of the Earth, Fanon had written that “Each generation must out of relative obscurity discover its mission, fulfill it, or betray it.” This statement is relevant for the current generation, too — especially in light of the explosion of revolts and uprisings all over the world in the last few years, including in the Arab countries, from Algeria to Lebanon and from Sudan to Iraq.