DIALECTICS OF MEDICINE AS POLITICS AND POLITICS AS MEDICINE: Bioethical tunings in Fanon’s excerpts

Abstract

After completing the psychiatry course in Lyon, in 1951, Fanon (1925-1961) was admitted to Saint Alban Hospital for further psychiatric studies. There he worked and researched under the supervision of the Spanish psychiatrist Francesc Tosquelles (1912-1994), and practiced the elements of institutional psychotherapy, developed by Tosquelles and his collaborators in that hospital. Later, in Algeria, Fanon worked in the Blida-Joinvile Hospital (between October 1953 and 1956) and then in Tunisia, introducing reforms in the light of institutional psychotherapy. The concept of human being he cultivated and the perception that sick society produces sick people led him to a profound conflict, while he became aware of the violence of French colonialism against the Algerian people, as he reported in the resignation letter sent to the Resident Minister, Robert Lacoste, in 1956 (FANON, 1980). After the resignation, he entered the liberation movement in Algeria. He wrote books and articles fighting colonialism and spreading the revolutionary ideals. Van Renssalaer Potter (1911-2001) worked for a long time as a biologist and biochemist at the MacArdle Laboratory for Cancer Research, University of Wisconsin, in Madison, where cancer patients used to be treated. In the 1970s, he published a seminal book, Bioethics, bridge to the future. Years later, he published studies of Global Bioethics. Later on, he articulated concepts of Deep Bioethics. Concerned about human survival on this planet, affected by human irresponsibility, Potter called humanity to awareness and change of conduct. Comparing the two authors, it is observed that Fanon's writings were produced in the 1950s, and his last book, The Wretched of the Earth, was written in 1961. Potter, in turn, wrote his first bioethics studies in the 1970s, about a decade after Fanon's death. Respecting the chronological limits, this study asks: Would the dialectic of medicine as politics and politics as medicine, in Fanon's praxis, have bioethical tunings? To address this problem, the article contextualizes Fanon's formation, identifying the principles of his medical psychiatric praxis. Then, the contradictions of colonialism are demonstrated, so that it is possible to recognize a dialectic of medicine as politics and politics as medicine. Further on, the contribution of Van Rensselaer Potter in the bioethics proposition is reported. Finally, it is argued in favor of the bioethical tunings present in the selected excerpts. The methodological procedure is the bibliographical research, analytic-deductive.

Keywords: Colonialism. Awareness. Medicine. Politics. Bioethical tunings.