Expanding upon the various kinds of violence that contribute to the Algerians’ psychological trauma that resulted from decolonization, Jeffrey C. Alexander elaborates further on cultural trauma, as well as its generated psychological response in his article “Cultural Trauma and Collective Identity.” He says trauma is a more intricate and complicated phenomenon than its depiction in The Wretched of the Earth. Trauma manifests both psychologically and culturally. Alexander emphasizes that the classification of violence depends heavily on the context. This concept of social systems and culture need to be well understood so that each kind of violence can be identified separately, and trauma measures can be addressed accordingly. According to Alexander, a social system is defined as “the organization of social relations in society”. The primary components of a social system include social roles and institutions, which play one of many functional roles: economic, legal, medical, educational, and familial. Social trauma refers to severe disturbances to the social system including, but not limited to, disease, famine, and war—or in the case of The Wretched of the Earth, decolonization. Culture on the other hand, is defined as “a grouping of elements, including values, norms, beliefs, and ideologies, that are linked to one-another as a meaning-system”. Cultural trauma takes prevalence in decolonization, and this trauma leads to the psychological trauma that is evident throughout the “On Violence” and “Colonial War and Mental Disorders” sections of The Wretched of the Earth. The most important aspect of cultural trauma is that it must be “established by deliberate efforts on the part of cultural carriers” which include politicians, intellectuals, and authority figures. This is blatantly evident in the societal division that French colonialism creates in Algeria. Cultural trauma takes place in The Wretched of the Earth, through the colonial war that is spurred by the French imposition of capitalism and Western values like industrialism and economic gain. A sharp division exists between the rural Algerian masses and the Algerian nationalist parties, which consist of Algerian political voices. Unfortunately for the Algerian rural masses, political parties and nationalist agendas are extremely weak as they are comprised of colonized intellectuals, known as the proletariat, who only constitute less than 1% of the Algerian population. This extreme divide is a prime example of a stimulator of cultural trauma, as proletariat are able to reap the economic benefits of the colonial system, and use colonization to their personal gain, while the natives are left to remain impoverished in the rural areas of the country. As a result of this unequal divide, Algeria’s nationalist leaders and supposed political voices are hesitant to support their fellow Algerians that make up the rural masses, as remaining on good terms with the French takes priority since the economic stakes are high. The struggle for decolonization is now left only to the spontaneity of the rural masses, as “they have nothing to lose and everything to gain”.  
