Festival
inconsistencies and contradictions
on the board C in air
by
Alexander Gerbi
.
A Day parade of African troops on the Champs-Elysees, July 14, 2010, issue C in air (France 5) proposed an issue devoted the "independence" in Africa, entitled France-Africa: 50 years later .
From minute 34 (available at: http://skydexter.free.fr/page.php?472 ), we witnessed this exchange highly instructive between Cameroonian journalist Louis Magloire and Keumayou French historian Eric Deroo:
Louis Magloire Keumayou: France can not say that it granted independence (...) But there was something else. Because today there is an amalgam that is the term "independence" in Africa. I think we need to situate things in their context and in the truth of history. The first thing is that people do not demand independence from that time. What they wanted was equal rights and democratic equality within the colonial empire. That is to say we recognize that all citizens were regarded as indigenous right to be citizens as well as the French who were on their territories. That was the overriding need. (...) It was after the need for independence has come. And here's what I want to correct in saying there was a referendum that was organized in most countries (in 1958). If you take the figures for these referenda, I do not think the 14 countries, everyone has voted YES for independence. Yet from August (1960), (...) we have distributed as gifts such independence there. At this point, it was the awarding of prizes. But before there was talk just to ensure equal rights among the skirmishers and the military, between citizens and natives ...
Eric Deroo: (...) The framework law Defferre in 1956 is clearly made for move towards independence and, ultimately, to the independence of Africa. It is true that France grants independence to heart-cons (...). So much so we created (the same year, 1956) the EFORTOM (...), a school designed to train managers Members who will take the heavier loads in future national armed (...). Besides, 14 officers will be leaving the school heads of state in their countries. It proves that there is a process that is taking place. France has understood after Indochina, and with what is happening in Algeria (that independence is inevitable) (...).
Eric Deroo able therefore to make a big difference, simultaneously acknowledging that Africa has been deliberately dropped by a process conducted since the Fourth Republic and ended with Charles de Gaulle, while upholding the classic thesis that this release responding to ... the desire of Africans and "wind of history"! This is contradicted by the assertions Louis Magloire Keumayou who rightly points out - without, however, contradicts the Eric Deroo at all on this - that beyond the independence movements that existed, the majority of Africans not aspired to independence, but to equality in the Franco-African unity ... Note that Keumayou Louis Magloire is contradicted himself, saying that independence was not granted, at the same time that He said they have been imposed ("gift", "distribution costs")!
Such contradictions in Keumayou Deroo at home, can surprise a Cartesian spirit. In reality, they are explained by the fact that it is forbidden to say what both are saying: they say so (independence was imposed by the French state), while in granting the doxa (the Africans wanted). Left to hold, therefore, a perfectly incoherent, sometimes in the same sentence ... But the key is not to offend anyone ...
This glaring inconsistency, Facilitator, Thierry Guerrier, seek in vain to lift it, by this question to Eric Deroo:
Thierry Guerrier: Mr. Deroo, wait ... What Mr. Keumayou said, if I understand it ' is that certainly there is this process (of independence), but it is, I say, firmly told from above, somehow, Paris ... And that's not necessarily what people want at the time, which after all, some were prepared to remain in the Community, but who simply want equal rights ...
response terse and somewhat empty-handed Eric Deroo, obviously embarrassed, not without salt:
Eric Deroo: There were two things that Keumayou said, yes. There is the fact that some people who, after all, are not able, at all, what will happen to them, too. But, instead, what I wanted to take a bit is that, if France knows that we will move towards the independence of African states since the structures put in place for that ...
A everyone to enjoy the clarity of the
... We should also note, for the good mouth, the journalist's remark Liberation, Jean-Dominique Merchet, who, referring to what we have elsewhere called the "Case of Gabon " waters down the historical truth in the name of the show:
Jean-Dominique Merchet: An amusing incident when well ... It was at the time of independence, the hypothesis discussed in Gabon as Gabon became a department overseas, like Reunion, Guadeloupe and Martinique. The issue was discussed, that is to say we were in the process very different from what happened Algeria, Morocco or Tunisia. (...) Imagine that this small emirate Gabon's oil has become an overseas department of French ... The question was posed in these terms ... I'm talking under the control of my neighbor ...
Whether this anecdote is amusing, c is a matter of perspective ... Furthermore, Louis and Eric Deroo Magloire Keumayou abstained from exercising their "control". Yet there were material to correct the approximations of Jean-Dominique Merchet, as demand for departmentalization does not confine himself to be a "debate" in Gabon. Indeed, far from remaining a "hypothesis", the application of departmentalization, decided by the Council of Government of Gabon in October 1958, was actually made by the Governor Louis Sanmarco, sent to Paris for this purpose with the Minister of Overseas Bernard Cornut-Gentille. The latter, on the orders of General de Gaulle, violently rejected the request ...
In his book The Colonizer colonized Louis Sanmarco explains
" The Council elects the Government of Gabon departmentalization, and Leon (Mba) directed me to negotiate something with Paris. (...) I thought well be received as a triumph which added a bead to the crown. I was received like a bull in a china shop. The minister, Bernard Cornut-Gentille, was even unpleasant, "Sanmarco, you fell on your head! ... Have we not enough of the West Indies? Go, independence just like everyone else! "
By refusing this departmentalization, the French government did not merely reject a fad Gabon. Indeed, the demand made by Gabon departmentalization was part of Article 76 of the Constitution, which provided this opportunity. By refusing, the French government therefore violated the Constitution ...
course, this episode of "decolonization" Franco-African was kept secret for almost thirty years, since it has been revealed by Louis Sanmarco that twenty years later. Long disputed by historians (for we see that the Case of Gabon did not fit very well with the official orthodoxy of Africa collectively eager for independence and France forced him to "grant"), the episode was finally confirmed by Alain Peyrefitte in was de Gaulle (Fayard, 1994):
De Gaulle : " In Gabon, Leon M'Ba would opt for the status of the French department. Equatorial Africa in full! They remained attached we would like stones in the neck of a swimmer! We had all the trouble to dissuade them from choosing this status. Fortunately most of our Africans were willing to take the peaceful path to independence, and independence. "
The inconsistencies, contradictions, approximations, stammering responses that this issue of émaillèrent C in air of July 14, 2010 are a reflection of the huge embarrassment and taboos of the extent of surrounding the fiftieth anniversary of African independence. And its huge lie ...
Happy holidays and a good tan at all!
Alexander Gerbi
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