Igowi nyi fala nyi compini wé
In the Franco-German war
Sa té dyuwa ka yénana wé
Have gone to die
Indégo s’azo n’awani w’azo
Our lovers… our children…
Igowi nyi fala nyi compini wé
In the Franco-German war
Mandè dyuwa mandè tola
Who dies? Who survives?
Aboti w’azo n’awani w’azo
Our elders… Our elders…
Igowi nyi fala nyi compini
(In the Franco-German war) anonymous – sung in Omyènè (Gabon)
Who still realizes that 175,000 African soldiers served on the European front in the First World War? That over 200,000 were mobilized in French West Africa in the Second World War? Who tells us that, in 1945, on the order of General de Gaulle, 20,000 African infantrymen were abruptly demobilized from the French army to « whitewash » it, and to give the French a sense of victory? That the prisoners released from the German stalags were sent to six camps in central and southern France before being repatriated to Africa? That, faced with the repeated refusal to pay them their arrears, they refused to clean the decks before disembarking, in spite of their officers’ orders? (1)
The » Senegalese » Tirailleurs are part of France’s historical unconscious, along with collaboration or the Algerian war. Their visual representation is more instructive than any discourse: it highlights the contradictions of a Republic which constantly swings between wanting to assimilate the Other, and rejecting him/her as inferior. Thanks to the research carried out by tenacious historians and lucid writers, whose work finds an echo in this dossier, it is high time that France not only faces up to its own History, but also changes the reductive visual representations perpetuated by this amnesia.
It is high time that we tear the Banania smiles down from all the walls in France, as Senghor put it.
Contributing to deconstructing the straight-jacket of racist prejudices engendered by colonial relationships, which continue to poison relations with the Africans, is precisely one of our pet concerns at Africultures. We try to do so, not through sterile denunciation, but by prioritizing open reflection and critical analysis. That requires an independence which is dear to us, even if this choice is financially difficult. The cessation of L’Autre Afrique saddens and worries us, as this journal had succeeded in each week articulating a necessary, different, and autonomous voice. It also prompts us to sincerely thank all those who back us, without whom we could not exist: the FAS, the CNL, L’Harmattan, and, of course, our subscribers who faithfully support us.
(1) Myron Echenberg, Colonial Conscripts: the Tirailleurs Sénégalais in French West Africa (1857-1960), Heinemann, Portsmouth 1991, p. 98.
(*) Translator’s note: The famous French brand of chocolate drink, Banania, whose packaging bears the face of a grinning Tirailleur, has become synonymous over the years with the stereotype of the happy-go-lucky, subservient African.///Article N° : 5429
