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Cultural Representations of Massacre Reinterpretations of the Mutiny of Senegal

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Cultural Representations of Massacre Reinterpretations of the Mutiny of Senegal Copyrighted Material - 9781137274960 Cultural Representations of Massacre Reinterpretations of the Mutiny of Senegal Sabrina Parent Copyrighted Material - 9781137274960 Copyrighted Material - 9781137274960 CULTURAL REPRESENTATIONS OF MASSACRE Copyright © Sabrina Parent, 2014. All rights reserved. First published in 2014 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN® in the United States— a division of St. Martin’s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010. Where this book is distributed in the UK, Europe and the rest of the world, this is by Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS. Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world. Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries. ISBN: 978- 1- 137- 27496- 0 Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data Parent, Sabrina, author. Cultural representations of massacre : reinterpretations of the mutiny of Senegal / by Sabrina Parent. pages cm Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978- 1- 137- 27496- 0 (alk. paper) 1. African literature (French)—20th century— History and criticism. 2. France. Armée. Tirailleurs sénégalais—In literature. 3. France. Armée. Tirailleurs sénégalais—In motion pictures. 4. Massacres in literature. 5. Massacres—Senegal— Thiaroye- sur- Mer— In motion pictures. 6. Thiaroye- sur- Mer (Senegal)— In literature. 7. Thiaroye- sur- Mer (Senegal)— In motion pictures. 8. Senegal— Colonization— In literature. 9. Senegal— Colonization— In motion pictures. 10. France— Colonies— Africa— Administration. I. Title. PQ3980.5.P37 2014 840.9’35866303— dc23 2014000297 A catalogue record of the book is available from the British Library. Design by Scribe Inc. First edition: July 2014 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Copyrighted Material - 9781137274960 Copyrighted Material - 9781137274960 Contents List of Illustrations ix Acknowledgments xi Introduction 1 1 Historical Background and Representations of Thiaroye 13 Part 1: Representations of Thiaroye in Colonial Times 29 2 Léopold Sédar Senghor’s Thiaroye: The Prototype of Sacrifice 31 3 Fodeba Keita’s Thiaroye: A Transitory Episode in the African Epic 47 Part 2: Representations of Thiaroye in the Postindependence Era 59 4 Boubacar Boris Diop’s Thiaroye: Rebellion and Treason 63 5 Doumbi- Fakoly’s Morts pour la France: Thiaroye as a Key Episode in Understanding (Neo)Colonialism 81 6 Camp de Thiaroye by Sembene Ousmane: Art and/as Resistance 97 Part 3: Representations of Thiaroye in a New Era 137 7 Rachid Bouchareb’s Minimalist Representation of Thiaroye 139 8 Dismantling Thiaroye’s Dichotomies in Cheikh Faty Faye’s Play 151 Copyrighted Material - 9781137274960 Copyrighted Material - 9781137274960 viii Contents Conclusion 169 Notes 175 Bibliography 191 Index 205 Copyrighted Material - 9781137274960 Copyrighted Material - 9781137274960 Introduction From November 26 to December 1, 2007, the inhabitants of Dakar celebrated the sesquicentennial anniversary of Louis Faid- herbe’s creation, under Napoleon III, of the military corps known as the tirailleurs sénégalais (Senegalese infantrymen).1 The festival included a number of cultural events, such as the La Force noire: De 1857 aux Indépendances (The Black Force: From 1857 to the Independences) exhibition hosted at the Dakar French Institute, and screenings of films, such as Indigènes (Days of Glory, 2006) by Rachid Bouchareb, and documentaries, such as Histoire oubliée (Forgotten History, 1985) by Eric Deroo. Round-table conferences were also held, discussing works by historians, journalists, and writers, such as novelist Marc Dugain, author of La Chambre des officiers (The Officers’ Ward, 1999), journalist and researcher Eric Deroo, coauthor with Lieutenant Colonel Antoine Champeaux of La Force noire: Gloires et infortunes d’une légende coloniale (Black Force: Glory and Misfortune of a Colonial Legend, 2006), and play- wright and professor of history Cheikh Faty Faye, author of Aube de sang (Dawn of Blood, 2005)— a play that will be studied later in this essay. By mixing various cultural (movies, plays, novels, etc.) and historical productions, and combining Senegalese with French viewpoints, the festival explored a moment of colonial history considered a common past shared by France and Senegal.2 The intentions of the festival organizers and participants clearly dif- fered from those of French president Nicolas Sarkozy expressed in his speech given a few months earlier at the University of Dakar in July 2007. French and African Perspectives on Colonization and on Thiaroye The French president’s speech, now known as the “Discours de Dakar” (“Dakar Discourse”) was shocking in its tone. Written by Copyrighted Material - 9781137274960 Copyrighted Material - 9781137274960 2 Cultural Representations of Massacre Henri Guaino, Sarkozy’s special advisor, it had racist inflections when it mentioned, for instance, the characteristics supposedly typical of the “African man” (“l’homme africain”). According to President Sarkozy, the way Africans live their lives proves that they are completely alien to history, instead privileging the rhythms of nature: “The African peasant, who for thousands of years, has lived according to the seasons, and whose ideal in life is to be in harmony with nature, knows only the eternal resumption of time punctu- ated by the endless repetition of the same gestures and words.”3 The allocution provoked a collective protest from both French and African journalists, philosophers, and writers. Boubacar Boris Diop, one of the authors considered in this study, signed an open letter to the president along with other African writers insisting on how insulted they felt when listening to his speech and condemn- ing the “ignorance,” “cynicism,” and “contempt”4 underlying his words (“Lettre ouverte à Nicolas Sarkozy”). Denouncing the racist foundation of Sarkozy’s statement, Jean Daniel, French journalist and director of the leftist weekly news- paper Le Nouvel Observateur, pointed out that Sarkozy’s speech was difficult to interpret to the extent that “never before had a French president gone so far in criticizing colonization”5 (qtd. in Hofnung). Sarkozy indeed acknowledged that colonization was a “crime against humanity.”6 Yet this acknowledgement was not followed by an expected request for forgiveness. Sarkozy instead insisted on the “benefits of colonization”7 as well as the nonre- sponsibility of ex- colonizers regarding the current state of affairs in Africa.8 All these facts lead to the conclusion expressed by French pro- fessor of genetics Thomas Heams in an article published in the French newspaper Libération: “In an astonishing speech delivered in Dakar, Nicolas Sarkozy, who dares everything and which is how one recognizes him, unveiled the basis for a line of a thought which, if words have meaning, is the most racist official French discourse to have been uttered for a long time.”9 Sarkozy’s offi- cial position toward colonization demonstrated his uneasiness with facing the recent past of colonization and its ramifications, such as migration from the Global South or the integration of second and third generations of migrants. In fact, it seems that the French president was more obsessed with other nightmares from the past— atrocities committed against Jews under the Vichy Copyrighted Material - 9781137274960 Copyrighted Material - 9781137274960 Introduction 3 government. Concerned with the preservation of Jewish memo- ries, Sarkozy suggested in March 2008 that 10- to 11- year- old children would be made “responsible” for the memory of a deported Jewish child. This measure was highly controversial. The controversy raised several issues, including the psychological impact that this proposed legislative act would have on children, the fact that atrocities committed under the Vichy regime did not only concern Jews, and the fact that France should also consider reparations toward other victimized communities, such as Algeri- ans victims of torture during the Algerian War of Liberation. In terms of both colonization and deportation, President Sar- kozy’s actions proved inadequate. Such was to be expected from a president who, in the speech following his election, stated that he wanted “to be done with repentance, which is a form of self- hatred, and the competition of memories that feeds the hatred of others.”10 Instead of facing the past, courageously recognizing mistakes, and asking for forgiveness, the French president preferred to maintain a state of pretentious denial rather than show humility. With François Hollande’s election to the presidency in 2012, a new direction seems to have been taken. Although President Hol- lande also declared that he did not intend to apologize or repent for past (colonial) actions, in his December 20, 2012 speech given in Algiers, he denounced the “brutal colonization” that took place in Algeria and expressed his wish to promote peace between French and Algerian memories.11 As regards Thiaroye, a few days earlier on December 12, 2012, in Dakar, Hollande took the decision “to provide Senegal with all of France’s archives about what hap- pened so that they can be exhibited in the Memorial Museum.”12 To exhibit the archives in a museum is definitely something worth doing, if only to disseminate information to a broader audience. Yet given the shadows that still surround the events,
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