Cultural Representations of Massacre Reinterpretations of the Mutiny of Senegal

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Sabrina Parent

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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.

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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

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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

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Conclusion 169 Notes 175 Bibliography 191 Index 205

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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

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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 newspaper 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 professor 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 official 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

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Introduction 3 government. Concerned with the preservation of Jewish memories, 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, one rather expects that the providing of records will encourage new historical research. In the West, colonization is a current concern only insofar as it is connected with immigration issues. As such, it seems that only politicians and second and third generations of migrants take interest in the topic. In the movie by Arnaud Ngatcha, historian Pascal Blanchard notes and regrets that unlike the colonized peoples, who could not avoid doing so, Europeans have not yet begun to reflect self-critically on their colonial experiences. Philosopher

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Jérémie Piolat goes even further in the conclusion he draws on Western societies. In his book, whose title Portrait du colonialiste (The Colonialist, 2011) is a reference to Albert Memmi’s Portrait du colonisateur suivi de Portrait du colonisé (The Colonizer and the Colonized, 1957), he argues that all Europeans share an identity of dominance. According to Piolat, Europeans still see themselves as “belonging to the dominant part of humanity . . . regardless of their social status and of profits of any kind that the richest get from them” (51). By pointing to the survival of the colonial mentality in our contemporary societies, Portrait du colonialiste is one of the few books that denounces the paternalistic, even con- temptuous, attitude of the West toward the so-called Third World. On the contrary, in Africa, colonization and its impact are part of daily life, even if the colonial past can sometimes be unsettling or unpleasant to remember or deal with. Indeed, the celebration of the one-hundred- and- fiftieth anniversary of the tirailleurs corps also reminds us of the involvement of Africans themselves in the misery of colonization. As will be discussed in Chapter 1, the tirailleurs sénégalais corps, recruited from among indigenous populations, was formed and developed in order to help maintain and extend the French colonial empire. Senegalese poet and president Léopold Sédar Senghor called them the “Empire’s black watchdogs”13 (The Collected Poetry of Léopold Sédar Senghor 72). To a certain extent, the history of the tirailleurs is a history that could make the people of West Africa uncomfortable. Yet they have the courage to face it, as can be seen in the organization of the festival. The festival celebrating the African soldiers ended on December 1, 2007, the sixty- third anniversary of the massacre of Thiaroye, a highly symbolic event for West African people. Thiaroye is indeed significant in many respects. Because it was an uprising of tirailleurs, who so far had been obedient soldiers serving the expansion of the French Empire, Thiaroye symbolizes the spirit of resistance that eventually “contaminated” those who collaborated with the colonial power. It is certainly no coincidence that the festival’s tribute to the tirailleurs also celebrated an event considered the foundation of many African liberation movements, and by exten- sion, the independence of numerous African countries. On the other hand, let us not forget that Thiaroye was a failure: it was severely repressed by the French army and the African soldiers

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Introduction 5 who carried out their orders. As such, Thiaroye can also be seen as an event revealing Africans’ involvement in the misery of (neo) colonization. From the French military perspective, Thiaroye was probably a mistake that needed to be erased, or at least covered up. Although some French historians and journalists have analyzed Thiaroye as an episode that reveals one of the darkest sides of French colonial history, French artistic discourse has for long remained silent on this particular event, thereby reinforcing the oblivion of French politicians. To my knowledge, it is only recently that the massacre of Thiaroye has been the subject of cultural representations by French artists, of mixed origins. In 2004, Rachid Boucha- reb, a French director of Algerian descent, created the animated film L’Ami y’a bon (Friend Is Good). From 2006 onward, theater company Mémoires Vives (Vivid Memories), based in Strasbourg, performed a hip hop show in which Thiaroye was one of the many episodes constitutive of the tirailleurs’ epic. For these French people of African origins and those who sympathize with their social and political concerns, Thiaroye, and more generally the remembering of the colonial past, are crucial to unifying the various communities and memories that form contemporary French society.14 In contrast with the French population’s recent interest, the memory of Thiaroye in West Africa has never ceased to be alive over the past sixty years. In Bamako, Mali, Alpha Oumar Konaré, former president of the country, inaugurated a stele dedicated to the dead of Thiaroye in December 2001 (Onana, La France et ses tirailleurs 124). In Figure I.1, the monument is visible behind the sign. Although there is no monument to the memory of the dead soldiers in Senegal,15 former Senegalese president Abdoulaye Wade created Tirailleurs’ Day (“La Journée du tirailleur”). The first Tirailleurs’ Day took place in 2004, and tributes included a commemoration of the victims of Thiaroye. President Wade is also the coauthor, with Mbaye Gana Kébé, of the play Une fresque pour Thiaroye (A Fresco for Thiaroye, 2008) in which the victims are transformed into martyrs. Along with Les Chevaliers noirs (The Black Knights, 2008), by the same authors, Une fresque pour Thiar- oye contributes to the edification of the tirailleurs’ legend and manifests the will to “legitimate the Head of State as the veterans’

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Figure I.1 Monument in tribute to the tirailleurs sénégalais advocate”16 (Mourre, “L’ethnographie d’une mémoire sociale” 122). Strategically speaking, it seems that the creation of the tirailleurs’ myth contributed to maintaining national cohesion at a time when political tensions threatened the president’s stability. In addition to the development of this “official” memory, traces of the events are part of the everyday life of Dakar’s inhabitants. They can be seen, for instance, in the popular saying “I do not see you in Mbao” (“Je ne te vois pas à Mbao”). Mbao was actually a small village close to Thiaroye where the survivors of the massacre fled and found refuge. “I do not see you in Mbao” implies that “you are not a survivor,” and therefore means that “you are in trouble.” Thiaroye is also part of the Dakar’s urban landscape: a mural, titled “Thiaroye 44, an Unforgettable Story,” commemo- rates the massacre. The fresco is visible in Figure I.2. Musicians and singers also help pass on memories of the event. Mansour Seck composed a song about the massacre in Wolof, the main language spoken in Senegal. So did the rapper Disiz La Peste— whose Senegalese name is Sérigne M’baye Guèye— but in French. The Senegalese rap band WA BMG 44 alludes to the event as well by mentioning the number 44 in their name. Poetry is another medium used to transmit the past: in the forties, Senegalese poet Léopold Sédar Senghor wrote a lyrical poem

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Introduction 7

Figure I.2 Mural titled Thiaroye 44, une histoire inoubliable

“Tyaroye,” whereas Guinean artist Fodeba Keita wrote a narrative poem “Aube africaine.” Published more recently, the anthol- ogy Contre l’oubli et le mépris (Against Oblivion and Contempt, 2008) is a celebration of the dead of Thiaroye by African poets such as Oumou Kaltome Diallo, Babacar Poye, and Massamba Guèye. Novel writing is another means of literary expression— the one chosen by Doumbi- Fakoly in Morts pour la France (Dead for France) published in 1983. Thiaroye has also been the subject of published plays—such as Thiaroye, terre rouge (Thiaroye, Red Ground, 1981) by Boubacar Boris Diop and Aube de sang (Dawn of Blood, 2005) by Cheikh Faty Faye—as well as movies—such as Camp de Thiaroye (Camp of Thiaroye, 1987) by the father of Afri- can cinema, Sembene Ousmane. All these documents representing Thiaroye participate in form- ing the “collective memory” of West African people. Developed by French philosopher and sociologist Maurice Halbwachs,17 the concept of “collective memory” is useful in pointing out that artists have transformed testimonies of survivors, dying because of old age, into memories of a people, for whom Thiaroye assumes a role of social cohesion.

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Corpus, Significance, and Purposes of the Study Among the numerous renderings of Thiaroye, this essay closely examines the following texts and media: the poem “Tyaroye” by Senegalese poet, and later president, Léopold Sédar Senghor, written in 1944, a few days after the events; the narrative poem and sung performance “Aube africaine” (“African Dawn”) created around 1949 by Guinean artist Fodeba Keita; the play Thiaroye, terre rouge (Thiaroye, Red Ground) by Senegalese writer Boubacar Boris Diop, published in 1981; the novel Morts pour la France (Dead for France), written in 1983 by author Doumbi- Fakoly, of Malian descent; the movie Camp de Thiaroye (Camp of Thiaroye) by Senegalese filmmaker Sembene Ousmane, released in 1987; the animated film L’Ami y’a bon (Friend Is Good, 2004) by French- Algerian director Rachid Bouchareb; and finally, the play Aube de sang (Dawn of Blood), published in 2005, by Senegalese author Cheikh Faty Faye. The cultural artifacts that constitute the selected corpus have in common their use of the French language and their production between 1944 and 2004. However, two exceptions were made. I have not included the rap song “Thiaroye” (c. 2000) by Sérigne M’baye Guèye, the French singer of Senegalese descent, whose alias is Disiz la Peste. The song was released only in Senegal and exclusively on tape. Thanks to anthropologist Martin Mourre, I am aware of its existence. Yet due to its extremely limited distribu- tion and the difficulty anyone interested would have in accessing it, I have decided not to include the song in the corpus. The second exception concerns Aube de sang by Cheikh Faty Faye, which, although published in 2005, is included in the body of works studied. According to the author (qtd. in Mourre, “Mises en récit de la mémoire”), the play was actually written at the end of the seventies and was serialized at the time in the Senegalese newspaper Ande Soppi. Aube de sang fully belongs to the temporal scope of this essay and constitutes an interesting case for my demonstration—as I will show. The main purpose, and contribution, of this study is to identify and characterize a history of the cultural representations of Thiar- oye. All these documents are apprehended as (re)interpretations of a past reality, and as such, the question I address to them is double:

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Introduction 9 what does Thiaroye mean over time and how may its meaning be explained, textually and contextually? A quick glance at the list clearly shows that the production of works on Thiaroye is not continuous: there are temporal gaps. The works were either produced during the colonial era, in the forties (for Senghor and Keita); 20 to 25 years after the independence of Senegal, in the late seventies and eighties (for Faye, Diop, Doumbi- Fakoly, and Sembene); or recently (Bouchareb and Faye). I argue that, superimposed on this chronological division, is a criterion that concerns the social and historical functionality of these works. The poems by Senghor and Keita—which are analyzed in Part 1— insert Thiaroye into the collective memories of both France and West Africa. In the eighties, artists such as Diop, Doumbi- Fakoly, and Sembene— whose works on Thiaroye are studied in Part 2— use the event to criticize and resist (neo)colonialism. In the twenty-first century, Bouchareb rereads past events in the hope of building a more equitable society. So does Faye, ahead of his time. Although first written in the late seventies, Faye’s play emphasizes forgiveness and better understanding among peoples. That is one of the reasons why I consider that Faye’s play belongs to a third phase of dealing with Thiaroye, along with Bouchareb— both documents on Thiaroye are examined in Part 3. The other reason is that, since I did not have access to the first serialized publications of the play, I do not know how much it has been reworked for publication in France. Faye reported that he did make corrections to the original and that he was motivated to publish in France because Jacques Chirac had organized a meeting with African political leaders, including Abdoulaye Wade (qtd. in Mourre, “Mises en récit de la mémoire”). In a way, Faye seized an opportunity—the enthusiasm created by a political event—to rewrite and publish his play for the first time as one book and in so doing to impart the events of Thiaroye to a French audience, since it was published in Paris (by L’Harmattan publishing house). The methodology used in this study combines close internal analysis with contextual approaches. Internal analysis means that the intertwining between content (the literary interpretation of the historical event) and form (artistic features enhancing the content) is closely examined. Critical attention is also paid to the way these representations communicate with each other, creating, between

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10 Cultural Representations of Massacre themselves, a dialogue that sheds light on their meaning and significance. The internal analysis, which concentrates primarily on the works and their intertextual interactions, is complemented by an external perspective. This external perspective consists of reconstructing the sociohistorical context of each document’s production and reception. Ultimately, this methodology is the best tool to understand how the authors bring the past into dialogue with their present: how the contemporary situations in which they live is enlightened by their understanding and vision of the past, and how their current sociohistorical context may influence their understanding of the past. As a literature specialist, my approach is distinct from that of historians or anthropologists, although their perspectives may enrich or complement my analysis. Unlike historians, an adequate description of past reality is not my ultimate objective. Although the past and how to access it constitutes one of the bases of my research, one of my objectives is to consider how the past is (re) interpreted in cultural documents over time. The events of Thiar- oye have also been the subject of anthropological studies. Martin Mourre’s research, when focusing on literary and cultural documents (“Mises en récit de la mémoire”), examines how they contribute to the constitution of the collective memory of events, along with other practices or discourses, such as oral testimonies. For Mourre, literary texts are only one means of expressing a collective memory. When he studies them, he pays attention to their content,18 their genesis, and their dissemination—when and where a play was staged, for instance. On the contrary, my angle of approach privileges the text itself and its interpretation. I focus on the context of production and reception in order to better understand the significance of the work. By comparing it with other works, I try to suggest trends in the interpretation. Another contribution of this essay is its exploration of the articulation between three discourses: the cultural discourse on Thiaroye, history as the supposedly objective discourse on past reality, and the official political discourse regarding past events. Do these cultural documents on Thiaroye oppose or support the political discourse? Do they correspond to, or resist, the historical interpretation of events? How do they contribute to a more com- plete and complex representation of the past? These are some of the questions addressed in this essay and whose responses depend

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Index

Africa, 4, 14, 16, 19, 20, 23, 24, 27, Origins of Totalitarianism, The, 31, 34, 54, 55, 60, 61, 62, 66, 68 73, 74, 75, 83, 85, 86, 90, 92, Ashcroft, Bill, 173 93, 95, 97, 98, 101, 103, 104, Auriol, Vincent, 26 115, 117, 121, 147, 149, 151, 153, 158, 159, 160, 165, 173 Bakhtin, Michael, 135 Algeria, 3, 15, 17, 60–61, 93 ballets (African), 48 Chad, 19, 62 Bamako, 5, 24, 25, 171 French Equatorial Africa. See Bayart, Jean- François, 181 Afrique équatoriale française Béart, Charles, 48 (AEF) Bénot, Yves, 20–22, 25, 26, 27, 87 French West Africa. See Afrique Bigot, Emmanuelle, 116 occidentale française (AOF) Bilé, Serge, 84 Guinea, 13, 14, 47– 50, 61, 159 Blanchard, Pascal, 3 Liberia, 114–15 Boisson, Pierre, 19, 104 Mali, 5, 14, 53, 61–62, 81, 89, Bouchareb, Rachid 92, 161, 171 Ami y’a bon, L’, 5, 8, 140– 49, Senegal, 1, 3, 5, 6, 8, 9, 11, 13– 167 16, 27, 31, 33, 36, 47– 49, biography, 139– 40 61– 62, 64, 81, 83, 92, 93, Indigènes, 1, 18, 139– 40, 142 101, 135, 143– 45, 152, 171 Bouche, Denise, 20, 21, 25, 26 West Africa, 5, 9, 11, 13, 14, Brazzaville, 62, 91 17, 20, 21, 25, 27, 49, 60, Brière de l’Isle, Louis, 13 61, 83, 88, 90, 93, 95, 104, 107, 113, 116, 123, 158– 59, camp 169 Buchenwald, 84– 87 Afrique équatoriale française (AEF), concentration, 71, 73, 84, 100, 20, 61, 62 105 Afrique occidentale française (AOF), forced labor (see frontstalag) 13, 14, 49, 90, 91 prisoner- of- war (POW), 19, 84 Albinoni, Tomaso, 110, 123– 26 transit, 23, 24, 84 Allies, 19, 22, 87, 100, 104, 114, censorship, 48– 49, 57, 98, 113, 121, 125 121, 128, 165 Ansah, Paul, 38 Césaire, Aimé, 32, 70 Aquien, Michèle, 37–38 Champeaux, Antoine, 1, 21 Aragon, Louis, 123, 133–34 chechia, 100, 105, 116, 147 Arendt, Hannah Christian- Jaque, 128 Human Condition, The, 75 civilisation de l’universel, 43– 44

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206 Index civilization, 34, 35, 40, 44, 50, 68, Daniel, Jean, 2 74, 77, 78, 79, 133, 161 D- Day Dodgers, 121 civilizing mission. See mission debacle, 84, 141, 163 civilisatrice de Boisboissel, Yves, 25 Clouzot, Henri-Georges, 123, decolonization, 15, 121 127– 31 Décret Crémieux, 15 Code de l’indigénat, 13, 15– 16 de Gaulle, Charles, 19, 22, 23, 27, collective memory, 7, 9, 10, 29, 34, 41, 47, 60, 61, 62, 99, 104, 37, 57, 165, 169, 170 112, 113, 117, 118, 120, 121, colonialism, 13, 17, 21, 48, 49, 57, 132, 158, 163 60, 66, 70, 75, 77, 78, 79, 81, Demabrow, Michael, 113 82, 83, 87, 95, 101, 109, 113, de Man, Paul, 180 114, 124, 129, 133, 165, 170 Deroo, Eric, 1, 21 colonization, 1–7, 13– 15, 20, 47, Dia, Mamadou, 62, 92 64, 69, 70, 73, 75, 76, 77, Diallo, Oumou Kaltome, 7 81– 82, 117, 120, 121, 137, diaspora (African), 111, 113–15 151– 53, 160– 61, 166 Diop, Boubacar Boris “benefits” of, 2, 69 biography, 63–64 colonized, 4, 28, 35, 68, 75, 88, 153 Temps de Tamango, Le, 64– 65, colonizer, 2, 4, 28, 35, 68, 69– 76, 70, 111, 152 88, 91, 93, 99, 117, 129, 134, Thiaroye terre rouge, 7, 8, 59, 62, 152, 153, 155, 157, 161, 162– 64– 79 64, 173 Diouf, Abdou, 62 communism, 60, 62, 64, 65, 109, discrimination, 15, 17, 18, 27, 41, 119, 129, 131, 133– 35, 157 76, 83, 93, 102, 114, 143 Community (French), 60– 62, 93 Disiz La Peste, 6, 8 conscription, 17, 69, 112, 159 Conseil de l’entente, 61 “Divide and Conquer,” 61, 68, 84 Council of Accord. See Conseil de Dixon, Melvil, 176 l’entente Doe, Samuel, 115 Cournarie, Pierre, 19 Doumbi- Fakoly Craps, Stef, 172 biography, 81–82 Crémieux Decree. See Décret Colonisation, l’autre crime contre Crémieux l’humanité, La, 81– 82 crime against humanity, 2, 81 Morts pour la France, 7, 8, 60, cross-breeding. See métissage 82–95 Crow, Jim, 114, 186 “Nicolas Sarkozy est revenu nous “crystallization,” 17– 18, 93, insulter sur nos terres,” 31, 139– 40 47, 82, 95 Curtin, Philip, 14 Downing, John, 113, 124 Dreyfus, Alfred, 131 Dagnan, Marcel, 24, 118 Dreyfus, Jean-Paul. See Le Chanois, Dakar, 1, 2, 3, 6, 14, 15, 24, 45, Jean- Paul 48, 54, 63, 82, 83, 85, 98, 99, Duga dance, 53, 55, 89, 90, 95 104, 116, 118, 122, 127, 132, Duneton, Claude, 116 145, 152, 158 Duval, Eugène-Jean, 177 Damas, Léon-Gontran, 32, 35 Dyob, Taga de Mbaye, 35

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Index 207

Éboué, Félix, 19, 34 Gallipoli, 125 Echenberg, Myron Gammage, Bill, 125 Colonial Conscripts, 18, 19, 22 Garvey, Marcus, 114– 15 “Tragedy at Thiaroye,” 17, 20, Genette, Gérard, 110, 140 21, 23– 28, 101–3, 123, 155, Ghali, Noureddine, 113 156 Goebbels, Paul Joseph, 128 Eco, Umberto, 110 Goldfarb, Brian, 97, 124, 153 Effok, 100, 111–13, 120, 158, 169 Gorée, 15, 83 Eisenstein, Sergei Great War, 125 Battleship Potemkin, 105, 107, Greven, Alfred, 127 108 Griffiths, Gareth, 173 empire griot, 52, 76, 143 African, 53, 89, 160–61 Guèye, Lamine, 25, 27, 33, 95 French colonial, 4, 17, 18–19, Guèye, Massamba, 7 21, 35, 39, 40, 56, 57, 60, Guèye, M’baye, 14, 20 61, 83, 84, 87, 88, 89, 91, Guèye, Sérigne M’baye. See Disiz 95, 102, 104, 118, 119, La Peste 123, 125, 154, 156, 163, Gugler, Josef, 103, 107 170, 173 “En passant par la Lorraine,” 116– Halbwachs, Maurice, 7, 177 17, 135 Harrow, Kenneth, 101–7, 115 Heams, Thomas, 2 Faidherbe, Louis, 13, 16, 83 history versus fiction, 101–7, 172– 73 Fanon, Franz, 49, 50 Hô Chi Minh, 87 Fargettas, Julien, 21, 22 Hollande, François, 3, 171 fatherland, 117 Houphouët- Boigny, Félix, 61 Faye, Cheikh Faty Hugues, Langston, 114, 115 Aube de sang, 1, 7, 8, 150– 67 biography, 151– 52 Iliffe, John, 14, 15 Folman, Ari, 142 independence (African), 1, 4, 17, Forces françaises libres, 19, 22, 23, 20, 32, 47, 48, 55, 56, 60– 62, 90, 121 64, 65, 79, 82, 83, 85, 87, 93, Forsdick, Charles, 11 95, 119, 120, 139, 151, 166, four communes. See quatre 169 communes Indigenousness Code. See Code de Free French Forces. See Forces l’indigénat françaises libres intertextuality, 10, 11, 98, 107, 109, “freezing of pensions.” See 110 crystallization Islam, 16, 51, 101, 142 Fresnay, Pierre, 129 Islamization, 113 front (European), 17, 51, 52, 54, 66, 71, 83, 84, 87, 89, 100, jazz, 111, 114 121, 144, 146, 154 Jouanny, Robert, 179 frontstalag, 19, 23, 102 Kaba, Lansine, 48–50, 53 Gadjigo, Samba, 103, 112, 113, Kamian, Bakary, 20 120 Kanya- Forstner, A. S., 13

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Keita, Fodeba Mouralis, Bernard, 16, 19, 23, 25, “Aube africaine,” 7, 8, 29, 49– 163 57, 66, 144 Mourre, Martin, 6, 8–10 biography, 47– 49 Murphy, David, 11, 17, 87, 104, Konaré, Alpha Oumar, 5 109, 112 Koningsberg, Ira, 187 Koran, 15, 38, 51 nationality, 18, 94 Nazism, 27, 28, 41, 68, 71, 73, 86, Lebaud, Geneviève, 40 87, 100, 105, 106, 114, 120, Le Chanois, Jean-Paul, 128 121, 122, 128, 129, 133, 154, Leclerc, Ginette, 128 156 Leclerc, Yves, 44 negritude, 32, 33, 35, 43, 44, 75, 114 Leip, Hans, 121 neocolonialism, 9, 60, 63, 77, 78, Leuwers, Daniel, 36 79, 82, 92, 95, 113, 152, 170 lieu de mémoire, 44, 171 neocolonization, 5, 121 “Lili Marlene,” 121– 23, 135 Ngandu Nkashama, Pius, 44 Little, Roger, 11 Ngovo, Bernard, 186 Lüsebrink, Hans Jürgen, 48– 49 Niang, Sada, 102 Nora, Pierre, 45, 137, 171 Mabon, Armelle, 11, 20, 22 N’Tchoréré, Charles, 84–85 “Le massacre des ex- prisonniers,” 25 Ojo, S. Ade, 32, 35 “Les prisonniers de guerre Onana, Charles, 5, 11, 21, 22, 25, ‘indigènes’ en métropole,” 26, 27, 41, 171 21– 23 “La rumeur des marks,” 23, 141 pan- Africanism, 55, 82, 84, 115, 134 “Thiaroye, un passé à Panigel, Arnaud, 128, 129, 130 reconstituer,” 22 paratext, 140–43 “La tragédie de Thiaroye,” 24, Parker, Charlie, 113–15 25, 107 Pétain, Philippe, 104, 113, 120 marabout, 51 pidgin, 86, 89, 99, 122, 140 marks (German), 23– 24, 141 Piolat, Jérémie, 4 Martin du Gard, Roger, 131 Ponty, William (École normale), 48 Mekashera, Hamioui, 18 Poye, Babacar, 7 Memmi, Albert, 4, 68, 81, 88 prisoner of war (POW), 144 Mémoires vives, 5, 142 prize, 97, 98, 113, 139 Mérimée, Prosper, 65 prototype, 37, 44, 92 métissage, 32, 57, 169 Mezu, Okechukwu, 32, 33, 34 quatre communes, 15, 16, 83 Michel, Marc, 34 “Que reste- t- il de nos amours?,” Michelman, Fredric, 64– 65 117– 21 minimalism, 143–49, 167 mission civilisatrice, 40, 133, 153 racism, 2, 27, 28, 68, 86, 91, 109, Mitterand, Henri, 188 122, 129, 133, 156 Molinié, Georges, 37, 38 referendum, 33, 47, 61, 93 Morlaix, 24, 152, 154, 158 Republic (French) motherland, 73, 102, 141 Fifth, 61

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Fourth, 60 “Tyaroye,” 32– 45 Third, 15, 40, 60, 116, 117 Shaka, Femi Okiremuete, 104 resistance Shillington, Kevin, 16 against colonization, 4, 14, 57, site of memory. See lieu de mémoire 69, 75, 90, 111, 113, 131, Soundiata, 53, 161 133, 160, 170 Spleth, Janice, 32, 34 in art, 98, 134– 36 Suret-Canale, Jean, 20 network, 19, 23, 33, 34, 84, 85, symbolism, 40, 45, 85, 100, 101, 88, 123, 129, 132 108– 9, 145, 159, 171. See also rhetoric, 130 Thiaroye, symbolic meanings of childhood, 143, 148–49, 170 rhetorical question, 38– 39, 41 Tamango, 64– 65, 78 Ricoeur, Paul Tavernier, Bertrand, 127– 29 Du texte à l’action, 172 Thiaroye “Histoire et mémoire,” 177 African perspective, 5–7, 27 Interpretation Theory, 172 cemetery, 25, 26, 166 Mémoire, l’histoire et l’oubli, La, demands (tirailleurs’), 24, 26, 137, 171 27, 70– 71, 108, 119, 153– Riffaterre, Michael, 110 55, 157 riflemen (Senegalese). See tirailleurs French perspective, 5, 26–27 sénégalais historical sources, 20– 22 Roche, Christian, 19, 35, 47, 61 massacre, 19–27, 66, 90, 166, 171 Romains, Jules, 131 mural, 7 Rufisque, 83 mutiny, 17, 22– 26, 66, 86, 90, Ruscio, Alain, 68 107, 133, 153– 54 rebellion, 21, 25, 35, 37, 55, 63– Saint- John Perse, 38 80, 86, 91, 147, 155 Saint- Louis, 15, 83 revolt, 24, 73, 87, 88, 91 Sanankoro, 66, 67– 69, 71–72, 76, symbolic meanings, 4–5, 27– 28 112, 169 tanks, 25, 101– 9 Sarkozy, Nicolas, 1– 3 treason, 28, 63–80, 88 (see also Satrapi, Marjane, 142 traitor) Seck, Mansour, 6 uprising, 4, 17, 26, 37, 44, 57, Sékou Touré, Ahmed, 47– 48 66, 70, 72, 74, 76– 78, 86, self-criticism, 75–79 152, 154– 55, 161 Sembene, Ousmane Thobie, Jacques, 20, 21, 25 biography, 97– 98 Tiffin, Helen, 173 Camp de Thiaroye, 7– 8, 59, tirailleurs sénégalais 97– 136 celebration, 1, 4, 5 Ceddo, 101, 113 demobilized, 23, 145, 156 Emitai, 102, 103, 111–13, 120 “Empire’s black watchdogs,” 4, Moolaadé, 98, 113 28, 34, 36 Senghor, Léopold Sédar tirailleurs sénégalais (continued ) biography, 30– 32 military corps, 1, 4, 13, 16– 18, Chants d’ombre, 32 83, 87, 89, 93, 104, 170 “Défense de l’Afrique noire,” 27 monument in tribute to the, 5, 6, Hosties noires, 32– 36 94, 171

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repatriated, 23, 54, 66, 87, 88, Vichy, 2, 3, 15, 19, 41, 104, 112, 99, 100, 101– 7, 116, 117, 116, 120, 128, 129, 132 122, 153, 156, 158, 162 Vietnam, 87, 91, 93, 140 stationed, 23, 39, 54, 73, 101, 105, 106, 116, 122 Wade, Abdoulaye, 5, 9, 166 Tolbert, William R., 115 Weil, Patrick, 177 traitor, 67, 70, 74, 76– 77 Weir, Peter, 111, 123– 27, 172 trauma, 42, 44, 56, 72, 126, 127, Williamson, David, 126 166, 171, 172 Wolof, 6, 64, 92, 97 Trénet, Charles, 117–19, 135 World War I, 16, 17, 34, 82, Troller, Klaus, 113 125, 143, 169. See also Great Truffaut, François, 117–20 War World War II, 13, 16, 17, 18–19, Union (French), 33, 60, 61 22, 34, 50, 51, 55, 82, 83, 85, universal civilization. See civilisation 87, 88, 94, 95, 120, 121, 125, de l’universel 132, 139, 143, 158, 169

Vaillant, Janet, 31, 33, 60, 171 Young, Eric, 126 Vaillant, Roger, 131 Vercors, 123, 132 Zola, Émile, 97, 131 Silence de la mer, Le, 131, 133, 146 verset, 37– 38, 41, 42, 57