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New french law embraces colonial memory Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
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French law evokes bitter colonial memory in Africa
16 Dec 2005 09:26:24 GMT
Source: Reuters
By Daniel Flynn
THIAROYE, Senegal, Dec 16 (Reuters) - Rows of freshly painted white headstones at the army cemetery of Thiaroye remind Africans of a dark episode in France's rule, a memory at odds with a French law promoting a positive view of colonialism.
"To Our Dead" reads a simple engraving on a memorial facing the unnamed tombstones, marking the common grave of dozens of African soldiers who fought to liberate France in 1944 -- and were shot when they demanded severance pay on their return.
"They fought to free France, which was the motherland at that time, and this was how they were repaid," said Nael Thiefatim, an official from the town in Dakar's outskirts. "This is so we remember. We can forgive, but we cannot forget."
Senegal's President Abdoulaye Wade -- who inaugurated the tomb last year alongside five other African leaders -- said at the time the memorial would repair the injustice to African riflemen "whose story is absent from French schoolbooks."
Memories of colonialism in Africa often appear very different from the law passed by France's National Assembly in February which urged teachers to stress the "positive role of the French presence overseas, especially in North Africa".
The law was passed with little fanfare as part of a package to aid French citizens expelled from Algeria, but it became political dynamite when lawmakers refused to revoke it following riots in African suburbs of French cities in November.
In North Africa, where France's empire collapsed in Algeria's bloody war of independence in 1962, the law has stirred outrage, reviving memories of the slaughter of tens of thousands of Algerians by French forces.
"Algerians feel badly about this law. It is untrue. Colonialism was a system of domination of a whole people," the influential newspaper El Watan said in an editorial.
Reacting to the law, Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika blasted France's presence as an act of "de-civilisation". The scandal was widely credited with derailing a Franco-Algerian treaty due to be signed this year.
FEARS FOR FUTURE
Teachers in former French colonies expressed fears that if an official "positive" view of occupation were imposed in schools, children would never understand the suffering of Africans or learn the lessons of colonialism.
"It is up to us, African teachers, to ensure that books edited on this basis never circulate in our schools," said Moussa Soumana, a philosophy teacher in Niger.
"France has never asked forgiveness for the crimes committed under colonisation, either in Algeria or Niger," he said.
French President Jacques Chirac has decided France must acknowledge the damaging aspects of its rule, and appointed a commission to study parliament's role in "history and memory".
Many Africans accept that colonisation brought some benefits, from the construction of roads and railways to the introduction of coinage, more modern healthcare and education.
"Colonisation, whatever people may say, had positive aspects ... They brought Western civilisation to Africa which we added to our own," said Victorien N'Depo, who helps run Ivory Coast's national museum. "It meant Africans abandoned barbaric rituals such as human sacrifices."
Anti-French riots racked Ivory Coast's commercial capital Abidjan in November after France destroyed the country's air force in retaliation for a government bombing raid which killed nine of its peacekeepers in the rebel-held north.
"After colonisation, Britain got out but France still wields control over its colonies," N'Depo said.
Many Africans believe France's treatment of its former territories dwells on the past, as its influence in Africa wilts before the commercial might of the United States and China.
"France has to get rid of the old thinking that it has special links with its ex-colonies based on a kind of historic legitimacy," Moroccan university teacher Miloud Belkadi said.
(Additional reporting by Peter Murphy in Abidjan, Abdoulaye Massalatchi in Niamey, Lamine Ghanmi in Rabat and Hamid Ould Ahmed in Algiers)
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