Colonial baggage: Shaking off Frenchness
IN “The Last of the Empire”, Ousmane Sembene, through the depiction of the fictional state of Senegal, highlights how the post-colonial nation in Francophone Africa suffers the historical burden of France and of French values and institutions.
He insists that the post-independence nation, as an extension of the empire, has its power hinged to colonial apparatus. While this may afford it some power and goodwill from the colonial master at the start, it soon draws on itself the wrath of its people, owing to neo-colonial baggage.
The nation-state suffers a crisis of inheritance (Kheir, 2010), and from inheritance as well; caught up as it is between efforts to please the colonial master, and to give its people what they fought to get from the empire.
French domination of the continent had depended on assimilation, where the French hegemonic ideals were inculcated into the indigenous people, and came to represent the normative of black life.
These ideals pursued and entrenched a French way of life.
The assimilated African is made to believe that he does not only become a Frenchman, but he also changes his station in life. This rationale is also evident in Mongo Beti’s “Mission to Kala” (1957).
The western-educated African Frenchman alienates himself from his fellow citizens, whom he looks down upon, believing that he is above them, as is the case with Toundi in Ferdinand Oyono’s “Houseboy” (1956).
Assimilation foists French hegemony; a historical burden that still afflicts Francophone Africa, Senegal included, as current events in the region testify to. Through assimilation, France sought to create a black man, who would think of himself as French first and African second, a black Frenchman, educated in French ways.
As a consequence, he sees everything through the eyes of a Frenchman.
It is this historical load that plays havoc with Leon Mignane, the president of the fictional state of Senegal, reverently known as the Venerable One in “The Last of the Empire”, who is later ousted in a coup.
Critics, like Wole Soyinka, Chinua Achebe and Maryse Conde, have even cited, with reason maybe, Leopold Sedar Senghor, the first president of independent Senegal, his marriage to a white woman, and his soft stance on the empire reflected in his Negritude ideology, as evidence of the extent to which assimilation hurts the chances of the continent’s leaders to mirror an African ethos.
Senghor is of the view that Negritude is the sum of the cultural mores of the black world as expressed in the lives and institutions of blacks, and as armoury against colonialism. However, his glorification of Africa and compromise towards the same colonisers, whom he pretends to fight against, exposes him to critical brickbats.
In the novel, Mignane’s personal physician, Professor Fall, says to Doyen Cheikh Tidiane after the coup: “I never renounced my nationality. We were French before we were Senegalese. You too, I hope . . . Blacks are all crazy . . . Incapable of governing themselves.”
The Doyen also intimates: “I belong to two epochs. For over half of this century, I convinced myself that I was French.
“I have done everything necessary to be acknowledged as such. . . My Frenchness affects me here (He passed his hand over his shaven head). It’s choking me. I refused to opt for dual nationality. I didn’t believe in Independence.”
The negativity and lack of belief in the post-independence nation is both worrisome and disheartening, especially coming from intellectual elites that Africa lays its dreams on.
It is this struggle to locate the self in the collective that leads to contradictions, all stemming from the subtle colonial machinations of plunder, which are made possible by Western forms of education and governance.
These contradictions reflect on the post-colonial state of Senegal and weigh down on it, since belonging is steeped in class and material gain. The elite class finds itself aligning to the empire and alienating itself from the people, leading to despondency, frustration and civil strife, which are fodder for coups.
Colonialism led to dialectical forces separating blacks and whites, and blacks from blacks along material lines, hence creating complexes that affect independent Senegal.
Like most African states at independence, the country’s national army incorporated soldiers from the colonial army, who had gone on campaigns in defence of French interests, believing that they were Frenchmen. With the addition of new recruits, the army is divided along hegemonic lines. Also, interests are split along affinity, depending on one’s interpretation of nationalism, or citizenship.
Having a black Frenchman at the helm, therefore, spells disaster.
For instance, Chief of Staff, Brigadier-General Ousmane Mbaye, whose advisors are European, has a blemished history, which makes allegiance problematic.
The reader learns that: “He remembered past moments of pride and satisfaction. He had twice had the honour of taking part in the July 14th parade in Paris, marching from the Place de la Concorde to the Arc de Triomphe with his black troops.
“He recalled the great moments experienced during the years he had spent in the Colonial Army—all his youth. He had risen through the ranks, aided by his servile mentality . . . At the start of African independence, he suddenly experienced nationalistic feelings. He returned to his country to set up the first National Army.”
It is befuddling how a man with such conflicting feelings; who thinks highly of his experiences in the colonial army, and “suddenly” has “nationalistic feelings”, can be entrusted to set up a national army and subsequently lead it; or even be trusted in remodelling or nationalising it along acceptable ideological lines.
The likelihood is that he will attempt to curry favour with the empire, for his heart remains ensconced in past exploits for the colonisers, and distance himself from the rank and file of the military.
Fanon (1967) argues that the defence forces should be nationalised and not militarised, because nationalisation is what transforms the military to a people’s army.
The dialectical tensions are exacerbated by Leon Mignane’s belief that he is a Frenchman, yet he is the president of an independent African country. His government and its crucial institutions, like the army, are compromised. Mignane has an apartment and a house in France, yet he doesn’t own a house in his own country, which irks most of his countrymen. He also has French citizenship, which makes him a Frenchman at heart. One can imagine the image created here, and what it does for Africa; an African president, who is a national/citizen of France.
The Venerable One, who to Doyen Cheikh Tidiane, is “more European than any white man”, is said to belong to “a blood group that exists only in northern Europe”. Thus, he is European by blood, yet he is a black Senegalese and First Citizen of that country.
These opposing forces at the personal and national levels makes it difficult for an African sensibility to be fostered. The colonial master remains alive in Mignane, which compromises the nation-state. With the empire waiting to capitalise on any slipups, the post-colonial nation remains in danger of losing out and reverting back.
The antithesis that obtains within Mignane and General Mbaye, as individuals with a strong connection to the empire, and other individuals, who believe that they are not Frenchmen, like Captain Mane and Doyen Cheikh, confirms the Hegelian idea that synthesis is only temporary. Hence, dialectical tensions are not always class-bound.