Bokassa

What Dominique Pagani says

Dominique Pagani mentions Bokassa when he talks about the regimes the West put in place in Africa after independence. In 2019, he takes the Central African Republic as another example of the same scenario: a dictator created by the West1. In 2023, speaking about Niger, he lists him among the military dictatorships that took the place of the independence leaders2. He discusses him mostly in the session on Dominique Memmi's Le voyage de la fanfare. There he goes over episodes from the book: the emperor sends his Caravelle to fetch the children and thinks of himself as a reincarnation of Napoleon3. He also reports that the author shows him as a contradictory figure: the son of a resistance fighter killed by the French, he nevertheless joins the French army and serves as far as Indochina4. During the discussion, a participant gives a different view: in his opinion, Bokassa was not seen as a dictator, did not practise tribalism and was overthrown by French legionnaires5. Dominique Pagani himself does not take up this view.

1. 1Argent, travail, liberté3 Aug 2019 · 17:35
2. 2SPÉCIAL NIGER : Faut-il "noircir les cadavres" ?7 Aug 2023 · 20:00
3. 3Le voyage de la fanfare - de Dominique Memmi6 Dec 2019 · 23:41
4. 4Le voyage de la fanfare - de Dominique Memmi6 Dec 2019 · 43:44
5. 5Le voyage de la fanfare - de Dominique Memmi6 Dec 2019 · 45:37

Summary produced automatically from 5 of the passages below, to be reviewed; the numbers link to the moment in the session.