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Presentation of the reissue by the publisher 0:00 A word from the publisher to begin. Yes, good evening everyone. Well, this is really a book that needs no introduction because it has long been a classic. I even had the privilege at 20, at a time when we were in a real reading fever, of discovering with great delight this book in its second edition. I'm not talking about a reprint, I'm talking about an edition already.
0:44 That was in 1998, at Le Castor Astral, in a series called Pourfendeurs, directed by a certain François de Negroni. And the other book, because this series only had two titles, apart from Négritude et Négrologues, the other one was Néofascisme et idéologie du désir by a certain Michel Clouscard. And that shows how this book, it seems to me, has a certain complicity, beyond the contexts. So, but this book was first published in 1972, and so this is its third edition.
1:20 So let me specify under what conditions. It is published by Éditions Delga on the mainland and by Éditions Materia Scritta for Corsica. There you go, I say this better for our bookseller friends. There are small variants, so please try not to make mistakes. I'm addressing our bookseller friends in Corsica in particular. For that one specifically, go to the excellent Éditions Materia Scritta and also take a look at their catalogue, which is excellent. Besides, it was François de Negroni who also runs these Éditions Materia Scritta and who had published Stanislas Spero Adotevi, as I told you, in 1998.
2:03 So that's why—excuse me, the self is hateful—I'll quickly hand over and introduce our guests. But I wanted to say that I had great joy in publishing this text because I had kept, from reading it at 20, a vivid memory. Simply because Négritude et Négrologues, not knowing Africa and still not knowing it, I immediately saw its universal character and how it could serve us as a weapon for the struggles we were waging at the time. Unfortunately we weren't in a period of négritude, but people were talking a lot about Croat-ness, Serb-ness, etc.
2:39 It was the time when they were carving up a country, making people believe that this was the real issue, and you could no longer get them to talk about self-management or socialism. That was that great era, and indeed when I read this title Négritude et Négrologues, I immediately understood the stakes in relation to this ugliness that was setting in, linked to a certain Pax Americana. And the division it institutes almost everywhere. In fact I tried to explain to my French contemporaries that these divisions they thought were ethnic, suddenly exploding in Yugoslavia, could be stirred up overnight in our own country.
3:14 We had a little bit of CIA involvement and tomorrow, why not, we could be tearing each other apart between Bretons and Normans. Over Mont-Saint-Michel. Over Mont-Saint-Michel, well yes. Even if the Couesnon in its folly, as you know. There you go, it's entirely possible. So, quite simply, that's to clarify the stakes. But let's recall a little to set the framework. Négritude, it should be said, is not simply a pamphlet against Senghor. It was a book that completely marked an era. It's a book that almost changed an era, I'd say, in a certain African consciousness.
3:49 But indeed, if one bad thing had to remain from Senghor, because he also knew how to give him his due, but unfortunately, we all remember this rather fatal phrase. There, emotion is Negro, as reason is Hellenic. Hellenic, I say for the very young, I mean in the Greek sense. So indeed, as Mr. Adotevi puts it so well, it was about reestablishing a racial division of labor, in the sense of the international division of labor.
4:19 And what is worse is that it's a regression coming from the left, so to speak, from people coming from a progressive consciousness. When you think that even people like Lévy-Bruhl, from whom these theories are drawn, had himself gone back on this kind of theory—we'll talk about that soon—he had made a sort of epistemological break. And that's exactly what's terrible, because, precisely, what is also fascinating in Stanislas's book, is that this... how shall I put it...
4:50 it came from the left, this kind of... this re-ethnicization. In fact, there's... we didn't do it on purpose, but I think this book is also a response to a book that came out recently, last year, from a leftist publisher—in the pejorative sense Lenin gave that word—with a rather unrefined title, called Les Blancs, les Juifs et nous, where we returned to a form of ethnophilosophy, I'd say, in the most caricatural sense found in Adotevi's book. And I'll also mention another of his Beninese compatriots whom we will probably soon publish, Paulin Hountondji, who also wrote a great deal against this concept of ethnophilosophy.
5:26 Indeed, philosophy was perhaps born in Greece, so it's a mythical Greece, a Greece that everyone can return to, come to—a bit like Winckelmann's Greece, you know that the greatest Hellenist, probably, of the 18th century, never actually set foot in Greece, because if it's Greece as in philosophy, as the country of philosophy, we're all there, we're all Hellenes in a way. And unfortunately it's not this little country that is currently being clubbed by sadists at the European Union, but which is also waiting—it takes a Lord Byron, we'd need one today too—but from that point of view, we are all Hellenes and all Negroes, it seems to me.
5:59 And so it is with great emotion, and also reasonably, that I hand over the floor and introduce my guests, so Stanislas Spero Adotevi, Beninese philosopher, born in 1934, currently living in Ouagadougou, and Dominique Pagani, former philosophy teacher, musicologist, who knows Africa very very well, he directed a musicology center in Niamey. Well, I won't go on too long, I'll just briefly introduce the book, the context, and how—why—we keep reading it.
Adotevi's itinerary, from the ENS to the "La Voix des autres" collection 6:38 It was in the years '72—no, let's say, I became aware of the problem truly in the '60s, in 1959, quickly. Althusser had brought Balandier to the school, and there were already two comrades who had done work on Senghor, Alain Badiou, and another who had done work on African socialism.
7:27 So, during a seminar, we talked about it, and we wondered what African socialism meant. And it was the moment when, indeed, Senghor was developing his theory of African socialism. Well, so this led us all to read, and then, afterward, I was asked to give a presentation on it. We read about African socialism, and we realized it was a distant kind of socialism. Well, from there, I went back, I returned, and there I met—meanwhile, don't forget, the '60s, the years, the '50s then the '60s, that's still, let's not forget, there was the Vietnam War, there were demonstrations, then the Algerian War, all that.
8:22 It was a fairly... climate where things were moving. Moving without moving, because, in the end, well, the government was quite, quite firm, quite strict, and it gave no quarter, and we didn't have, well, let's say, we—I suppose, we, men of the left, let's say—we didn't have...
8:53 a discourse to confront it, otherwise, there were simply demonstrations in the streets, we got beaten up, and that was that. And, well, the will, already, it wasn't... at that time, a lot of things were written, also a discourse on the situation, then, quickly, there was Algerian independence in the '60s, the '60s, and...
9:30 as for me, I came back, it's me, I returned in '71, and there I got to meet Christian Bourgois and... Robert Jaulin, that was fine, there had been '68, among other things, no, there had been '68, and so, universities had been shaken up, the UERs, it was no longer...
10:06 they were UERs, weren't they, yes, and Robert was one of the heads of the anthropology UERs, and I was his... his assistant, and then, well, the normal cycle, etc. And we talked about things, so, Robert was very sensitive to all the current issues, that is, basically, the earth, nature, food, what you'd call, what was called, well, already, ecology.
10:43 And we talked about it, with the... some sensitive people, and many others, some of our elders, and then, we met our friend Bourgois, who at that time ran the Bourgois imprint, and also the small 10-18 series. 10-18, and all that belonged to a larger group...
11:16 10-18, so, 10-18, and... what? A big series. It's a big series. And we, we had made our own series, within the series, called La Voix des autres [The Voice of Others], that is, a series—it's Stanislas Spero Adotevi and Robert Jaulin—called La Voix des Autres, the Voice, V-O-I-X, or, V-O-I-E, to say something other than what people had said up to then about others.
11:52 I think the book was doing well, Christian, apparently, they were negotiating with Larsen, a Dane, who wanted to buy it. I think we resisted for a long time, a long time. And then, the book was sold to Larsen, and it's now over near Porte d'Italie.
From the ethnologist's discourse to négritude 12:23 So, the whole thing, I think, the whole thing. Well, I'm telling all this because you can see the climate, the climate in which we worked, and why this book came out. There were two things. We weren't talking about négritude, we weren't thinking in terms of négritude, we were thinking rather about ethnology, the discourse of ethnology. About what? What is the epistemology of ethnology?
12:54 Who is it interested in? Isn't it more the discourse—isn't it—of the ethnologist rather than a discourse about others? That was our debate. That was our debate. And, little by little, we arrived at what is now called négritude. What do you think about that? And I recalled memories from school and I told myself, after all, there are things to be done, things to be done.
13:24 I started writing this book and, I said, well, what is it? In fact, we realized that this war, this period, which was that of the Algerian War, was a period that had set French youth in motion.
13:54 There were demonstrations almost everywhere, there was, and the young people, the youth, was calling into question, wasn't it, the government's policy. And there were big demonstrations when Algeria gained its independence, some people came out with the Algerian flag, etc. So I situate this because it's important to see how it all happened. I told myself, after all, if there was a coming together, if we formed a whole made up of whites, blacks, etc., of yellows, all sorts, if we all found ourselves together, didn't we, for independence, then it's no longer simply a matter of talking about négritude as the mere fact of being black, but we must go much further and find out what independence actually represented.
14:52 Because it was the moment when, while the English-speaking countries were talking about independence, that is, a country, they called it, how to say, African personality. They spoke of African personality, and we, we spoke of négritude. And those who spoke of négritude were, in this case, Senghor, his circle, Senghor, friends of Pompidou, they used to meet together at Saint-Louis, in the preparatory classes, in the 'cagne,' and in those classes there were two black men, there was Senghor, there was also Césaire, two black men who found each other.
15:53 Well, so, Senghor, for him, négritude was a concept, a word, that can be dissected, that can be—but it wasn't his, it wasn't his pet obsession, for him it was simply an interesting concept, which might interest whites. He even spoke of it, apparently, from what I've learned, he spoke of it to Pompidou, who said, well, that could be interesting, it's interesting, in any case, it's a concept worth exploring.
16:32 And then, there was also Césaire, who saw négritude in a different way, that is, for him, the Martinican experienced négritude in a more painful way than the black African. Even if the black African was exploited, there was a whole class, to which Césaire—sorry, Senghor—belonged, who... let's say... didn't smoke tobacco, wasn't beaten, and didn't pay excessive taxes.
17:14 He was with the Jesuits and after that, he was sent to France. So in the end, he never really suffered from what is called being black. He was simply a man like any other. He came to France in the end. There you have it, if you will, the essence of the matter. But, when I met Césaire to discuss how it all began, Césaire told me, you see, Senghor, that's happy négritude.
Happy négritude and négritude of suffering 18:01 For us, négritude was a négritude of suffering. Because the békés, that is the whites, who owned everything, the estates and everything, who owned everything in Martinique, in the islands, held complete contempt for blacks. And so 'Negro,' for them, was an insult. So, this Negro, like you're calling us, etc., it was an insult.
18:34 And moreover, in Martinique, and in all the other islands, there's a classification of blacks. There's first the mixed-race person, then the quadroon, then the—whatever it's called—the octoroon, etc., etc. So there's a sort of, what do you call it, it's about the word, a sort of hierarchy. No, the hierarchy existed, but each of the blacks, intellectually, was conscious of the fact that being black was something negative.
19:19 It's absolute negativity. So, to stop, to escape one's own négritude, one had to do everything to improve the race. They called it whitening the race. Whitening the race. My wife is Martinican, I know all this quite well. I know it well, they whiten the race. So, first, the black man, the really black man, marries a white woman, or the black woman does everything to have a mixed-race child, that's the mulatto, and the mulatto marries the mulatto, the mulattoes marry the octoroons, etc., etc.—that's what's called improving the race.
20:03 That's it, so, it was an obsession among them. And so, that's how it was for us. Whereas with Senghor, it was something, it was a happy négritude. Still, the two of them were bound to meet one day, well, they were together for two months, in, that's right, in a 'cagne,' inevitably they meet, they chat, they discuss, well, they weren't going to speak only Latin and Greek, no, they were going to talk, we know, about their own problems.
Birth of the concept, Black Orpheus and African personality 20:34 They found themselves, it seems, one day, on the banks of the Seine, and they said to each other, well, basically, the question was, then, shouldn't we, basically, describe our négritude to white people. And I believe the concept must have pleased Senghor, who was a grammarian—but why not? Négritude, yes, négritude, we don't know. And that's how négritude was born. It was born around a concept, and it was a concept that was not at all a concept of struggle, but a cultural, intellectual concept.
21:12 Négritude, why? And négritude, that's why we didn't tell our own négritude. And to tell négritude, there is, for Senghor, it means making négritude known, it's expressing it, it's the spirit of it, it's developing it, speaking it, showing it, it's giving it, supporting it, through discourse. And that's why Senghor's négritude is a purely theoretical discourse, a discourse that doesn't speak of struggle, but a discourse that describes the truth, describes the situation of black people, but not in terms of struggle, simply in terms of poetry.
21:57 with Senghor, with Césaire, and the others, that is, Diop, and others. With them, on the contrary, négritude must not simply be the fact of being black, négritude must go much further, and if need be, first, to write everything that, everything that contains négritude. So, Cahier d'un retour au pays natal, a discourse on colonialism, etc., well Diop, isn't it, the white man struck my mother, the white man killed my father, etc., and it's turned back at me, and to ask, hey boy, bring me some water, a bottle, bring me water to wash my hands.
22:41 In short, a whole kind of telluric movement, which is meant to set the black man in motion, for, for his liberation. Sartre, of course, wrote a very, very good book on this, didn't he, Black Orpheus, where he showed precisely how the movement shifted from being simply a concept, and became afterward a discourse, and then announces something more than the mere fact of being black, already announces, doesn't it, revolution.
23:20 There you have it, I ask myself, how, it's born within me, the concept, how do I describe it, and, for me, the two négritudes, unlike, how shall I say, we have the level, that's, among the others, African personality, that is, they are completely different, because the négritude of French speakers is different from African personality, because African personality demands that one go, not that one focus on the racial fact, but prepare for independence, prepare independence—being black has no meaning at all if there is no independence.
24:11 So there, quickly laid out, is the concept. And I think what I would criticize in both of them, even if they are great poets, it's true, I criticize them for one thing, a kind of theoretical incompleteness, because in the end, going as far as they went, for people like Césaire, the natural outcome should have been independence. That was never stated in any of their texts. And as for Césaire, that's quite normal, because Césaire was within the system.
24:46 For him, the French system was not off track, it was the last, it was one of the best of that system. There's no question, is there, of contesting it, of calling it into question. It's not expressed that bluntly. Sincerely, Senghor was in love with the French language. Senghor is, you know, Senghor is Senegalese. In Senegal, there are two kinds of classes. There are those born in Thiès, those born in Dakar, in Rufisque, and in Senegal—those ones are automatically French.
25:22 But on the other hand, the peasants, all the others, are Negroes. There you go, that's how it is, isn't it. Wait, let me interrupt you, allow me to say, they are French by passport. French by passport. They are French, truly French. And in fact, they call themselves more French than... More original, in any case, they are more French than many French people, since Corsica only became French when you—there. No, consequently. Whereas they, they've been so for much longer, but that's how it is.
The Community, the loi-cadre and "gentle" independences 25:54 So the three of them were true Frenchmen. On the other hand, the others were only French. After nearly becoming English, that was a close call there. That was our problem. So, that's it, so for Senghor, it's... Well, that one will improve on Senghor, no doubt, in contesting a whole side of French policy. And when the opportunity arose to grant independence, because... Because if it continued, there was of course Algeria, there was...
26:27 Vietnam, Algeria. At the rate things were going, Black Africa could also revolt. So the best solution was to set up a system with people, you see, won over to our side, right? And starting in 1958 they began setting up a system where the governor was the president of the Republic of the country, along with a set of ministers who depended directly on the government.
27:05 But the colonial system didn't budge. Don't forget that Boussac, you know, made his fortune in Upper Volta, right? Boussac cotton, because Boussac textiles, that's... A good part of the cotton came from Upper Volta. So there was no question of touching the colonial system, only of setting up a system that suited everyone. And that was called the Community. The Community. But Senghor thought this Community was going to get going right away.
27:35 But he forgot that he had before him a rather intelligent man, called De Gaulle, who let him know that since you are a grammarian, don't forget that 'community' can also mean... It's a real speech. Yes, yes, but I'm telling you about community, but it could be something else tomorrow, etc. It could be independence, if you like. So he was convinced, you see, that De Gaulle would one day grant independence. Indeed, De Gaulle did grant it. Even though he was, you know, he was in favor of independence, De Gaulle only granted independence in the 1960s.
28:08 Starting in '60, a cascade of French-speaking African countries would become independent. And that, from Dakar, yes, from Dakar. It was also necessary to avoid, don't forget, I'm speaking mainly for those younger than us, because there was Algeria, but there was also Morocco, there was Tunisia, etc. A very turbulent period, when, for the French, the African question had to be settled quickly, the constitutional structure of the system.
28:41 That is to say, hence the idea of community. And community was called independence, and then the framework law, before independence, the Defferre framework law, which made the governor the president of the Republic, you see, of the country in which he lived, surrounded by African ministers. Senghor found that not very advanced, he called it 'Toys.' The Toys, which didn't please Senghor, which didn't please De Gaulle, with whom he strove for a long time, it took Pompidou to tell him the matter. And him, there was this center of independence.
29:28 So for him, in the end, négritude was the discourse thanks to which, because of which, independence was achieved without violence. Whereas African personality developed through violence. Countries like, how shall I put it, Zimbabwe, which was formerly Rhodesia, etc.
30:05 Kenya. Kenya, the whole Mau Mau period. Well, you see, those who are of a certain age have heard of the Mau Mau, right, during... It's a very turbulent period. Whereas the whole English-speaking side was politically engaged, the French-speaking side was a friendly country. They went into independence very nicely. There you go. That's it.
30:35 And later, Césaire reproached him for this, saying in the end he could have gone much further, because he had no more means than we did. Whereas we, in the islands, there you go. We didn't have the means, we didn't have the means to be independent. We had no other worries. We had no other choice than to be a French department. What exactly was colonization? We realized it recently, you see, through recent events.
Sékou Touré, the 1958 referendum, and De Gaulle's anger 31:05 That's a bit of the history. I don't know if I... Was I clear enough. In any case, if there are questions, I'm ready to answer them. Dominique and Grégory have prepared some, I believe. But afterward, of course, we'll hand the floor to the audience. Just on... maybe clarify one small point. So you distinguish these two négritudes. And you say Césaire ends up reproaching Senghor for not going far enough.
31:39 Is that what explains... It's me who reproaches both of them. Yes, I understand. But that Césaire, later in life, would also have reproached Senghor for not having done better to take advantage of this situation. Is it in that light that we should view Césaire's admiration for Sékou Touré? Ah, Césaire? No, Césaire had extraordinary admiration for Sékou Touré, because he was the only one in the colonial system to have said no to independence.
32:11 To the end, of course, Sékou Touré became what he became, of course. But for a very long time, because you know how it happened, that is to say... So there was a crazy story. Before the independence of African countries, there was... De Gaulle had the idea, you see, of a referendum. Quite extraordinary, there were referendums throughout the whole Community, that is, France plus the African countries and others. And I was discussing with a Communist official of that time, you know, of that time.
32:47 He said, but after all, if in the end, since after all they're more numerous than us, if they said yes, that we would end up, thanks to the votes of the Negroes, you see, that we would become, that we would be under De Gaulle, that Gaullism would arrive. I found that rather amusing, because in the end there really was a fear. And Senghor was clever enough, after all, De Gaulle was clever enough to consult each of the African countries, because they got the impression they were being treated as normal citizens.
33:24 And almost all the African countries said yes to the Constitution. They said no. Except Guinea, which said no. No, it's the opposite, the question was the opposite. The question was, do you want to remain French? You had to answer... That's right, yes. There you go. We're saying the same thing. But that, she says... So, it was necessary... So there was... They didn't say, they didn't vote for independence. No, they didn't vote, no. Do you want to remain French? Fine. And so they said yes. Except, except Guinea.
33:58 But as for Guinea, there was a very great misunderstanding. Because the governor, normally, Sékou Touré prepared his speech, handed it over... Ah, sorry. He handed his speech to the governor, who didn't have time to read it. So Sékou Touré normally thought his speech was a normal one. Except it was a strong speech, that he could allow himself to read.
34:30 So he goes to welcome De Gaulle at the airport, and for such occasions the population turns out everywhere, well maybe not in France. But everyone was in Europe... everyone was shouting, 'Syli, the great chief, Syli means elephant.' So De Gaulle was the elephant, and De Gaulle was very happy. De Gaulle's entry into Conakry was an extraordinary occasion, wasn't it? And so it's Braque, it's Braque.
35:00 And... you didn't know De Gaulle with the newsreels, but anyway, De Gaulle, we knew him, well... And so he arrives... he settles in... Everything was really very convivial at first. And then, well, he gives a speech, he does... No, first it's that Touré reads his speech. And as it goes on, De Gaulle turns, well, red, because he hadn't understood that...
35:32 The speech, first, hadn't been read, hadn't been read by his governor. And thirdly, well, it was read, but it amounted to a revolt. And De Gaulle became... but really, but... And he became completely... He flew into a rage. They had invited him to dinner with the country's dignitaries. He refused to dine. He took the plane the next day, left for Dakar, where Senghor had vanished.
36:06 Gone to Dakar, the Senegalese said yes. He went home. And the next day, there, so, he said Dakar, he tells them... Senghor's speech, De Gaulle's speech was this: if you want independence, take it, but draw all the consequences from it. And I believe, the next day, there was sabotage. Everything fell apart, they... They destroyed the rails and all that. Within a week, everything was gone. I'm a witness, the archives, the rails, the infrastructure, the fires there were.
36:37 Everything was broken. Conakry burned. In less than a week. There you go. So there you have it, what awaited. What could... Even though the idea, you see, of being independent. There you go. And that's what allowed, in fact, in the end. And then there's De Gaulle in power. It's an extraordinary majority we knew. So, let me continue. Excuse me, just on this point. Sékou Touré. A few years later, Senghor has the Festival of Negro Arts organized in Dakar.
World Festival of Black Arts and Guinea's economic ruin 37:08 Senghor, Senghor. And it seems to me that Sékou Touré, at the same time, on the front page of the Guinean national daily, writes a scathing article called 'The Festival of Dirty Negroes.' Yes. Was there, to your knowledge, a real... was there a constant conflict between Senghor and... But, daily. That's true, yes. It was organized, but there wasn't a day when they weren't insulting each other. So, consequently, he wrote that, that struck me...
37:40 He indeed wrote that. But actually, it wasn't quite... He was wrong to write that. It was something else. It was a festival that indeed allowed Black people to come together around principles, around their culture, etc. And it was a great success. The dispute wasn't over the concept of négritude. It wasn't over the concept of négritude. No, he just said no, simply, that it's no surprise that it's Senghor who organizes this, because, indeed, there you go.
38:11 A small appendix to your answer to Grégory's question, on the Guinean case, since we're still on it. You rightly spoke of the personalities, Sékou Touré and Senghor. Beyond that, I mean, on the economic level, we've begun to touch on it, you rightly touched on the problem of the systematic destruction carried out by the French authorities within a few days. I mean. Now, one should know, I'll focus a bit on this side note, on the fact that Guinea was by far the richest country in West Africa.
38:47 At that time, nobody spoke of Côte d'Ivoire in terms of prosperity, in the years we're discussing. It was the richest country. There you go, exactly. In particular, the great banana plantations. It was a scandal. I'm not even talking about the geology, since, as Sékou Touré would say in a famous phrase, Guinea is a geological scandal. It's a bit like Zaire, well, Zaire, the Congo, as we'd say today, of West Africa. And already with lots of trained personnel. Of course. Like Benin. It's still the world's leading producer of bauxite. It's stuffed with diamonds, well with manganese. There you go.
39:17 So extremely rich agriculturally at the time. Extremely rich in mineral resources. And, now, most of the large agricultural estates, this is the point I want to stress especially, were held by Frenchmen, landowners. As soon as the De Gaulle-Sékou Touré break happened, they emigrated to neighboring Côte d'Ivoire. And that's what made the fortune, that made the coffee, the cocoa and the banana industry of Côte d'Ivoire. It should be known. There was a tradition.
39:48 But things sped up at that point. That is to say, what was Guinea's ruin was the launching of Côte d'Ivoire. There you go. Let me make a little sub-regional aside, if you'll allow me. I know Grégory is very sensitive to this, I don't want to overlook it. And Guillaume. There you go. Maybe you can move on to your own questions. I'll come back to the concept of négritude. I'm trying to...
From the Slavs to Lothrop Stoddard: the negro as concept 40:21 I realized to what extent it's a concept, in a philosophical sense this time, you see, and not in a poetic sense. I mean by that, since we're in a bookshop, 'to be someone's Negro' editorially means exactly that. Yes, to be someone's ghost writer, yes, to play the clown. First. Second, there's the Riva degli Schiavoni in Venice, if you go visit there, right? That's where the slaves disembarked, in whole floods, by boat, by ship, throughout the Middle Ages, coming from where? Always the same, Russia, Ukraine, but sub-humans, Slavs.
40:55 In Latin, 'slave' is servus, not slavus, it comes from Slav, the word for slave. That's interesting. Russian, even still today, reading our press, the Black man of whiteness, has all the flaws. Like Pushkin, no? There you go, exactly. But Pushkin was a doubtful case. The greatest Russian writer, right? Well, the most classic for the Russians. Another thing, Rimbaud, in 'A Season in Hell,' says, emperor, merchant, you are false negroes.
41:28 I am the only true negro here. I'm waiting for the whites to land, in 'A Season in Hell.' You can clearly see these are concepts. And I'll finish with the example I care about most. It's someone I absolutely want you to know. First, because he's not well known, and I owe my knowledge of him to an author from the Delga publishing house, whom I recommend, Domenico Losurdo. It's the unspeakable Lothrop Stoddard. You don't know Lothrop Stoddard, let me call him 'the other one.' He's the man who invented, this is getting serious, the concept of sub-humans. And yes, it wasn't a German who invented the concept of sub-humans, it wasn't the Nazi regime.
42:01 It's in the United States, in the Midwest, that the notion of the Under-Man would precede the notion of the Untermensch. And Rosenberg, Hitler's ideologue, would draw on Lothrop Stoddard's writings to create the Nazi notion, this time the Nazi construction, of the concept of sub-humans. Why am I talking about this? I won't get sidetracked. Because this man is a racist, really at the crudest level, it's a Wild West mentality, sort of pre-Ku Klux Klan. So he made a whole classification in Europe, there are elite races, that's the Scandinavians, there are the wogs, that's where I'm from, in Corsica, and Mediterraneans.
42:31 Between the two, he created for the Swiss the 'Alpine race,' he's obsessed with race issues. That's his problem. But just his classification, that's where I'm getting to, in négritude. The races, the worst for him, he never mentions Jews anywhere. Jews were never a threat in 1880 in the Midwest. You understand, that's where you start to see what racism really means. It wasn't present. On the other hand, the worst for him were Blacks. Indians. You know 'a good Indian is a dead Indian.' And then there were starting to be a bit the Yellows on the Pacific coast.
43:03 That's the three. And he adds, and this was the revelation for me, one must add, excuse me, I can't help repeating it a hundred times, one must add the white socialists who support them. In other words, this brute, unknowingly, drops the mask and admits that it's not a matter of color. Among the inferior races, there are the white socialists who support and struggle for emancipation, right? And what admirable struggles, right? I mention here, because the younger generations know little of him, but the first African-American, as we say now, who became a cultural star and made a name for himself, Paul Robeson, the singer, in the 1930s, who popularized the song, of that particular style, 'Ol' Man River' in a musical, who was an immense activist.
43:53 I'm talking about before Martin Luther King, well before the struggles of Little Rock and the 1950s, you see. And Paul Robeson, I mean, I speak of him because he wrote admirable texts where he says our struggle is the same as that of the exploited whites of Eastern and Western Europe, of Africa's Blacks and of Asians, etc. So, you see, there you go. That's what I admire, forgive me for veering off toward Stanislas, but for me, as for Aymeric, this book was a revelation.
44:26 Well, of course, I read it before Aymeric, because I'd love to be his age. But for me, there were two great firsts in my post-independence African life. There were two great firsts, I mean, because it was more or less the same script everywhere, as Stanislas has written very well. France managed to put reliable people at the head of the states. France here, the Belgians elsewhere. And so there was nothing new under the sun. To go quickly, there were 5,000 French people before independence in Côte d'Ivoire.
44:59 And then there were 50,000 French people, 15 years after independence. Independence wasn't such a bad deal for the French. On the other hand, there were two firsts. It's when I saw Sankara, well, when Sankara began to lead Burkina Faso, where Stanislas lives, as far as I know, I saw for the first time, that was a first, ministers driving around in Renault 5s. That was a first. I had always seen even mid-level directors driving Mercedes. It's a comprador caste, as they say, and suddenly there was something new.
45:31 And then Stanislas's book, sorry for the parallel with Sankara, but I mean, all of a sudden, I saw someone talking about négritude in terms of struggle, but not just a struggle for a color, but a struggle within the framework of universality, and in terms of class exploitation. There you go, allow me to pay this tribute in passing. That's why I made this long detour through Rimbaud and the unspeakable, the other one, Stoddard, you see, for whom, among the inferior races, there are the white socialists who support the emancipation of Blacks.
Memories of Sankara, Nkrumah, Che Guevara and Modibo Keïta 46:02 There you go. I can pick up, complete Dominique's question, it's a suggestion from François. So he strongly recommended we ask you to talk a bit about Sankara and Nkrumah. You knew both of them, I believe, your relationship with them. Well, so let's drop the book for now. Ah, you wrote this book? Ah, no, no, no, we're not dropping the book, but it's directly related. There you go, indeed, I have personal ties with, if you will, Nkrumah, Sankara, Che Guevara, not by chance.
46:41 And Che Guevara, because I'd forgotten him, the third book. Yes, exactly, because, due to the functions I had to hold at home. But as for Sankara, Sankara had indeed read the book when he was a student, and I believe he read it either in Madagascar or here, in any case. And indeed, for him, that was what needed to be said. It had to be said because the problem, the problem, wasn't a matter of race.
47:11 Sorry, Spéro. Yes. It had to be said that the problem was in Madagascar, when he was attending François's classes. The problem, he was attending François's classes. It's not a question of color, the question was a question of struggle, a question of... For him, it's a question of political action. There's also, it's about creating a new man, so getting rid of the old man. That was it, well... And this concept, moreover, is quite amusing because, at every council of ministers, when he was in power, he got rid of certain ministers or certain business leaders.
47:53 The word used, Mr. Pagani, was 'dégagé' ('cleared out'). The expression 'dégagé' was the expression he used, and we've had much use for it lately in France, in Tunisia these days. It's the Tunisians who need it every day. So there was this book that brought us together very early on. He often came to my house, he'd take books, he'd stay talking until 2 or 3 in the morning. And that was before independence.
48:24 Before he was minister. Before he was minister of information. And then afterwards, he became minister, president of the Republic. And then, we saw each other very often, we talked. There are points on which I didn't agree with him because he was in any case also, he was in any case, that's it, you got it for nothing. Young hotheads who wanted to go too fast. I remember one day, he... I stayed before, that is to say, the Thursday before his death, he called me on a Sunday.
49:00 I said it, the Sunday before, the Thursday of his death. He called me, he had me come to his place. We stayed together from 10 in the morning until 6 in the morning the next day. There, he told me his whole life, his problems, maybe I'll tell that story one day. And he asked me the question, well what do you think of the system? I simply told him, listen, if you want to stay in power for 3 days, my system is good.
49:30 But I've had enough, you know, of heroes who die. What I'm asking is that you be much calmer, that you free yourself, that you get rid of certain elements around you. And prepare a path so that you can at least stay alive for 2 or 3 years. Otherwise, this system is one that nobody accepts. It's a regime, it's an extremely conservative country. The traditional chiefs are very powerful. They're very tied to the French, you know, from colonization.
50:02 They are very, very tied to Houphouët-Boigny. All the conditions are there. And on top of that, you spend your time insulting Houphouët-Boigny every chance you get. So there are all the conditions for you to disappear. He left me a message and told me, listen, if... I told him, well, there's a conflict between you and your second-in-command. He told me, yes, but I'm not sure that's true.
50:35 Because if everyone... it's he who's leading the opposition, it's too late. He's a very organized man, etc. But he just tells him not to... At one point, around 4 in the morning, he told me, he says, simply, not to make the mistake of staging a coup. Because in any case, he too would one day be chased out by a coup.
51:12 There, that's true. So, I was indeed very close to him. But I wasn't without advice, so to speak. That is to say, when the occasion arose, well... They came to my place. He came to my place, he took away all my Machiavelli, he took away my Foucault, what's it called? The History of Madness, etc. Well, anyway. So we were very close, but I wasn't his...
51:46 I spoke to him when it was necessary to speak to him, but... It wasn't... that's it. So, that's it. He wasn't part of his cabinet. It wasn't his cabinet, that's it. Then, is there another story? No, it was just to come back to the mention of Sankara, of Nkrumah, another somewhat forgotten figure. So, Nkrumah... Che Guevara, I think people know him a little. Nkrumah, I knew him when they were... So, at one point, well, I was Minister of Cooperation, and Nkrumah had created...
52:18 He had a team of young revolutionaries who were there, of... Tabeau, Tabeau, Tabeau, Tabeau, who was the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the ANC. And there were also... many others... gathered around a journal called Spark. That means, in fact, the spark. And I got to meet him, on behalf of my government.
52:51 But that wasn't, let's say, a friendly, official meeting. But we chatted, we talked at the table, but at that time, I hadn't yet written the book. Now, as for Che Guevara, I was at that time Minister of Cooperation. And... well, we weren't... he arrived, he had been announced, but nobody welcomed him.
53:21 And then, well, his ambassador asked, well listen, what if we went to the Foreign Ministry, to see if there's at least someone to receive us. And well, I work very late. And he told me, well listen... So he came to see the Minister of Foreign Affairs. I welcomed him. And then I said, but what are you doing? Let's go eat together. We went to eat. We stayed there until 6 in the morning. That's it. And Modibo Keïta, where did you get to know him?
53:54 Modibo Keïta, well, I knew him when I was a student. When I was a student because we were against... how shall I put it... the yes to France. And so I went to Dakar, how shall I put it... to Bamako, on behalf of the FEANF, because I was in charge. When I was a student, I was in charge of the FEANF. And when the UGEMA, the Algerian party, was banned, we were the ones who were the representatives of...
The Marxist prehistory of independences 54:28 We were... we were responsible, the representatives of the Algerians. Allow me, following Aymeric's question about Modibo Keïta, to point out that we're in the process of setting up a series here. It's a lineage. These are different people. Modibo Keïta, Che Guevara, Osagyefo, that is Nkrumah, called the Redeemer — I say this in passing, I'm addressing, sorry, it's my teacher's habit, I'm addressing the younger generations, for whom this isn't always obvious, and whom people are careful not to teach about this.
55:07 It moves, you know, the habit. Absolutely, precisely, it has a demand... It's on the march! Yes! Come on, let's be clear. Everyone we've just named was very steeped in Marxist culture. I choose my words carefully. Some of them were outright Marxists, I'll say, some were communists, some were fellow travelers of Marxism — I'm thinking of a rather false project, simply, which drew inspiration from it while also having other inspirations, more rooted in the continent.
55:40 But it's important because this is a part that's completely hidden now. People now talk much more in identitarian terms, it's rather fashionable, etc. You have to see the hope that existed. It's the era when Ethiopia was congratulated in the early 60s by UNESCO as the country that had made the greatest literacy effort on the African continent. You have to see the hopes that arose at that time, I mean, which were so cruelly disappointed afterward, by neocolonization, where the World Bank and the IMF would take over in a much more professional way than the petty French, English, or Belgian reactionaries of the previous generation.
56:21 There. I mean, I still wanted to recall this Marxist prehistory of the era of Marxist-leaning independences, if you will. Regarding Modibo, who was a bit particular. What's called identitarianism, or the other identity movements, didn't exist at that time. I mean, in my day, that didn't exist. There was the Algerian war, that was all.
Class struggle, struggle for positions, race struggle 56:53 Well, we were for it, we were against it. Was it independence? Yes, it was independence. Was it possibly socialism? Was it a change of political regime? It was socialism, that's it. There. You wanted... Yes, the transition happens on its own. When, around '89, I entered university at Tolbiac, here at the Sorbonne, one of the sayings that was going around was that after the class struggle came the struggle for positions. Yes. You, who in '72 in a certain way resolved the identity question from a Marxist point of view, or by opposing it with Marxism — in any case, today, all around me, all the echoes about your book say how vital, how important it is today, that we reread you, that we discuss all this again.
57:43 Which can be viewed in two ways: it's certainly very interesting for publishers because they could sell copies, it could also do you some good, but there's also a terrible admission of failure. That is, perhaps even that after the struggle for positions comes today a struggle of races. And I'd like to know... Precisely, for me, there can be no question of a struggle of races. That's what I say very clearly. The problem isn't about being Black or white.
58:14 In relation to the white man, we're Black, we're Black, we're Black. For me, in my mind, it was never a question of race. Precisely, it's because of that, it's against race. It's against this racial or racialist discourse that my book emerged, that's the explanation. No, consequently, it can...
58:46 A discourse of... First of all, anyway... In 50 years, in 50 years, will there still be race? I don't know. And allow me to quote you, that's why I'm interrupting you, but... Yes, go ahead. Yes, sorry. At one point, you say, it's not racism that creates slavery, it's slavery that created racism. I think that's very important to understand. A Marxist understands that naturally, but today, who understands that?
59:19 And since... let me remind you that... in France, that's also why this is something... it's a history that speaks to us. You don't necessarily need to know Africa to be touched by this book. When, for example, after the turn toward austerity, the so-called French socialists invented SOS Racisme, they increased exploitation while claiming to fight racism. It's not by fighting racism that we reduce slavery. It's slavery that creates racism. We have to take things at the root.
59:49 The root is man and social relations. There is no human essence, it's the ensemble of social relations. And there, perhaps that's the contextualization Stanislas is providing. I really liked all these historical reminders, going through Lothrop Stoddard, notably this dear Losurdo whom Dominique mentioned. And it's true that when we said, for example, these Russians who found themselves as the Blacks of whiteness, I also wanted to say that this too must be historicized. Because, for example, when you read Gobineau, you can read him in the Pléiade edition. He's published in the Pléiade! Can you imagine?
1:00:20 He must have been published before Marx. I don't know, but that would need checking. Should it be done for Russia too? Yes, that's true. Well, and Gobineau, for him, the Russians, the Slavs weren't among the inferior races at the time, unlike the Chamberlains and all those racists who were the forerunners of Hitler. For Hitler, it's simple. From what point did the Russians become an inferior race? After October '17. Ah, then, that's it, they had degenerated.
1:00:53 Which shows quite well that it's indeed social relations that create racism. I mean, that's... well, that's what we need... Yes, because there's an era when the reaction... No, because before '17, they weren't Black. There. There were the grand dukes who strolled around, hence the expression the grand dukes' tour and all that. I hope we'll soon be Black in France. Not only were they not Black, but people were counting on the Russians to purge Europe of the French Revolution together with Austria. Well, there was the great religious and imperial Russia that was going to change us.
What the book owes to the ENS and to Althusser 1:01:27 Since we're bringing up the connections of the book with the context, including the independences and the first African politicians who would claim it, so with Marxism — could you say a word about what your book at the time owes, or doesn't at all owe, to your time at the ENS and with Althusser back then? Well, let's say, at the school, there were, let's say at least, two.
1:02:03 There were the TALA, that is the FMS. There was a fairly strong communist party, then social radicals, radicals like Mendès France, like Balibar and others. But there were people who were good, neighbors, comrades who were there. But the communist party didn't run the school.
1:02:34 The communist party wasn't a party, it wasn't a powerful party. There were Marxists. There were Marxists. There were a lot of Marxists. That was somewhat their job, so to speak, to think things through. And then, well, things shifted. The SFIO had... It started really going too far, you know. It required... a lot of people were already leaving the SFIO. Too far to the right.
1:03:04 To the right. Yes, maybe I should specify, because... you know, the SFIO is the matrix of the PS afterward. It was the Algerian conflict that pushed them there. Cats don't beget dogs. There. So movements were created, the PSU, the PSA, etc. And a lot of Marxists, Marxist-leaning people, went over to the PSU. But it's clear that... it was also very much the Algerian war that gave rise to that movement. The Algerian war. But the discourse was indeed a Marxist discourse. The dominant discourse.
1:03:36 That is to say, well... Of course, we have people... not all the TALA were reactionary, not at all. There were... fascists, I didn't know any. I personally didn't know any. There were people who called revolutionaries crazy, foolish. Well, you're exaggerating, etc. But... there were also pleasure-seekers, well, who... there were a lot... there were...
1:04:11 Those who were compromised, even in collaboration, the real fascists, had hidden themselves in the murky mass of the unaffiliated, the grayness of the center... Well... there were... independents... there weren't... there were... people with no party... there were... there were, indeed... a communist party, there was a communist party. With the Balibars and so on, they were... a party... it was the... And is it the case that this context, including the presence of Althusser, played... any role, at any point, even if only by contradiction, I mean, in the writing of the book?
1:04:46 Uh... he wrote a bit of the book with me, the spirit of it, I don't really... I couldn't tell you, unfortunately... He was very pleased with the book, he was there, he found it very good... He wrote to me, I remember the phrase, he told me it was very good... There are passages where I don't agree with you... Now don't forget that at that time, he was already in conflict with the communist party, you know? And there are places where I don't agree with you... But given the state of things, what does it matter? Fine, I've kept the hatred, I even wanted you to admit it... I don't know...
1:05:16 Althusser played a very important role, that's certain, he was a great professor, he wasn't... he wasn't simply... he wasn't a technician, he was someone who spoke about men, who had a language... who... who... who... who expressed himself... Was there a charisma? No, it's not charisma... Charisma... He was sick all the time, but he didn't have time to... That's true...
1:05:46 He was sick all the time, no... that's not it... You know, treated by Lacan, in the story... For Lacan, there, the story... He was mostly on lithium and the like, you know... That's mainly it... That's what people don't know... There was... there was a discourse, you know... He wasn't neurotic, but... There was a discourse that went from... from one man to another, you know... it wasn't... it wasn't at all... from person to person... And there, truly... we loved him a lot... And besides, that's...
1:06:16 The corrections of those... the assignments... Well... we really ought to be able to publish that... It's extraordinary... When he... when he did the... the corrections... it was... it was another kind of teaching, really... than what he gave us in class... And I asked my comrades... to see if we couldn't publish... well, two or three... corrections of assignments... well, at least... a book of... two or three... corrections... Is there... So, what was the impact, if any? Simply, it was a good... The impact... In my case? He was a great thinker...
1:06:46 Intellectually, he was a Marxist... a... an intelligent... Marxist... I don't know... That's what we used to say, we... He's not a Marxist, you know, of the... what was it called again... Garaudy? Ah! Garaudy, that's another problem... That's true... Didn't you? Garaudy, you know... For a long time... tried to make contact with... but I believe there was a rift somewhere... There was a rift somewhere...
1:07:16 For some time... And so... Garaudy never... Basically, he was in conflict with the PC... And Garaudy never defended... Garaudy has... And especially Aragon... He was expelled from the PC in '70, Garaudy I think... Is that right? No? So... After that... They did meet several times... Thanks to Descentilles and so on...
1:07:51 So then... perhaps to get back to the book after this little digression... No, no... It's certain he had an influence... Not just... his general reach even went beyond his role as a caïman [tutor]. Yes, that's clear... He wasn't just... besides, he was secretary general... you know... of... I don't know... it's changed since, actually... because now... He was a professor of... Yes... He was at once... professor... secretary general of the school... and... caïman... for those preparing the agrégation...
1:08:21 So... he had... just that alone... he held positions that meant he went beyond... he had contact with everyone... not only the... the philosophers... but the mathematicians... and all that... because he had... he had his function... he was administrative... he had succeeded Hyppolite... I think... That's it... No... he had left... he was, still, sick... right... I think he succeeded... he didn't succeed Hyppolite...
1:08:51 It's... that this fellow... who succeeded Hyppolite... Ah... who wants... Yes... That's true... What is...
