«Pousser d'une telle raideur le grand cri nègre que les assises du monde en seront ébranlées»
“To utter such a great Negro cry that it will shake the very foundations of the world”
Aimé Césaire, Cahier d'un retour au pays natal (Return to my native land) (1939)

160 years. That’s how long it took after slavery was abolished in France before a black writer – Aimé Césaire – was given a state funeral, in the same way as Victor Hugo, Paul Valery or Colette. 40 years is how long it has taken since Martin Luther King was assassinated before a Black American, Barack Obama, has set his sights on the presidency of the United States.

 A long wait that has not been a passive one. The struggle has been never-ending, a constant and loud proclaiming of the values that make us human beings. Values of respect, rights, duties, universality and sharing, so that living together has a meaning, so that each and every one of us has a place.

But for all that, are we reassured by this struggle? In the world today, what is there left to overcome so that men might finally be equal? Everything is so politically correct.

And yet we are all still unequal faced with hunger and cold. Ethnic atrocities persist, and often proliferate, but the “politically correct” has taken over. And so when China quashes the Tibetan rebellion in bloodshed, giving rise to protests here and there, it is offended by such outcries, is outraged and undertakes a sickening worldwide propaganda campaign federating the Chinese people, diaspora included. Even succeeding in making France succumb, who then apologised for having allowed some wild activists “soil” the path of the Olympic flame…

As Aimé Césaire said so well in his ‘Discours sur le Colonialisme’ (Speech on Colonialism): “And so I ask: what else has bourgeois Europe done, other than undermine civilisations, destroy countries, ruin peoples and eradicate “the root of diversity”? No more barriers. No more boulevards. The hour of the Barbarian has arrived. The American hour. Violence, excess, waste, mercantilism, bluff, gregariousness, stupidity, vulgarity and disarray.”

This text is applicable to all colonialisms: those of the past, of the present, here, there and everywhere. Colonialisms that we must relentlessly fight against.

Marc Benaïche