The death of George Floyd has laid bare one of the most shameful in modern history : the slave trade and its myriad corollaries. Slavery, colonization, racism, the ghettos, the putsches, the deterioration of terms of trade, all of this adds up. And if apartheid has gone, if a Black was a tenant of the White House for two terms, some, on this earth, can be suppressed just for the color of their skin. The négrophobie preceded the sars coronavirus. It is also much more virulent and more widespread. In sum, a poorly regular that the support like a bad time or a noise. The hype made around the murder committed in Minneapolis, will change there something ? Nothing is less sure.
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African, sweep away in front of our door !
It remains that it raises novel questions in the minds of Africans and afro-descendants. Among other things, the following : can we talk about decolonization, while the figures who symbolize this sinister adventure have always respected on the street ? Isn't it necessary to open a new page in the History, erase Rhodes and Gallieni, Nachtigal, and Stanley streets and squares ?
Yes, certainly, the universal memory needs a little grooming to promote the living together that ad. But, before applying for the déboulonnage of such-and-such statue of Paris or of London, we, Africans, need to sweep before our own door. After all, the French have the right to honor Colbert ; the Germans, Peters ; the Belgians, Leopold II ; the Portuguese, Alfonso V, etc., This is their story, this is their glory ! They have the right to enjoy it.
But, are we obliged, 60 years after independence, to have a Faidherbe bridge in Saint-Louis, a rue Blanchot Dakar, avenue De-Lattre-de-Tassigny in Abidjan ? Isn't it anachronistic that the capital of the Congo is still called today Brazzaville ? Imagine-t-on a place Dien bien Phu to Paris ? An avenue of Waterloo to Bordeaux ? In London, it is said to Trafalgar Square, and not Napoleon Square !
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Yet, heroes, Africa does not lack
And if we glorified our own heroes instead of erecting stelae to those that we have been defeated ? Heroes, Africa does not lack, whether they are from the Middle Ages or of our time. But the heroes are fragile. They do stand, they do not cross the time that if the new generations their holding hands. Is it that our children have heard of Kaya Maghan, of Soundjata Keïta, Sony Ali Ber, of Koly Tenguéla, etc ? A few years ago, a newspaper dakar had had the good idea of asking high school students what was their hero senegalese favorite. Faidherbe was coming into the head, and El Hadj Omar in twelfth position !
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Put our valiant elders in our daily lives
Without memory, without psychological support, how our children will they be able to cope with the terrible challenges of their time ? However, it would be nice, however, it would be legitimate to take the air on the avenue of the queen Poku, dinner place Askia-Mohamed, to take a hotel room at the boulevard Chango before embarking to the international airport Chaka Zulu. I aspire to a Africa back to itself, where the public spaces will be haunted no more by those who we have dominated, but by those who are dead to us.
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