In his book « Affaires africaines » ("African Affairs"), the French journalist and writer Pierre Péan wrote that Léon Mba, the first President of Gabon, was so Francophile that he pleaded for his country to become a French department, like Martinique or from Guadeloupe. Faced with the refusal of the French, he wanted the French flag to appear at least in one corner of the flag of Gabon. What the French had also refused. Never mind. Léon Mba ruled his country as if it were a French colony or department. He made no decision without consulting the French ambassador who was in fact the real ruler of the country, and all his ministers were somehow doubled by Frenchmen. Gabon, in the time of Léon Mba and Father Bongo, was the perfect illustration of what was called neo-colonization, or Françafrique in all its shocking ways.
It was a different time, shall we say. If we want. After our independence, many African countries chose to cooperate with France. Personally, I don't see a problem with it. A country that knows itself to be weak has always relied on a stronger one, even if in history the weak country had been defeated by the strong. The best illustration is Japan or Germany in their relations with the United States. These two countries had been defeated by the United States during the Second World War and, concerning Japan, the Americans had not hesitated to bombard it with nuclear weapons. Moreover, they had forced the Japanese to deny the divine character of their emperor. This does not prevent Germany and Japan from being the best allies of the United States and from hosting American military bases. No one will tax Japan and Germany with being colonies or vassals of the United States.
The accusation that is most often formulated against the African countries allied to France, which some qualify as neo-colonies or sub-prefectures of France, is to house French military bases, to use a currency controlled by France and to allow everything to be dictated by the former colonial power. As I said above, being allied, militarily and economically, to a country more powerful than either does not necessarily make you its vassal. But the reality is that many African countries, former French colonies, have not made much effort to appear independent, even on a symbolic level.
Our country is one of them. Do we really need to keep the names of all those former colony-time governors on our streets in the most upscale neighborhoods of our economic capital? What do the Angoulevant, Chardy, Van Vollen Hoven, Clozel, Gourgas, Binger, Treich-Laplaine, Latrille and others represent in the history of France? Just petty civil servants or colonial soldiers. In ours, many of them have committed heinous crimes against our populations, in the name of "civilization" or "pacification." What do we gain by honoring them through streets or monuments? Do we take particular pride in having been colonized by these people? I believe that we can continue to have the best relations with France without our streets bearing the names of former colonizers. At a time when in the United States, in Great Britain and even in certain departments of Overseas France, statues of former slaveholders are being brought down, streets and squares are being renamed, it seems totally incongruous that in Côte d'Ivoire, we keep the names of the former colonial officials who imposed forced labor, that is to say slavery, on our most prestigious streets. There are many other French people whose behavior towards us, before or after our independence, justifies much more that we pay homage to them.
In the same vein, why do we persist in keeping the name CFA in our currency, when we know that originally, that is to say from 1945 to 1958, CFA meant "French colonies in Africa »? From 1958 to 1960 it meant “French Community of Africa”, then today, “African Financial Community”. ". Why do you want to keep the acronym CFA at all costs when you know what it meant at the start? What would it cost to change the name of this currency while technically leaving it as it is? Nostalgia for colonial times? Young Africans today do not view these times in the same way as their parents and grandparents.
Today we complain of an anti-French feeling on which countries like Russia and others are surfing happily. Sometimes one has the feeling that France and its African allies are themselves giving their adversaries the yardsticks to get whipped.
By Venance Konan
*This article has been translated from French into English by Marcus Boni Teiga
