Minister of Culture of Mali from 1997 to 2000 and long-time anti-globalization activist, Aminata Traoré has lost none of her fighting spirit at the age of 75. “To fixate on an anti-French feeling created and maintained by Russian propaganda is still, she thinks, a way of telling us that we are incapable of thinking for ourselves and of rebelling. »
For the essayist, author of Rape of the imagination (Fayard, 2002) and numerous essays on capitalist globalization and neocolonial excesses, the anger that is expressed today in Sahelian societies has its roots in the failures of development policies.
What was your first encounter with France?
Aminata Traore No doubt the first day at the Maginot school in Bamako, under colonization. It was an establishment for girls which had the particularity of welcoming natives and the children of settlers. Blacks and mixed-race women were on one side, whites on the other. We didn’t mix. It marks you, such a separation at that age. But I have cultivated friendships. And since I was a hard worker, once in high school, I skipped third grade with the help of some French, Malian and Senegalese teachers.
Later, I won a scholarship to come and study in France. With my husband, we went to Caen, where I had my two daughters. The racial question was obviously more significant in France than in Mali or Côte d’Ivoire. An African woman pregnant in Normandy at the end of the 1970s attracted attention… But I was discovering the country, I didn’t really ask myself any questions. At the time, the National Front did not yet exist. The situation became much more tense thereafter.
Anti-globalization activist, you are known to be a very critical voice of France’s policy in Africa. Where does this commitment come from?
First, I am a product of the left. When I entered high school for young girls, the first Republic of Mali had just been born. Like many young people, I was one of the “pioneers”under the regime of Modibo Keïta [président socialiste du pays de 1960 à 1968]. Our slogan was “pioneer today, pioneer always”. During history, we were told about liberation struggles and more specifically about the role played by Mali and the role of its president in the creation of the Organization of African Unity. This pan-African fiber, I have been imbued with it since childhood.
As a student, I was in Dakar during the great university strike of 1968, the first of its kind on the continent. It was my first contact with this kind of uprising. Then, I left to study in Abidjan, at the Institute of ethnosociology. I met Laurent Gbagbo and his wife there, who were studying at the Institute of Linguistics, and other left-wing teachers. We were all very critical of the cash economy and Africa’s dependence on export crops. Then I joined the Ministry for the Status of Women, created by Félix Houphouët-Boigny [président de la Côte d’Ivoire de 1960 à 1993]and I took my first steps in the field in Côte d’Ivoire and other African countries, as an expert for United Nations agencies.
For nearly two decades, in the 1960s and 1970s, our States truly believed that there was a development model, that technology transfers, funding and good cooperation with developed countries would allow us to see the end of the tunnel. Myself, I was convinced that school and employment would allow women to occupy a place in the development of their country, if such was their wish. The 1980s were a blow. With the structural adjustment programs, the first unemployed graduates began to appear, sitting all day long on the streets without finding a job. The first departures of illegal immigrants date back to this period. When I returned from France, I understood that there was something twisted in the dominant paradigm.
Demonstrations of distrust of France have multiplied in recent years, particularly in the Sahel. Do you feel a connection with these anti-French movements as they are expressed today?
I know, from my experience in Africa, France and elsewhere, that this anger is the painful and perhaps violent expression of a feeling of humiliation. The humiliation, after all that has happened to us, of seeing our tragedies and our deaths treated differently. The humiliation felt after Nicolas Sarkozy’s speech in Dakar. To fixate on an anti-French feeling created and maintained by Russian propaganda is another way of telling ourselves that we are incapable of thinking for ourselves and of revolting.
For years, we were given the impression that there is no alternative, that capitalist globalization was unavoidable. This state lie, maintained by both “donor” and “beneficiary” countries, has generated enormous frustration. Those who govern us have told us: “Go to the polls and the problem will be solved. » But from one election to another, we found that there was still no job, no visas, no money. Then the brainwashing consisted in repeating to us that there was only one way to fight against jihadism: the military instrument. But the promised liberation has turned into a stalemate.
The French soldiers of Operation Barkhane all left Mali this year. You who have always opposed this military intervention, how did you perceive this departure? Has Mali regained sovereignty, as the transitional authorities say?
Yes. Because France did not win this war. She’s gone and we haven’t won her yet either. But there is less humiliation. In Mali, a whole generation of soldiers has lived in their flesh what this war means. Young people were projected into the field, without independent thought or analysis of the situation. When the Malians said: “Let us try dialogue with Iyad and Koufa”France responded: ” There is no question ! ». And people were falling – and still falling – like flies. It is all this that led us to stand up to Macron’s diktat.
You were Minister of Culture and Tourism of Mali at the end of the 1990s, under the presidency of Alpha Oumar Konaré. Today, actions in favor of a reconciliation of memories have been initiated. In particular with the restitution of objects and works looted during colonization. Do you think this policy is going in the right direction?
The lines are moving, there are no longer taboo subjects, but the current upheavals are of such magnitude and such gravity that much more should be done. War ruins everything. In northern Mali, the looting continues, so much so that I find it hard to console myself when I learn that some looted objects have been returned to Benin. Above all, I think that these memorial questions must be linked to what constitutes the creativity and culture of a society. We must ask ourselves the question: what have we been and what are we still producing that makes sense on the social, economic, ecological level?
Summary of our series “From Dakar to Djibouti, radioscopy of the Africa-France relationship”