Today is May 10, National Day of Remembrance of the Trafficking, Slavery and their Abolition. Also the anniversary of the Taubira law, which in 2001 recognized the transatlantic slave trade and slavery as crimes against humanity. The opportunity for 20 Minutes to meet with historian Pascal Blanchard, a specialist in colonization, who notably edited the work La France noire .
What are you thinking of on May 10? Something special you would like to remember?
What I find interesting in this period is that 20 years after the Taubira law we are still debating the place of this May 10 in our national memory. These are rejects that are very revealing of something hiding. We do not accept the memory of the other, because we do not accept the other. It is more than two centuries of history that built Europe, and we say it is incredible to note that 150 years after the abolitions we are still to explain why it is important to teach this whole history to our children. It is as if we had to explain why talking about the French Revolution is important. The question should not be posed in these terms, because it is first of all a debate of knowledge. The history of slavery is an integral part of the history of France, it is one of the constituent elements of the past. It is not more important than others, but it is more difficult than others to exist in the present.
And at the same time there is an evolution. Because before the 2000s these questions were completely invisible and they were reduced to those that we considered as the only and unique depositaries of this past, that is to say the descendants of slaves. As if we had to say that it is only the military who must remember the war, that the revolutionaries who must celebrate the French Revolution, etc. It is as if we are attacking the memory of May 8 by saying that those who want to talk about it are only militarists.
Do you think that the idea that May 10 should be celebrated is not yet in the majority?
There are still reservations. Some think that stirring this past is only stirring the knife in the wound, others say "why should we scourge?" " But I do not flog myself, I consider that we should deal with this story. It is a real fundamental work to manage to center our gaze. One day someone told me that women had no role during the 1914-18 war. When it is the first time that they are going to become trade unionists, that they enter factories, that they discover political life ... If you don't tell this story, you are only telling a half-war. It's the same thing when you don't tell the story of slavery, you don't understand the power of the kings of France or the economy in the 17th and 18th centuries.
What can the history of slavery teach us in terms of resilience in this period of health crisis?
What we learn from the history of slavery is that the history of our neighbor is also ours. During this period, some suffer the full brunt of the disease, and we see the difficulty there is in explaining that we must be collective and united. Last week I tried to move mountains to explain that in working-class neighborhoods the situation is very special both in relation to the economic crisis and the Covid crisis. Because living conditions in neighborhoods favor the spread of the virus, and also because the economic crisis is hitting hard those who in families of seven or eight people have one or two people who brought down the wages and are the first affected . Well memory solidarity corresponds exactly to solidarity in a health crisis as we live it: it is by sharing a common memory that we will manage to make resilience, to overcome the individual sufferings of some who are stronger than in d 'other. When a community manages to build a common whole it manages to overcome crises.
Does the health crisis reinforce racism?
Health crises yes. At the time of the black plague, in the middle of the 14th century, the Jews were identified as responsible for this pandemic. And whenever there have been major pandemics, scapegoats have been designated. We found this with cholera, and in other pandemics or economic crises like that of 1929. France was affected in 1931 and we will designate foreigners as being responsible: colonial workers (there are then more than 150,000 Maghrebis in France, and more than 40,000 Afro-West Indians) Italians, Belgians, Poles ... Very soon laws will be passed to expel them. As there has been a strong rejection of Africans recently in China. It is an almost conditioned reflex: we bring out all the old stereotypes and begin to designate this or that population. And this can happen in France if you are not careful because the Covid rate is higher in lower-income neighborhoods. This kind of mechanism goes very very quickly and is persistent. And there the media have their role. Passion by definition induces the scapegoat, and in times of crisis passion prevails over reason… We can clearly see it now: never had we had so much fake news …
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- Christiane Taubira
- Colonization
- Slavery
- Black
- Culture