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This year in Saint-Denis, north of Paris, an official ceremony will be held in the presence of Annick Girardin, Minister of Overseas, on May 23, which celebrates the National Day in tribute to the victims of slavery . In this city of about 6,000 West Indian people, young Dionysians from this community claim the importance of the transmission of memory.
As often on Saturdays, the city of Saint-Denis in the Paris region is swarming with people. It is 14:00, in front of the town hall, they are a small group, nicely dressed. Their shouts of joy announce that it is wedding day. Some curious onlookers stopped to watch. In a colorful outfit, a bride steps forward smiling on the arm of her young husband. She is black, he is white. The two lovers kiss passionately under the applause of their respective families.
Today for them, no doubt. Their union reflects an undeniably chosen love. And yet, about twenty meters from these lovers, a memorial is erected with the memory of another history. The spherical structure, made of metal, is encrusted with medallions on which are inscribed the names of 213 slaves, a symbolic figure representing 213 years of slavery.
On the work, it is neither love nor freedom that arises, but the pain of a whole people. That of the victims of colonial slavery which, since the adoption of the Taubira law of 2001, inscribes the slave trade and slavery as a crime against humanity. In this law, two national dates are devoted to it: May 10, "National Day of Remembrance of the Trafficking in Slavery and their Abolitions" and May 23, "National Day in Honor of the Victims of Slavery ".
In Saint-Denis, the Sonjé association, which in Creole means "to remember", works to enhance the history of the Caribbean overseas and preserve the memory of the victims of slavery. Its actions also aim to promote active citizenship and the fight against all forms of discrimination: " the date of 23 May is a major recognition. An asset and a kind of repair in the symbolic sense , "says Juliette Seydi, president of the association. In this town of 6,000 people, of whom 2,500 were born in Guadeloupe, Martinique and Guyana, young people wonder about the history of their ancestors and the question of transmission.
"We are proud to be their descendants"
Sitting at the café terrace, 18-year-old Ulrich sips a soda. At his side, five of his West Indian friends who are mostly students. " The colonial slavery of France is engraved in our flesh, " he says. Roan, 18, adds, " Look at the color of our skin, look at our hair. It's part of our identity. We do not have to be ashamed. We are the descendants of the victims of slavery. So all these young people agree that it is essential to make known the history of their ancestors: " I asked my mother very early to tell me about my grandfather Martinique and its origins ", says Jade, 20 years old. Then he added: " Unfortunately, it was not in middle school or high school that I was able to satisfy myself with teaching about the history of slavery. Tanilia, 20, says the students in the West Indies are better informed: " I remember that in college the teachers told us about the first Indians, the Arawaks, who lived on our islands. They told us how the settlers chased them and how they deported African slaves. Here, in France, textbooks would fly over their history. Toni Mango, is the only teacher of Creole in France hexagonal: " When I question my students on the Labor Day or on 8-May 1945, they respond perfectly on these events. However, when it comes to slavery or dates of abolition, there is no real answer. "
See also: Slavery and the slave trade: what do young people think?
A culture of oblivion was created
"To see 5 centuries of history becoming completely obscure for all French children is worrying. The little French must know that they live in a state that is slavery and colonized and whose traces are still concrete and material today, "says Françoise Vergès, political scientist and" decolonial "activist, who ensures that here in France this transmission of memory has not been put forward at all: " What has been put forward are the stories of crushing and servitude. If you speak only of the history of torture, of the chains of our ancestors, it is as if you would speak of ancestrality that would have been only victim . But the researcher protests against the fact that the history of resistance is not sufficiently addressed. " Whether on the roads that led them to the coasts of Africa, on the boats, in the plantations, in the barracks, the captured and enslaved people have not ceased to resist, " he said. -she.
Read also: France: Emmanuel Macron wants to transmit the memory of slavery
The horrors of history generate generations of suffering
If genocide and deportation are as much a legacy of suffering, Roan would like to point out: " We do not want to enter into shabby comparisons that would measure the horror of slavery and the horror of the Holocaust. These are two monstrosities. Jewish families carry with us a legacy of suffering. "
If today these young people consider that France still has deep inequalities, they are not limited to only social inequalities. On the other hand, they assure that in the neighborhoods where they grew up, young people are not racist: " We in our cities, we grew so much together that it is not a subject. We have always been mixed, "says Roan. Here, in our neighborhoods, frankly you do not imagine a woman saying to her son: " Hep ! I forbid you to play with blacks or Arabs. It would not make sense. There is that we anyway. "