REPORTAGE
Bordeaux, an important city in the slave trade, faces its slave past. While activists make the gesture, sometimes criticized, to unbolt statues representing in particular Christopher Columbus or Winston Churchill, in particular in the United States and the United Kingdom, the town hall of Sleeping Beauty has made the choice of pedagogy. Five streets named after slave shipowners are now equipped with explanatory signs. A decision taken last December but which resonates particularly in the news, with the numerous anti-racist demonstrations organized since the death of George Floyd.
"Ensure that these traces can be used by the young generation"
In rue David-Gradis, the plaque now states that this notable Bordeaux man armed, in the 18th century, ten ships for the slave trade. From 1672 to 1837, 120,000 to 150,000 African slaves were deported to the Americas by shipowners from Bordeaux. Biographical notes thus recall the activities of the various historical figures having streets with their names in the city.
"I don't see at all why the streets are named after them, the street doesn't have to be called like this kind of people," said a passer-by. In the case of David Gradis, it was because he bought land that became the city's first Jewish cemetery. "It is for this reason and because his descendants were also Bordeaux notables that his name was given to this street", according to the town hall.
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Marik Fetouh, deputy mayor responsible for equality and the fight against discrimination, specifies that municipal action is "not there to censor. We are not there to rewrite history, we are here to to educate and make sure that the generations of today can realize that these heinous crimes were committed, including in our city. " "In Bordeaux we did not want to erase the traces of history, there is a strong consensus to do memory pedagogy and to ensure that these traces can serve the young generation and the society of tomorrow", he continues.
The continuation of a ten-year memory effort
These five plaques, provided with a QR code allowing you to go and see even more detailed historical explanations, are part of an effort to remember that began ten years ago. This manifested itself in a "memorial journey" within the city, rooms dedicated to slavery at the Musée d'Aquitaine or the installation of a statue of Modeste Testas, a slave deported to Saint- Domingo. "The actions that the city of Bordeaux has implemented in recent years have been strong," admits Karfa Diallo, founder of the association Memories and Sharing which has been pushing local politicians for twenty years to face this shadow . However, he asked "that a symbol fall" and "that we rename a street" in Bordeaux and elsewhere.
The inhabitants are divided. "It allows the Bordeaux people to take ownership of their past. Precisely, it is a duty to remember to recall the history, but by situating it in its cultural context of the time", judges a passerby. While another considers that these streets should change names. "It's already not bad, it cultivates people but it's not enough. It should go further now."