In a study-try that refuses the “ colonization Assuminating misdeeds and benefits, the historian Marc Michel underlines the fundamental ambiguity which characterized the relationship between Europeans and Africans, shared between war and palaver. As for the colonial administration, it was to obtain natives a certain degree of consent.
It is first by his title that the last work by the historian Marc Michel, a great connoisseur of sub-Saharan Africa and more particularly of the “ Call to Africa In 1914-1918, caught attention. Essay on positive colonization : everyone will have recognized the allusion to the law of February 23, 2005 prescribing that “ School programs recognize in particular the positive role of the French overseas presence, especially in North Africa ». But we would be mistaken in thinking that Marc Michel decided to take such a simplistic path. First of all, it is from sub -Saharan Africa that it will be, not North Africa, and if French colonization is actually very present in the work, the other imperial powers are also. In addition, the subject of the book is better indicated by its subtitle than by its title: “ Clashes and accommodation in black Africa ». We then understand that it is the ambiguity of the colonial relationship, as it was established between the beginning of XIXe century and the peak of colonial domination in the early 1930s, which constituted the axis of the work.
To tell the truth, this work is much more than an essay. However, he takes the test when Marc Michel chooses not to hide his annoyance in front of what he calls “ nonsense Contemporary: thus from the Dakar speech of 2007, in which the President of the Republic thought it good to assert that “ Africa (was not a historic continent »» ; Thus assimilation, denounced at several times in the book, between colonization and extermination, or the idea of a “ colonial totalitarianism »Suggest by the Black Book of Colonialism. In fact, the historian absolutely refuses to “ colonization Pretending to judge it by means of simplistic accounts between the harmful to the benefits. It is “ The fundamental ambiguity of this relationship (between Europeans and Africans), which has never been reduced to that of occupants/occupied, that we would like to make », Writes Marc Michel. And let’s say it without detour: the book succeeds brilliantly.
This highlighting of ambiguity, in all its complexity, implies any complacency. Especially with regard to the exercise of violence: “ Colonial installation is obviously a violent act “Recalls Marc Michel, who begins his remarks with the slave trade and his replacement with that of the products. The author also devotes a remarkable chapter to war, this “ the most common modality of relations between Africans and Europeans From the 1880s. Very opportunely, he recalled that at the start the victory of the Whites was by no means acquired and that it was slow, difficult, exhausting, often precarious. By some sides, he confirms what the anthropology of primitive war has brought to light (we think of the work of Lawrence Keelay, WAR Before CivilizationOxford University Press, 1996.), while nuancing several of his expectations: yes, Marc Michel tells us, the imbalance of forces was only felt late, and the doctrines of use of arms, logistical superiority, control of communications played a role at least as important as properly said technological superiority. However, the nuance author and the thesis of the inability of Africans to carry out the siege war and, even more, that of their inability to lead a battle, recalling that, out of three large clashes delivered on the African continent, the whites have lost two. A regret only here: if the author does not conceal the disproportion between the African, massive losses, and those of the Europeans, it would have been liked that he evoked the modalities of the war waged by the German colonizer against the Hereros, in its actually exterminating and also concentrationary dimension.
On the subtlety of the relations which have established themselves between the colonizer and the colonized, Marc Michel shows himself to his best: let us hold a chapter of a very fine sensitivity on “ Word as stake And the practice of palaver, including two examples of the year 1880 are carefully analyzed: that of Gallieni with Seydou Dieyla, the Minister of Sultan Ahmadou, in Niger ; That of Savorgnan de Brazza with the King of Batéké, in Congo. Marc Michel describes here superbly everything that is played out in ritual of this type, before the “ command palaver in colonial situations ». Very finely too, the historian describes the “ world collapse “Subjected by Africans under the push of the colonial order, without hiding anything from its brutality (the indigenat, the scourge of the portage or the villages” broken “During the major revolts against the recruitment of 1914-1918, like that of the West Volta in 1916, this” indelible stain »), But without reducing it to it: we will thus retain its precise analyzes from the practices of the colonizer (very beautiful pages, in particular, on the administrator of the administrator and on the” country’s fashionable weddings »).
“” We are far from the simplistic vision of a brutal and arbitrary administration “Writes the author (p. 279), before clarifying:” We cannot therefore summarize the relations between citizens and administrators to a balance of forces without nuances and without intermediaries. The colonizer needed a certain consent and had to maintain with the citizens of relations that no official of authority would have maintained in mainland France (P. 286). In short, if a term seems to him to summarize what is really played out as soon as we get out of a purely “vision” prison “Of the colonial order, it is that of” accommodation ».
The specialist in Africa during the Great War devoted to the event and its impact of particularly convincing pages. This is also the case of those devoted to the exit of war, of which he shows, again, all the complexity: on the one hand, the colonized emerge from the conflict even more controlled than before, the period of war having marked, with the final revolts, the term “ primary resistors ” And “ the real advent of the colonial state ». On the other, there is new looks in Europe, inducing a real reversal in the humanities. We go from the “ colonial arrogance ” At “ doubt And, as such, the impression of triumph released by the 1931 exhibition is misleading. The book stops at this inflection point. This makes a second test of the author hoped over the following period.