Doumbi-Fakoly’s Morts pour la France

Like Boubacar Boris Diop, two years his junior, Doumbi-Fakoly is an African intellectual. Doumbi-Fakoly was born in Mali and grew up in Senegal. Like other writers and artists considered in this study, he has been eager to promote pan-Africanism, as evidenced by his 1997 essay, Le Guide du panafricaniste (The Pan Africanist’s Guide). Trained in France as a banker, Doumbi-Fakoly chose to be heard as an essayist. His latest essay, published in 2006, La Colonisation, l’autre crime contre l’humanité— le cas de la France coloniale (Colonization, the Other Crime Against Humanity— The Case of Colonial France) advocates, as the title indicates, the recognition of the colonial conquest as a crime against humanity. In this essay, Doumbi-Fakoly first lists and characterizes the various crimes perpetrated by colonization (“crimes de la colonisation”; 59): “spiritual diversion” (“détournement spirituel”; 59), “linguistic terrorism” (“terrorisme linguistique”; 63), “mental abuse” (“détournement mental”; 65), “institutionalized rape” (“viol institutionnalisé”; 69), “attempts to divide Africans” (“tentative de division des Africains”; 70), “economic robbery” (“hold-up économique”; 72), “breakup of society” (“éclatement de la société”; 75), and “destruction of health and scientific facilities” (“destruction des structures sanitaires et scientifiques”; 76), to mention but a few.

Ancient history · Archaeology · Art · Colonialism · Colonisation · Colonization · CONQUEST · Crimes against humanity · Criminology · Ethnology · Humanities · Humanity · Political science · Sociology · War crime · African history and culture studies · African Studies and Ethnography · History · Law