Al Jazeera French African Connection Miniseries

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Al Jazeera, Francafrique, Francophone Africa, Gabon, historical fantasies, The French African connection

Although I lived in Francophone Africa for two years, my French is rather limited and covering African affairs through the prism of DC also reduces my ability to focus on Francophone countries.  So, as DC Africanist events are rather light for the moment, I thought I’d share this link (complete with a full first episode) to an interesting miniseries on ‘The French African Connection’ of which I caught Episode 1 on Al Jazeera yesterday.

http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/specialseries/2013/08/201387113131914906.html

The extreme focus on Gabon seems a bit strange (although unique) and the decolonization process is explained in roughly 10 seconds, but the archival footage is fascinating and the first episode is extremely hard-hitting, almost polemical, which brings forth a refreshing tone.

In light of recent French actions in Mali and the Ivory Coast, it seems to me that Francafrique has proven to be very resilient.  While watching the film I found myself indulging in two historical ‘what if’ questions (this is probably something particular to history majors).

1.  What if France had been the colonial power of a major sub-Saharan nation like Nigeria, the Congo, or South Africa?

2.  What if France had not colonized Algeria, or other North African countries?  Would all those French immigrants who settled there have gone to Senegal or Ivory Coast instead?

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CSIS Africa Notes Review #3: A New Guinea?

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Alpha Conde, governance in Guinea, Guinea, Guinea legislative elections, Guinea politics, L. Gray Cowan, Lansana Conte, mining in Guinea, Moussa Dadis Camara, Sekou Toure

This marks the 3^rd of the four review pieces of documents from the electronic CSIS Africa Notes Archive that I promised to publish this summer.  I have greatly enjoyed reading these pieces with the value of several decades of hindsight.  My first two reviews, on Zimbabwe and Liberia respectively, covered nations that I know well and have visited multiple times.

Conversely, Guinea is a nation that I know little about, but find very interesting.  Its first President, Sekou Toure, is a revered pan-Africanist figure (in certain circles), it was home to the American civil rights figure Stokely Carmichael for the last decades of his life, and although it has bumbled along from one authoritarian leader to the next, it has quite a wealth of mineral resources.

CSIS Africa Notes Review #2: Liberia – Return to Civilian Rule?

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African governance, Americo - Liberians, Bongo family Gabon, CSIS Africa Note, J. Gus Liebenow, Liberia 1985 election, Liberia civil war, Liberia PRC, Mauritania, military rule in Africa, Monrovia, Samuel Doe, Togo dictatorship

In my last review of a CSIS monthly Africa note (a fascinating historical trove of newsletters), I commended the author of a 1983 piece on Zimbabwe for presciently identifying many of the issues that continue to dominate Zimbabwe’s political landscape.  I cannot say that the author of a piece on Liberia’s prospects for a return to civilian rule in the same year exhibited as much foresight.

I have never been particularly fond of the author of the piece, J. Gus Liebenow.  His work, Liberia: The Evolution of Privilege, is a seminal academic text on Liberia.  However, I feel that his critical take on the Liberian ruling class, a group descended from black Americans, completely ignores the institutional racism that they faced for well over a century of independence (I expound on this here).

My distaste for

Weekend Africa in DC Anecdotes: The DC Connection in the Attempted Assassination (1955) of Liberia’s President Tubman

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1955 election Liberia, Howard University, S. David Coleman, True Whig Party, Tuan Wreh, William David Coleman, William Tubman

In my Africa in DC Guide I list the Library of Congress as having the area’s most impressive Africana resources and I often go there to further my knowledge of recent African history.  I usually peruse the Library’s collection of African newspapers, but today I went for the books.

I stumbled across “Love of Liberty: The rule of President William V. S. Tubman in Liberia, 1944-1971” by Tuan Wreh.  This book, published in 1976, offers an extremely transparent and informative critique of the more authoritative aspects of Tubman’s administration.

I found one passage in this book of particular interest.