Cultural Representations of Massacre

Transcription

1 Cultural Representations of Massacre

2 Also by Sabrina Parent Poétiques de l évènement: Claude Simon, Jean Rouaud, Eugène Savitzkaya, Jean Follain, Jacques Réda, 2011.

3 Cultural Representations of Massacre Reinterpretations of the Mutiny of Senegal Sabrina Parent

4 CULTURAL REPRESENTATIONS OF MASSACRE Copyright Sabrina Parent, Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition All rights reserved. First published in 2014 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN in the United States a division of St. Martin s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY Where this book is distributed in the UK, Europe and the rest of the world, this is by Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number , of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS. Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world. Palgrave and Macmillan are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries. ISBN ISBN (ebook) DOI / Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data Parent, Sabrina, author. Cultural representations of massacre : reinterpretations of the mutiny of Senegal / by Sabrina Parent. pages cm Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. African literature (French) 20th century History and criticism. 2. France. Armée. Tirailleurs sénégalais In literature. 3. France. Armée. Tirailleurs sénégalais In motion pictures. 4. Massacres in literature. 5. Massacres Senegal Thiaroye- sur- Mer In motion pictures. 6. Thiaroye- sur- Mer (Senegal) In literature. 7. Thiaroyesur- Mer (Senegal) In motion pictures. 8. Senegal Colonization In literature. 9. Senegal Colonization In motion pictures. 10. France Colonies Africa Administration. I. Title. PQ P dc A catalogue record of the book is available from the British Library. Design by Scribe Inc. First edition: July

5 To those whose voice still remains unheard

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7 Contents List of Illustrations Acknowledgments Introduction 1 1 Historical Background and Representations of Thiaroye 13 Part 1: Representations of Thiaroye in Colonial Times 29 2 Léopold Sédar Senghor s Thiaroye: The Prototype of Sacrifice 31 3 Fodeba Keita s Thiaroye: A Transitory Episode in the African Epic 47 Part 2: Representations of Thiaroye in the Postindependence Era 59 4 Boubacar Boris Diop s Thiaroye: Rebellion and Treason 63 5 Doumbi- Fakoly s Morts pour la France: Thiaroye as a Key Episode in Understanding (Neo)Colonialism 81 6 Camp de Thiaroye by Sembene Ousmane: Art and/as Resistance 97 Part 3: Representations of Thiaroye in a New Era Rachid Bouchareb s Minimalist Representation of Thiaroye Dismantling Thiaroye s Dichotomies in Cheikh Faty Faye s Play 151 ix xi

8 viii Contents Conclusion 169 Notes 175 Bibliography 191 Index 205

9 Illustrations Figure I.1 Monument in tribute to the tirailleurs sénégalais 6 Figure I.2 Mural titled Thiaroye 44, une histoire inoubliable 7 Figure 1.1 Thiaroye s cemetery 26 Figure 6.1 Tirailleurs sénégalais threatening their brothers in arms in Camp de Thiaroye by Sembene Ousmane 106 Figure 6.2 Tanks firing at mutineers in Camp de Thiaroye by Sembene Ousmane 108 Figure 6.3 Mutineers canons ready to fire in Battleship Potemkin by Sergei Eisenstein 108

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11 Acknowledgments The project began as a PhD dissertation in the Department of French and Italian at the University of Texas at Austin. My first thanks are therefore owed to my supervisors: Dina Sherzer and Hélène Tissières. I am deeply grateful to Professor Dina Sherzer for her insightful guidance as well as her encouragement, which helped me bring the research to completion. Dina always asked me for more and better, which I have always considered as proof of her confidence in me. She will remain a constant source of inspiration, both professionally and personally. I am grateful to friends and colleagues who read (parts of) the manuscript and provided me with relevant comments to clarify my ideas and the way to express them: Jean- Pierre Cauvin, David Crew, François Lagarde, Julie Monty, and Natalie Pangburn. I enjoyed sharing my research with the historian Armelle Mabon and the anthropologist Martin Mourre. My book benefited greatly from e- mails exchanged with them and time shared talking about our respective research on Thiaroye. Thank you to both of them for being such generous and solidary colleagues. I also want to address special thanks to Toyin Falola for his advice, which helped me find an appropriate publishing house for this research. Thanks are also due to Robyn Curtis and Erica Buchman at Palgrave Macmillan and Daniel King at Scribe Inc. for their editorial guidance, advice, and patience. My gratitude is also directed to the University of Texas French and Italian Department as well as the University of Texas Graduate School for having financially supported my graduate studies and the completion of the dissertation. Other institutions have given me various financial support to transform the dissertation into a book I thank them for it: the Wiener- Anspach Foundation, the FRS- FNRS (Belgian Fund for Scientific Research), and the Faculté de Philosophie et Lettres of the Université Libre de Bruxelles.

12 xii Acknowledgments Thanks also to the following friends who, although sometimes far away, warm me up with their friendship: Esmeralda, Maria, Élodie, and Catherine. Last but not least, my mostly deeply felt appreciation goes to Pascal for making my intellectual life stimulating and my personal life wonderful. Life with him and with the lovely son he gave me is an everyday adventure: how to thank him for so much love and fondness? Brussels, December 2013 Parts of Chapters 2, 4, and 8 were previously published as (Re- ) Writing the Massacre of Thiaroye, in Narrating War and Peace in Africa, ed. Toyin Falola and Hetty ter Haar (Rochester: University of Rochester Press, 2010), Parts of Chapters 3, 5, and 7 appeared as Thiaroye: une métaphore vive in Cahiers internationaux du symbolisme (2010): Finally, parts of Chapters 5 and 6 were also published as De l événement historique à sa transcription artistique: explorer l espace esthétique de l erreur dans Camp de Thiaroye de Sembene Ousmane et Morts pour la France de Doumbi- Fakoly, in Contemporary French and Francophone Studies: Sites 15.5 (2011): Many thanks to the editors and the publishing houses for granting permission to use the material for the book. Permission to insert pictures by Martin Mourre in the book was kindly granted, and I thank him for it. I am also grateful to Erica Gorzen, whose maiden name is Kowal, to have generously granted permission to use her picture of the mural Thiaroye 44, une histoire inoubliable ( Thiaroye 44, an Unforgettable Story ) in the book.