Ségolène Royal’s speech in Dakar (translation in English)
| 20 Avril 2009
Thank you my dear friends for your hospitality. I know that in the Wolof language you say terenga. This is a beautiful word, which expresses a value that for a long time African civilisations have glorified.
In this room that bears its name, I am of course thinking of Leopold Sedar Senghor’s work, about what he wanted and what he has done for his country.
I am also thinking, and your University bears his name today, of Cheikh Anta Diop.
I could tell you that I’m an old and faithful friend of the Senegalese people, but I would like to say so much more: I am one of Africa’s daughters and a sister of the men and women of this country.
It is on your land that I was born, in Oauakam. I was raised here until I was 2 years old. I don’t have that many conscious memories. But everything has been printed in my mind. Because deep within ourselves, we always keep the colours and the smells, the heat, the light, and the music that we perceived during our very first days. From birth I have always felt a deep sense of pride. It is a strength to be a citizen of the world and to always have the impulse of looking beyond our boundaries and, furthermore, towards the Southern hemisphere.
Before I started running for the presidential campaign, I came back to Senegal. I needed to be back in touch with my roots and my origins. At that very time, I encountered a lady in Thiaroye, among a hundred of others. They had all lost their sons, who drowned as they were swimming to Europe. We hugged for a long time. This woman, though she was stricken with grief, decided, along with others, to overcome the pain by helping the youth in her village.
Yesterday, we saw each other again, for a very long time. What progress have I witnessed in their actions, the early stages of which I had seen in 2006 : fishing activities, arts and crafts, the alphabetisation of women. What courage did they muster up in order to overcome their suffering, struggle and regain possession of their lives, and then give to their children reasons to hope and to live in their country with dignity.
These women symbolise the strength of human beings when they use their suffering in order to create hope, when they act in local communities and therefore contribute to making the world as a whole a better place.
Today is not the first time I speak of Africa. This continent was a prime concern in Villepinte, during the opening speech of the presidential campaign - “What does Africa suffer so much from? From a global economy that has run amok and gives absolutely no chance to fragile agricultural goods which have no possible way of challenging the policies of countries with great financial and technological assets!”
Africa was present too in the book I wrote with Alain Touraine, If the Left wants ideas. I stated that “Africa is our future. The development of Africa will be made possible by African people themselves.”, and I did as much in Standing women, written with Françoise Degois.
In every responsibility that I was ever entrusted with, I always reckoned that Africa is a major concern. In 1992, as Secretary of the Environment, I chose Mali as the partner country of our common environmental actions. When I became Secretary of Education, I tried as hard as I could to include Senegal in common development actions for education, for example with the Ouakam Library.
I could give you many examples of this long-standing concern and of the indestructible bond that has always brought me back to Africa. This is because I have the strong feeling that the alliance between the European and African continents is an opportunity to bring about more harmony in this multipolar world which needs to bring about peace and prosperity. With all the violence around us nowadays – a brutal economic crisis, environmental hazards, health disasters – this shows how strong our responsibility is, and how strongly we need to be able to team up and elaborate daring visionary strategies. Those strategies will give the keys to the world to come. I have never let Africa down.
It is a very deep-rooted conviction. What’s more, this conviction is a reason to act. That is why, as president of a French Region, I chose a region of Senegal, the Fatick Region, as the major partner for our VSO plan. And this plan has proved ever so efficient and exemplary (I will come back to this point) that it was recently designated by the United Nations Development Program as the main role model for Peace Corps plans.
This, my dear friends, is political evidence that the future of humanity will be made possible by a very close bond between the local and the global, that is to say concrete actions which actually help people But we also need to work on the financial level, at the scale of countries and International Organisations, which that ought to enable it.
Yes, there will be a future for mankind with a strong, proud and respected Africa, the partner of a strong, proud and respected Europe.
Yes, I would like to represent the voice of respect, fairness, and brotherly love, the voice the G20 should have spoken with. It should have made Africa a member of the group. There has been positive improvement that we must give credit to, and that produce new rules, but why isn’t Africa a part of it? Why have we turned down a billion human beings and a third of the world natural resources? This is unfair and proves inefficient. In the same way the absence of this whole continent among the United Nations Security Council Again the sub-representation of the same continent at the IMF councils and the International Bank is unfair and proves inefficient. Africa must finally have the international place and instances it deserves because we need Africa, we need its vision, its assets, its ability to give, and its ideas.
My dear friends, we are living in historical times; we have never seen the like of this crisis before, and is full of drama for sure, but also ripe with opportunities. The opportunity to go forward by implementing deep changes and enforcing new values that will allow us to invent the world to come, a world more humane and more fair.
Marginal adjustments of the current system will not end the economic crisis. People must expect their governments and their leaders, who were unable to foresee or solve the problem, to change their way of thinking.
People are rising up everywhere. There won’t be any peace without justice. And there won’t be any justice without respect. Finance must imperatively be in the service of real economy and real economy must be in the service of men and women.
An ecological crisis, such as we had never seen before, is threatening our own survival. The number of people affected by natural catastrophes has tripled since 2000. In 2040, one billion people will be forced to leave their homes, because of drought, of soils being depleted, of the water level rising. Most of these people will come from underdeveloped countries, especially from the African continent. The forests in this continent are threatened by the overexploitation of soils and by an intense agriculture that are not developed in order to feed the people but to favour exportation instead. In 2025, 750 million people will live on desert soils. Today already, only half of the African population has access to drinkable water.
A financial and banking crisis of an incredible scope is therefore producing a world-wide social and economic crisis. Africa and the emerging countries are not responsible for this crisis but they are however the first victims. For the first time for 50 years, global exchange has decreased by more than 10%. The access to financial funds for development projects has decreased by several billion dollars. Africa has been forgotten for a long time as far as globalisation is concerned, and it has also been excluded from the bail-out plans. The sponsors and donators from the IFM, and Northern countries mostly, will have to devote the tripling of the monetary reserves which were decided at the G20 meeting to developing countries, and mostly to Africa.
Financial greed and gluttony, have led the world to the edge of an abyss by reversing values, by confusing the essential and the unessential, by forgetting that the happiness of human beings – education, health, culture, food, living conditions – will have to come before all the rest. Yes: before all the rest.
If we forgot this fundamental principle “a government of the people, by the people and for the people ” which is the principle of the Senegal Republican Government as well, we would all be walking together straight to the abyss. That is to say: if we backed down. But we are many across the world, we are many, we do not want to back down, but to stand up.
Today, more than ever, we must be up to facing the challenges of this century. The forces of life must vanquish the forces of money.
First, if we want to build a common world, we need to bridge the intolerable gap of inequalities in wealth repartition. The UN says that 2% of the world population owns 50% of the world wealth whereas one half of the world population has to make do with only 1% of this wealth. Malnutrition is responsible for more than half of the deaths of children under five of age. Two thirds of HIV positive people in the world are located in Africa. In 2007 only, a million people died because of the pandemic. 40 million children still don’t have access to education and less than half of the children in primary schools don’t finish school, though as we all know, education is the most fundamental condition of development.
There are a poverty line and a wealth line, below or above which what is at stake is the very unity of the human species.
Granted, we have witnessed progress being made. But in underdeveloped countries, poverty has doubled over the past 10 years. The increase of poverty has been expressed through the Hunger Riots.
I want to state, as solemnly as can be, that this situation can’t stay this way. The time when some thought they could turn a blind eye on the struggle is now over.
It is urgent that we define together, on a world-wide scale, other ways to solve problems, other forms of solidarity, other modes of wealth transfer.
It is urgent that Northern countries keep their promises at last and respect international commitments. No matter what, the financial crisis should not be used as a reason to decrease the financial development aid.
What kind of financial aid are we talking about? Today, this aid consists essentially in cancelling debts and loans. The part of the financial aid designed to nurture new projects has been diminishing. What has been given with one hand has been taken back with the other.
What I want for France, for my country, and for Europe, is to be bold enough not to fob anyone off with empty promises. And to be honest enough not to trick those we pretend to help. This is where respect starts.
When I was in Belem, I heard Lula say he was tired of being asked to come to the capital cities of the North by young bankers who would teach him how to run his country, though they had never actually been there and could hardly locate it on a map of the world.
I have read in one of Aminata Traoré’s books that the native of Mali are tired of being told what to make of a cotton-ball by people who wouldn’t know one if they saw one.
In the lyrics of artists such as Tiken Jah Fakoly or rap singer Didier Awadi, I have heard the anger that is fostered by injustice. Numerous academics and African politicians have asked Europe to draw the lessons from the failures of its previous economic agreements, that are actually perceived not as help but as power struggle.
The aid to development can no longer be a modern patronising version of charity. We can no longer favour the poor with the definite statements cooked up in Washington, Brussels or Paris. The aid to development has to be elaborated with and not for those whose lives are at stake. But it is true, we have witnessed progress being made, and I would like to remind you how we have drawn inspiration from it.
There are two principles at the heart of the project for devolution and co-operation between the Fatick Region and the Poitou-Charentes Region (which I am currently running) We never impose ready-made solutions but find the best answers together, by sharing our experiences. We support local initiatives, and work in a spirit of mutual understanding and listening, which is essential to the success of any program.
With the Fatick Region, we have developed a cooperation program that includes several aspects: agriculture, eco–energy, eco-tourism, economy, health, education.
Our agricultural co-operation began in autumn 2004. We already have achieved very good results in the training of goat herders, by building better structures, by improving the production level and the respect of the environment.
These successes allow us today to consider new partnerships, for example with Agronomes et Vétérinaires Sans Frontières (an international French-based organisation of farmers and veterinary surgeons).
We have developed solar energy to favour the access to water. And now we can, decrease the wood production, and at the same time bring electrical power to cheese farms, water pumps, public utilities, school institutions and rural sanitary units. I will be seeing them tomorrow and during the next three days with the people and the authorities of Fatick.
Within a few years, solar energy will provide electricity to isolated territories with no link to the State electrical network, such as the Saloum islands.
Thanks to these achievements, the Fatick Region has been declared eligible for being an experimental region for the battle against global warming by the UN program for development.
This is how we can act on a local level and make a difference on a global level.
In order to favour the development of eco-tourism, we have started experimental projects in the natural reserve area of the Sine-Saloum delta and in the outback.
Soon, the people of these regions will be able to host visitors from all over Senegal; from all over Western Africa and from all over the world, and still respect the harmony and natural balance of the local landscape.
This is how we can act on a local level and make a difference on a global level.
More generally, the Poitou-Charentes Region has supported the bringing-in of micro credits in order to allow farmers to pay for fodder and equipment in milk cooperatives.
The micro credit motto is ours: act on a local level, make a global difference.
This program as a whole includes numerous local partners and more particularly the Group for the Advancement of Women . They came to Poitou-Charentes. They told me their stories. They explained to me how they struggle as mothers and wives and how they cope with the hardships of daily life. They told me how full of tenacity and creativity they have to be.
We used this creativity to imagine pioneering development programs: micro credits, improved cooking techniques , using solar energy for the drying machines and for the ovens. The potential of local craftwork have been put to good use. Blacksmiths and potters have been trained, pottery production centres have been created, villages have been supervised in their eco-tourism projects. But more importantly, we have learned a lot ourselves from the exchange missions and so have our farmers and solar energy technicians by coming here. It is this kind of reciprocal exchange that makes us the most efficient.
The quality of this partnership was recognised by the UN Program for Development which on November, 17, 2008, signed an letter of intent with the two Regions.
Our program for devolution and co-operation will make Fatick the first Southern Region to have a neutral carbon footprint.
It is thanks to this kind of actions, combined of course with government action, that we will be able to change the rules of the planet. Everywhere actions are being organised that will change people’s lives in a concrete way, that will create resources, and develop Regions. Such little streams make big rivers.
Co-operation and devolution, of course, can’t replace co-operation at the scale of countries and continents. But we could do so much more if we only had the leftovers of the billions lost by the banks.
Development aid is not a luxury destined to rich countries. It is precisely because we are all confronted, together, at the same time, to the most important economic crisis, that we must act together. Because no one will make it on its own and even less so against others, we can only act efficiently together.
My dear friends, as you can see, we have important reasons to hope. I like this sentence from Martin Luther King – “only when it is dark enough, can you see the stars”.
One of these rays of light has recently pierced through, in the United States, with the election of Barack Obama. This young black man represents a symbol. He became the most powerful man in the world and gave pride back to all the coloured men and women and more widely to every person that feels oppressed. And beyond this symbol of hope, there is the radical change of American policies.
Its economy has collapsed just like a house would have if it had been sapped and gnawed at by termites for years before it suddenly falls apart. Such violence has forced the Obama administration to lead a revolution in every field. First an internal revolution with the rebuilding of the financial system, the law on super bonus, and the investment on green development. But also an external revolution as well with a turn in international relationships, which is the use of dialogue. This open arms strategy will yield its fruits, of this I am sure. We must dialogue even when we no longer have the words to do so. We must attempt mediation where dialogue has failed. This is what 21st century diplomacy should be about.
But I would also like to talk about the Belem forum. Never has the anti globalization movement deserved the name it bears more. We must find different ways of conceptualising the world, we must swear to overcome all preconceived and commonplace ideas, we must renew a system of ideas that has been shrinking, we must be creative and realistic at the same time. In Belem, just as was the case in Washington, I felt the same rhythmic pulsation, the same impulse : the vital impulse of the peoples who do the exact opposite of what false truths would advise, who joyfully join together, feeling that the world to come is rising up.
Yes, I believe in the strength of simple citizens, the strength of a people that is rising up, just like people from the French Dom-Tom did, gathered around their leader, who is driven by his thirst for fairness and respect: Elie Domota. The attacks against dignity and arrogance cannot resist the power of conviction and the determination of a people that is driven by the thirst for respect and fair actions.
Listening, basing democracy on citizens’ initiative , and intervening in disputes are proving their efficiency everywhere they are used. It is when listening has failed that exasperation and violence appear.
The gales of many a revolution are blowing across the world, a colour revolution for example. We can all feel we are at a turning point of history. But we don’t know exactly in which direction the wind is blowing.
Therefore this is the question we must answer today, to we the people of Senegal and France, of Africa and Europe : What are we going to create together? And how are we going to create it?
The answer is common to us all, and we are experiencing it in this very room, as we will be in Fatick tomorrow, with all the examples of sustainable development. The answer lies in the fraternity that allows us to elaborate together solutions that respect the planet that we all share. With solar power you have as much assets as we do, if not even more, in order to create successful green development. You can therefore imagine how efficient we could be by joining forces and wills.
My dear Friends, for better and sometimes, sadly, for worse, our fates have been linked. They are still linked.
For worse: it was slavery, the “longest and most massive deportation in human history” as Christiane Taubira wrote in the preamble of our 2001 law recognising the “orphan crime” for what it was: a crime against humanity.
For worse: it was colonisation. During the debate about the 2005 bill some French right wing politicians tried to make us believe that it had had its “positive aspects”.
This is what the French Home Secretary said about it 2005:
“Our fellow citizens’ vivid reaction in the Antilles has enabled you to measure how much the law that your the majority has voted has offended the Republic. It promotes a revisionist reading of colonisation and it hurts, inside as well as outside of French territory, those whose affection toward France was born because of the values of liberty, equality, and fraternity. Those values were scorned by colonialism in the past and are being scorned by discrimination in the present.
The honour of the Republic, is having a clear and unbiased vision of a common history in a country, France, that welcomes all its children.”
Allow me to be quite clear. That at the time of colonisation, there were sincere and good-willed men and women, is absolutely certain. But having said that doesn’t amount to saying much. The problem is that colonisation was a system. That system must be condemned for what it was: a systematic enterprise of subjection and despoilment. The scars it has left we must fight unflinchingly.
The people that were colonised did not have a choice. Forced labour and the ‘Code for indigenous people’ were prevalent. As much as contempt. As much as racism. As much as the violence of a system that made some bow down to the authority of others.
I would like to honour those who fought and died all over Africa in a battle that was, of course, the battle of the Africans, as well as of all humanity.
And I am proud that there were in France, great minds and activists who rebelled in order to fight alongside those who were fighting for their independence. Those were defending the values we stand for when they were threatened and negated by colonisation.
I believe it is our duty to use the right words to describe what happened. Because words do more than just giving names to things: they build reality and how we look at it. The wounds left by our history have not all scarred. The duty of memory doesn’t need permission. Everyone carries it out with his or her own subjectivity and heritage. What we are all collectively accountable and responsible for, however, is the right to history and the duty of truth.
This right to history and the duty of truth are what allows us to face the facts and share a story that that does not always rehearse the past, but enables us to come to terms with the past without forgetting anything, and to imagine what our future could be.
In the last letter he wrote to his wife before his assassination, Patrice Lumumba stated his indestructible faith in the establishment of historical truth: “History will one day have its say […]. Africa will write its own history.”
Praised be the masters of speech that have remembered and transmitted. Praised be the historians of Africa that reminded the world of the fact that not only is Africa the Cradle of Humankind , but also, along with Asia Minor, the cradle of all human civilisations.
Praised be the historians of Africa that reminded the world of the existence of great kingdoms and great empires in Africa. Praised be the historians of Africa that related the countless relationships which had been established long before the time of conquests, in times when the Sahara, the Mediterranean Sea and the Indian Ocean were not borders but places of passage and contact.
Someone came here to tell you that “the African man has not entered History”.
I apologise for these humiliating words that should never have been uttered and that have never committed France. Because you too have made History, you made it long before colonisation, you made it during that time, and you have been making it ever since.
And what Leopold Sedar Senghor and Aimé Césaire have masterfully achieved with the concept of “Négritude ”, you have taken one step forward with the word “Africa”, the standard of recovered dignity.
This is the reason why the work of historians Cheikh Anta Diop from Senegal and Joseph Ki-Zerbo from Burkina Faso, not only constitute the acme of scientific research, but also the acme of the struggle for freedom.
This is the reason why it was so important to demonstrate, as they did, that Ancient Greece owed so much to Ancient Egypt, which in turn owed so much to Africa. They have demonstrated that the African languages allowed the same display of human rationality as the European languages.
They have often been accused of taking sides.
By insisting on their commitment to independence and pan-Africanism, some have tried to cast doubt on the scientific rigour of their research.
But today, everyday, the discoveries in the field of Egyptology confirm Cheikh Anta Diop’s theses.
A certain European history of Africa tried to deny the African people the pride of being African.
And as Lumumba thought, writing is acting, and acting is writing.
As for today, it would be a good thing to constitute as much mixed teams of African and European researchers as possible in order to recount the common destiny of Africa and Europe. Because we must clarify the common pages of our histories together if we want to be able to write together the common pages of our future.
So yes, the time has come to bring more equality in our relationships, and stop being paternalistic, stop concentrating on the sordid aspects of life, stop ostracism, stop using double-dealing when it barely hides double standards.
Yes, France must pay off its debt toward Africa and the French should learn at school what they have been offered by Africa.
When our national territory was invaded, Africa provided shelter and help to the forces of Free France.
African soldiers have contributed, on every battle field, to reversing the course of history.
On the 8th of May, 1945, France would never have regained its freedom without the help of Africa.
Then, how can we forget the cruel repression of the Thiaroye camp against the Senegalese skirmishers who were merely asking for respect and the right to bear their stripes. They thought they had been considered equals when they had shed their blood and should therefore have equal rights. They were right.
There are words that the French people owes to the Senegal people and to all the African peoples who have suffered for us and because of us. Those are simple but nonetheless powerful words. There are three words that I would like to say here, as a French elected representative and citizen:
Sorry. Thank you for the past. And please, in the future, let us work together.
I want the French to be strong enough to finally acknowledge everything we owe to you, and all the things we can achieve together.
And it is because I love France, because I trust it to be strong and generous, that I want it to be able to face its past. I want it to be able to accept its duty of truth and its duty of responsibility.
We must build together, between our two continents, a “Truth Committee for the past and for a common future” that will have access to all civilian and military files, that would gather all testimonies and would be mandated to tell the truth, to bring peace in people’s memories and to gather all testimonies.
Republican France also deserves to put an end to what we call Françafrique – and we know what it means – to the secrecy of the decisions that were taken far from public scrutiny behind a few selected desks.
My dear friends, our countries must invent a relationship based on respect and on mutual interest. I want France to be respectful and open, free of arrogance, but to have high standards as regards the defence of democratic liberties wherever they are needed.
We must put an end to the misconception that democracy and the fundamental rights of man only have one cradle – the Western World. Stéphane Hessel, in a lecture he gave recently on the history of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (which he contributed to write) asked Suleiman Bachir Diagne to speak. Diagne reminded us of the Mandé Chart, which dates back to the 13th century. This “Oath of the Hunters ” was meant for the whole world, and in it we can find a definition of the rights of a human person that has not aged a bit.
I would like to pay homage to Senegal, Mali, Ghana, Benin, Liberia, and all the countries of this continent that were able to pave the way to democratic transitions. More importantly, I would like to pay homage to those, young and old, who have kept true to the ideals that had guided their elders during the times of independence, and are now struggling for the rights to liberty, equality, fraternity, and life.
For us French, it means that we can’t afford to support tyranny, nor to let down democrats. We may agree with not interfering in the domestic affairs of a sovereign country, but from this it doesn’t follow that we should not ask for the truth every time it is necessary. This is having a dialogue between equals.
My dear friends, democracy is a right; it is also an opportunity. I think it is a fundamental factor of economic and social development. Wherever citizens take part in decisions they are concerned with, there is a decrease of inequalities, as well as an increase of economic efficiency.
We must support every initiative so that Africa becomes the continent of the 21st century.
Ladies and gentlemen, the crisis we are going through is international, and it is because it has consequences all over the planet and on every human activity that we will overcome it together. The time has come for being citizens of the world.
For this we must trust the forces of life. Let us be assured it is high time we did not lose a moment, stopped putting up barriers and gave ourselves heart and soul to building bridges. Let us trust the men and women of good will, let us believe in their honesty, their creativity, their courage, their common sense, their hope, their longing for peace, be it civil, economic, social, or ecological. And let us believe in personal development. Let us believe in the defence of human values as an actual political weapon. This is the decision, no matter what it takes, to place the progress of man at the heart of action. It should be the main political line rather than a liability.
Africa has an essential role to play in this deep mutation. Because Africa has undergone and suffered more than any place in the world or any other continent has, it can forcefully put the human being at the heart of the system and become a beacon for the world. Who, better than Africa, can understand that dehumanisation is a dead end? Africa has suffered from this dehumanisation for centuries. The best blades are forged in the fire, and the joys of life can be tempered in tears . So let us join and imagine plans together, let us act together, let us succeed together in building this new world to come.
Let us repeat those beautiful words I heard from the youth of Thiaroye: “Let us be as close as the grains in the corn ear, as strong as the Baobab tree, and as brave as the lion.”
Ségolène Royal
(translated by Jean Markert and Julien Dugnoille)