“Now look, much as …”
“No, this is a serious problem, very serious! You’re going to die soon, you’ve got to listen to me! I said come and have a drink with me because this way you’ll know I’m not speaking out against you. I don’t want you talking nonsense to the Lord above. So don’t interrupt me whatever you do, I won’t stand for it! You’ve always taken me for a fool, and a racist too I imagine. Do I complain about the fact it was you Africans who sold the West Indians to the Whites, eh? Did the Whites know where to go to find the Blacks in the bush, eh? No, they relied on village chiefs saying to them: come, there are fine strong Blacks at such a place, they’ll make good slaves! That’s the trouble with slavery! Why don’t you ever talk about these Blacks who aided and abetted the Whites, eh? Why don’t you ever talk about the Arabs who were also involved in slavery over there, eh? Leave the West in peace! Let people stop blaming us Europeans, enough is enough when it comes to the tears of the white man, Europe forever accused, and the innocence of the people of the Third World! They’ve taken away our right to tell the Blacks what we think of them, even though the Blacks don’t hold back when it comes to criticising the Whites instead of getting on with the work of developing their continent. Is this how you want to go down in History, eh? This isn’t about dressing the way you like or playing your tom-toms every Sunday. I’m talking about the history of colonisation, the one that doesn’t get explained properly to people even though without colonisation you wouldn’t be where you are today. So I don’t wish to be referred to as being black any more. I don’t want people to keep saying things like Blacks are naturally strong, handsome, sporty, they’ve got stamina, they age better than Whites, etc. Let’s be absolutely clear about this, what have you got that the Whites haven’t, eh? An over-sized penis? Is that it? Is that all? Come, come, it’s all screwed up on that level too. Sex was your private preserve to impress the blondes and the redheads. But you lost this advantage when a writer gave away all your secrets in his book. He explained that Blacks weren’t always as well hung as all that. The upshot of which is that blondes and redheads in search of negroes now know that the over-sized penis of Black men is just a tall story, like the one about little boys being born in the cabbage patch. There are even rumours that some Whites have got bigger ones than you lot. Can you see the problem? … Listen, it wasn’t so long ago that you desperate negroes relied on the slave trade as a source of revenue. Because it gave you lots of reasons to snivel, to tell those Whites they were nothing but big bad wolves. There were small groups of negroes who even demanded reparations left right and centre to the point of sullying the Place de la Bastille, in that very place where our people fought to maintain our dignity. My God, this story of slavery and the negro slave trade is over. In fact it’s been done and dusted in my head, ever since a black writer — what’s his name again? — said you negroes didn’t have white hands, that you were just a bunch of hypocrites. You’re guilty, you were accessories to crime and all the rest. Oh yes, his book was Bound to Violence, but I’ve forgotten the writer’s name, it’s a very African name, I’m sure it’ll come back to me after another cognac …”
I was wondering where Mr Hippocratic was heading with these random musings. I couldn’t get a word in edgeways. So I decided to let him pour his heart out, given it seemed full to bursting.
He ordered another glass.
“I know what’s going through your head right now. You’re thinking: ‘This man’s completely crazy!’ Well, don’t be so quick to judge me, I’m only saying what I think and what I see. Colonisation was all positive, I’m telling you. Without colonisation, would you have had the Senegalese soldiers? Would you have known what a pith helmet was, eh? I’m not as ignorant as you think. I know a bit about Africa, I buy books from the Rideau Rouge. And what do I remember from what I’ve read? A dazzling truth: it’s thanks to colonisation that the Cameroonian Ferdinand Oyono wrote The Old Man and the Medal and Houseboy; it’s thanks to colonisation that another Cameroonian, Mongo Beti, wrote Cruel Town and The Poor Christ of Bomba; it’s thanks to colonisation that the Guyanan René Maran wrote Batouala and for the first time a Black won the Prix Goncourt which is meant to be the reserve of Whites, that’s right! Do you think if it wasn’t for colonisation we would have given as prestigious a prize as the Goncourt to a Black writer who, in addition, criticised us in his book even though he was working in our colonial administration? Which only goes to show the settlers were very generous, that’s fair play for you, but while they accepted criticism no dialogue is tolerated by your dictators. If colonisation hadn’t existed, your Shaka Zulu would have invented it. And he wouldn’t have overlooked the whip, derision, rape, pillaging, the exploitation of man by animal and the extermination of the tribes of the Belgian Congo. Shaka Zulu would also have decreed that the whole of Zaire be his private property, just as the Belgian Leopold II did! Oh I know, I know, yes I know there’s that other one, that Aimé Césaire, he wanted to ruin everything for colonisation in his book which I’ve also got at home and which only has fifty-nine pages in tiny print and which was published in 1955 by Présence Africane over there, I mean in the 5th arrondissement, 25 bis Rue des Ecoles, Métro Cardinal Lemoine or Maubert-Mutualité, depending which side you’re coming from and what you’re looking for. Discourse on Colonialism, that’s the title of the book I’m talking about! I never want to read it again or all my anger against those negroes will come back when I’ve decided I don’t want anything more to do with them. I mean it really wasn’t very nice of Césaire to hold forth like that for fifty-nine pages in tiny print making all the Whites who read it shortsighted. Why, it’s even ungrateful to write the sort of things he wrote. Do you realise that he wrote, black on white, the following — I’ve memorised it: ’What am I driving at? At this idea: that no one colonises innocently, that no one colonises with impunity either; that a nation which colonises, that a civilisation which justifies colonisation — and therefore force — is already a sick civilisation, a civilisation that is morally diseased, that irresistibly, progressing from one consequence to another, one repudiation to another, calls for its Hitler, I mean its punishment’. Stuff and nonsense! Where did he find those turns of phrase? That Césaire won’t make me change my ideas. Colonisation was useful. Let me talk to you about it in my own words! You didn’t have any Blacks commanding you back then. Which was better than being commanded by those black Kings who burped and farted after eating. The African salaries of functionaries were paid on time. The White man was carried to the next village on a chair made of animal skin. It was the most comfortable method of transport. Why condemn the poor man, eh? In his place, I’d have let myself be carried on a chair by a dozen muscular negroes too. A vehicle? Let’s be level-headed about this! How were vehicles going to get through those jungles, eh? Between two rutting hippopotamuses? Don’t give me such rubbish! Drink your coffee, or it’ll get cold …”