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| Antoine Roger Lokongo |
"(...) why is Africa so important to France? [Xavier] Renou suggests three reasons: (1) Maintaining an international status independent of American and Chinese influences (the Soviet Union yesterday); (2) Securing a permanent access to strategic resources; (3) Benefiting from a monopolistic situation. To attain these objectives and maintain its power over its former colonies, France has to pursue a global policy that would be economic, political and cultural (Renou 2002). It is our firm belief that, in the 21st century, Africa does not need all these remnants frameworks of colonialism, call it Commonwealth, Francophonie, Lusophonie, and so on. (...)
Having said that, we agree with Algerian writer Kateb Yacine who wrote that ‘La Francophonie is a neo-colonial political machine, which only perpetuates our alienation, but the usage of the French language does not mean that one is an agent of a foreign power; and I write in French to tell the French that I am not French’ (Djaout 1987, 9). Colonisation was not jut a ‘historical mistake’ as President François Hollande said in Dakar before heading to Kinshasa. It was the very denial of the African person’s humanity. (...)"
Antoine Roger Lokongo
