Before starting the conference, Ferhat Mehenni reiterated its support for Mozabites who have suffered abuse , aided and assisted by the police against their goods and their persons. During this conference , Ferhat Mehenni called France to be discerning , to cease its policy of supporting African dictatorships , to engage in “true reflection” on its relationship with Africa, “that in its wake , it is no longer desolate , blood, tears , torture and repression, but freedom, prosperity, cultural influence , the most sacred values of humanity. Otherwise, it would lose Africa.
We publish below an extract of the conference held January 4, 2014 , at the invitation of the Association Franco – Kabyle d’Ivry. Here is the transcript
” In this very difficult circumstance for Mozabite people, I wish to express my solidarity with the struggle of the people of Mzab fighting for his life and is assaulted daily with the complicity of the Algerian government . And we saw that the attacks against property and against people in Mzab are assisted , assisted by the so-called security forces are themselves become insecure ultimate forces.
There is a conspiracy against the Berber peoples in general , the Kabyle people , the Chaoui people and now the people …. Mozabite Kabylie and stands to the side of all people who suffer from denial of existence and freedom.
The book (” Africa : The French puzzle ” Ed) is the result of a reflection on the Kabylie because , shaped, mentally, psychologically , by an ideology inherited from colonization.
Our countries themselves are the product of colonization. This is the settlement that drew the borders and said, ” Well, that’s it! It defines the territory and you’re all the same people ! “Even if we are different people . Once the euphoria of independence, those peoples , who are grouped in the same territory , were each found to defend its interests … once independence was achieved , our contradictions , our interests resurface , and the area or the people who took power denies others the right to exist.
Thus we had the genocide in Rwanda , thus , today , Somalia does not even exist , so he took military action to decide between two candidates presidency in Ivory Coast … and presidential in 2008 in Kenya, where there were two people who have struggled for the seizure of power …. This is why Azawad is detached from Mali , were it not for the intervention of France . But despite this intervention, Azawad become independent one day or another, it is only a matter of time … !
Maybe it takes a few years for France , strategists, French geo- strategists, French policymakers admit that , ultimately , they can do nothing against the tide of history . We are friends of France , we know the values of France lights and we would like the France contemptuous of the peoples of Africa , gives way to the lights France , France happiness , France , progress , prosperity , economic and technological progress. This is why it must generate in its wake behind it instead of misery.
France has the starring role . Since the ’60s, she said, ” look African , they do not know how to govern themselves ! . The proof is only dictatorships ! “… But dictatorships , they hold only by the grace of France ! … Without the support of France , no dictatorship held one month on African soil .
When you put several people in the same country , what will happen? … There is more possibility of political struggle in the Western sense of the term that someone is left or right as France , Labour or Conservative as in England, Democrat or Republican as in America … this is over the same configuration.
When we are different people , it is the law of numbers that count . When has a political agenda and that is the result of a national minority , we present to presidential elections …. it was nice to have the best program in the world , you never pass president . Why ? Because voting is not identity politics.
Africa is going to experience stability, freedom and democracy , and therefore economic prosperity and technological progress, that every day people in Africa will have its own state.
It is absolutely necessary that France opens another page … Or she opens herself and she accompanies people aspiring to their state today, or those peoples will build their state anyway … Or France accepts that the Kabyle people emancipated from the Algerian dictatorship and he can live with dignity in their state , its identity, economy , security, or she ( Kabylia : Ed) necessarily turn to America or other … And if waiting tired , Kabylia turns to America, France will not lose Kabylia . She did not lose that Algeria . It will lose all of North Africa which it is the engine.
France is now setting its responsibilities. African people know all the boundaries that colonization drawn should move. This is the day that each nationality has its state they may subsequently federate. There are no peoples minors, there are only dominated peoples who resist and aspire to be released from the shackles of dictatorship despises .
I launch a solemn appeal to France to engage a true reflection on the relationship with Africa that maintenance … for in its wake , it is no longer desolate , this is no longer the blood, this is no longer the tears , torture and repression. But whether freedom, prosperity. Whether the cultural influence , whether the most sacred values of humanity and progress plan for the future that is most favorable to him .
In any case, it ( France : Ed) did an experiment with the dictatorship ( in Africa: Ed) and we saw that this experience was completely negative on all fronts . As it is now changing look and it changes nature of relationship with Africans. African like all peoples, like the French , are worthy people who aspire to live in peace and happiness especially as all the others.
That’s the message I wanted to deliver . In all this, if I wrote it , I said earlier , if there was no problem Kabyle , I do not think I could have pushed the boldness and depth reflection to write this book called the France will she lose Africa? ”