On January 4th, the Association Franco-Kabyle d’Ivry, organized a conference debate with the president of the Anavad Ferhat Mehenni around his latest book “Africa: The French puzzle.” During this conference, the president of the Anavad addressed the question of colonial borders, fictitious States to whom they have given birth and the tragic consequences that resulted for the people within them, as the genocide in Rwanda or incessant wars since 1963 in Azawad.
Hello everyone, hello mister president Ferhat Mehenni.
Welcome to the French-Kabyle Association in Evry sur Seine
Thank you!
Hello!
In this particularly difficult circumstance for the Mozabite people, I wish to express my solidarity with the struggle of the people of the Mzab fighting for its existance and assaulted daily with the complicity of the Algerian government. And we saw that the attacks against property and people in Mzab are assisted by the so-called security forces who themselves become the ultimate “insecurity” forces.
There is a conspiracy against the Berber peoples in general, included the Kabyle people, the Chaoui people and currently the Mozabite people …. and Kabylia stands to the side of all people who suffer from denial of existence.
The book (Africa: The French puzzle) is the result of a reflection on Kabylia because it is shaped mentally and psychologically by an ideology inherited from colonization.
Our countries themselves are the product of colonization. It is the colonization that drew the borders and said, “Well, that’s it! We define this territory and you’re all the same people!” Even if we are different people. After the euphoria of independence, those peoples, who are grouped in the same territory, were found to defend their own interests … once independence was achieved, our contradictions, our interests resurface, and the region or the people who take power denies others the right to exist.
Therefore we had the genocide in Rwanda. Therefore, todays Somalia does not even exist. It tooks a military action to decide between two candidates for the presidency in Ivory Coast … and the presidential in 2008 in Kenya, where there were two people who have struggled for takeover …. This is why Azawad detached itself from Mali, hence the intervention of France. But despite this intervention, Azawad will become independent one day or another, it is only a matter of time …!
Maybe it takes a few years for France, the french geostrategists, the French policymakers to admit that, ultimately, they can do nothing against the tide of history. We are friends of France, we know the values of France of the age of enlightenment and we would like the France contemptuous of the peoples of Africa to give way to the France of lights, France of happiness, France of prosperity, economic and technological progress. This is what France should generate instead of misery.
France has the starring role. Since the ’60s, she says, “look at African, they do not know how to govern themselves! The proof, there is only dictatorships! “… But dictatorships hold only with help from France! … Without the support of France, no dictatorship would hold more than one month on African soil.
When you put several people in the same country, what will happen? … There is no possibility for a political struggle in the Western sense of the term. Left or right wings as in France, Labour or Conservative as in England, Democrat or Republican as in America … this is not the same configuration anymore.
When you are from different people, that is the law of numbers that count. When you present a political program and you are from a national minority, even if you have the best program in the world, you never pass president. Why? Because the vote is based on identity and not politic.
Africa will know no stability, freedom, democracy, and therefore economic prosperity and technological progress, until every people in Africa has its own state.
It is absolutely necessary that France opens another page… Whether France opens it herself and she accompanies people aspiring to their state today, or those peoples will build their state anyway … Whether France accepts that the Kabyle people emancipated from the Algerian dictatorship and he can live with dignity in its state, its identity, economy, security, or she (Kabylia) will necessarily look towards America or other … And if waiting tired, Kabylia turns to America, France will not only lose Kabylia. She will not only lose Algeria. France will lose all of North Africa which it is the engine.
France is now set to its responsibilities. African people know that all the boundaries that colonization have drawn shall move. The days each nationality has its state, then they may subsequently federate. There are no minor people, there are only dominated people who resist and aspire to be released from the shackles of dictatorship who despises them.
I launch a solemn appeal to France to engage a true reflection on the relationship with Africa … so that in its wake, it is no longer desolation, it is no longer blood, no longer crying, torture and repression but freedom, prosperity. Let it be the cultural influence, the most sacred values of humanity and progress and make plan for the future that is most favorable to Africa
In any case, France did experiment with dictatorship (in Africa: Ed) and we saw that this experience was completely negative on all fronts. Better changing the view and the nature of its relationship with Africans. African like all peoples, like the French, are worthy people who aspire to live in peace and especially happiness as all the others.
This is the message I wanted to deliver. After all, if there was no Kabyle problem, I do not think I could have pushed the boldness and depth reflection to write this book called “Will France lose Africa?”
Thank you
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