Guinea's accession to independence on October 2, 1958, gave the party elite the long-awaited opportunity to dismantle the colonial structure which had dominated the territory for more than seventy years. Decolonization meant something much more fundamental than merely the achievement of national independence and the transfer of authority from the European colonial power to the Africans. As Sékou Touré explained, it signified a basic reorientation in the thinking and habits of men:
« When we say: ‘Decolonisation,” we mean we want to destroy the habits, conceptions and ways of conduct of colonialism. We are determined to replace them with forms that are Guinean forms, conceived by the people of Guinea. Decolonization consists in detecting all that remains of the colonial system and finding a Guinean solution for it. Decolonization consists in liberating the civil servant from his enslavement to the colonial conception, to the colonial mentality. Decolonization is the reconversion of colonial mentalities into Guinean mentalities. Decolonization must put an end to injustice and ensure the reconversion of these various evils, of these diverse practices of division and opposition, into practices of unity and cooperation. » 1
Decolonization was not only the result of a desire to remove the last vestiges of colonial influence. It was also a protest, a Guinean rejection of the European's efforts to mold the Africc.n after his own image:
« The colonial regime had attempted to assimilate us to a civilisation which, even if it was positive and humanistic, had not been thought out by us, was not at all the fruit of our experience, a civilisation which did not express our own proper values, and consequently, was not conformable to our national ethos.
To this colonialist determination to assimilate us we opposed a fierce affirmation of the African personality.
To the colonialist assertion of a lack of any moral positive cultural value in the history of the African peoples we oppose our personality, we maintain we had our own civilization, our own culture, our own values.
We proved on a practical level as well as on the ideological level the arbitrary and unnatural character of any foreign occupation. It is for these reasons that we wish to use our independence — through the full exercise of the attributes of sovereignty to refashion our country within the framework of its origins and its civilization with a view to developing all our talents, all our resources, all means at our disposal on the national level. Examining objectively the situation of our country at the time of its withdrawal from the colonial regime, we recognized that all of the economic, administrative, political, judicial and military structures were not conformable to the best conditions for the development of our national society, and we decided to transform them by adapting them to the necessities of our own evolution.
In carrying out decolonization of minds and cultures, we knew that the colonial regime not only signified foreign domination, but that it was present in the structures that had been established to exploit end oppress us. Consequently, we realized that decolonization must go beyond the mere suppression of the actual authority of the colonial regime. » 2
The goal thus expressed, what remained was to devise a program of action that would assure its realization. Implicit in Toure's plan was the need for reorganizing basic institutions in Guinean society. But what institutions were to be reoriented ? And what principles should govern their reconversion ? What standards were to be used ? Who would be the final arbiter about what to retain from the colonial system and what to “Africanize?”
Touré's statement of the problem in no way precluded the retention of things French which exrerience had shown to be wise, efficient or beneficial to the country. Some social institutions (e.g., the judicial system, military rules and regulations, etc.) learned or developed under the French, were retained virtually in toto with relatively few adaptations to Guinean circumstances. Other institutions (e.g., the labor unions and youth groups) were radically altered to complement national organs which the Party was developing — organs aimed at consolidating the Party's nation-wide control and at mobilizing the population for the atta1runent of national objectives. In both cases Touré has shown himself to be eminently eclectic. His discourses on the subject of decolonization and reconversion show his clear awareness of the fact that Guinea can never obliterate completely all traces of colonial influence in her social and political institutions. What is important is that those things which cannot be changed in structure or function must at least develop a new sense of morality, a Guinean morality:
“Our new state, in its outward form, has replaced the colonial state, but, in order not to continue the practice of the former system we must analyze the old ways of doing things so that we can improve on them. We must analyze them in relation to our major objectives. It is useless to show, case by case how much present practices in our young state in numerous sectors are still those of the colonial regime. When we make these observations to some of our colleagues, they feel they have been denounced.
When we say to our fellow functionaries: ‘Increase your returns, raise your professional standards,’ some of them maintain that the Party is attacking them. Now, if the Party did not attack their reactionary attitude, Africa would never have any officials who would consider themselves as the responsible architects of her development.” 3
In all cases the cardinal principle was that the reconversion of an agency or an organ of government should lead to its complete integration into the national system. The concept of independent regulatory agencies, left free to function as watchdogs over the actions of government, was viewed as irrelevant in a society where these functions were assumed by the Party. Non-integrated institutions and agencies, or social actions of any kind which might escape control by the State, were not to be tolerated but were to be actively resisted:
“We, as totally dedicated militants, solemnly affirm that everything, every phenomenon, will have no value in our eyes save to the extent that it tends toward our final goal. Thus, all opposition, all attempts to divert our attention, necessarily end by strengthening our struggle for emancipation. Those who willingly shut themselves up within the framework of the colonial system will never be able to make us slacken our pace… We must not consider economic, social and cultural phenomena in isolated fashion. We must consider them in relation to our policy, our national existence, and the highest interests of the people of our country. The country being an indivisible entity, we shall not favor any one sector or any one project.” 4
One of the chief problems was to determine the extent to which reconversion could or should be carried out and where this might most profitably be done. Might not reconversion in one area (e.g. in education), if carried out to peremptorily, impede or retard progress in other areas?
Africanization also presented difficulties of quite another sort. What form should the desired Africanization of a particular institution or convention take? Should it be Soussou, Foulah or Malinke? The problem posed to those advocating reconversion could not be underestimated. A wrong choice — one which might unduly favor the cultural form of one ethnic group over those of other groups — might run the risk of reviving traditional enmities. Such a miscalculation could damage the delicate unity so painstakingly built up by the Party since independence.
However deplorable the “colonial way”, it had an undeniable advantage: through the common adherence to colonial laws and conventions which it imposed on its subjects, it did tend to de-emphasize ethnic, linguistic and regional differences among the indigenous peoples. For administrative purposes, the colonial regime treated the peoples of the territory as a unit rather than as distinct ethnic groups. It created among them, however inadverdently, a certain sense of union even if it was only what Sékou Touré later referred to as a “union de misère.”
What the Guinean experience has shown is that what was actually meant by decolonization and reconversion was not the wholesale abandonment of those institutions and conventions which seventy years of French colonial rule bequeathed to Guinea. Above all, decolonization has not meant an indiscriminate return to archaic pre-colonial African institutions, however much these may once have been revered or performed a useful and necessary function in society. Decolonization has meant adopting those institutions and conventions of the former colonial society which the Government and the Party have deemed useful or essential to the efficient functioning of a modern national state. It has meant reforming and adapting these institutions to be used by Guineans for Guinean purposes. Guineans have been among the most willing to recognize the utility of such colonial bequeathed institutions as mass political parties and modern, reform-oriented government. They have also been among the least desirous or seeing a resuscitation of one of the oldest of African institutions — the chieftaincy — which they now regard with abhorrence.
[Note. — Chieftaincy was no longer “the oldest of African institutions”. To the contrary, if it did not invent it, French colonization largely altered and molded it to carry out its policies and meet its goals . Thus, chieftaincy had become a hybrid system ; on one hand, it was embedded in the French colonial hegemony, yet, on the other, it retained some aspects of precolonial rule. Read:
“La fin de la chefferie en Guinée” (Ameillon)
“Direct administration and the chiefdom”
“La fin de la chefferie en Guinée ” (Suret-Canale)
Notes sur l'Organisation Politique et Administrative du Labé (Chapitre VIII. Division administrative du cercle de Labé en districts puis en cantons) — Tierno S. Bah] ]
Similarly, Africanization means not merely the understandable desire of Africans to see Africans themselves rather than whites or other aliens hold the reins of power and authority in the government, the public services and the private enterprise of the country. It means also a firm resolve to devise among themselves and in concert with other Africans, a common approach to problems with which they all must cope.
The determination to “decolonize” African society, to “reconvert” its habits and attitudes to African forms, to Africanize as rapidly as possible all sectors of public life, is an understandable reaction to the oppressive experience of colonialism. It stems from a new awareness of the African personality, worthy and valuable in itself.
Notes
1. Touré, Re-Africanisation, p. 40.
2. Conférence Nationale (Kankan), pp. 38-40.
3. Sékou Touré, La Guinée et l'émancifation africaine, “Les impératifs de la reconversion,” Présence Africaine,
Paris, 1959), p. 213.
4. From a speech delivered by President Touré before government functionaries of the circumscription of Kankan,
February 23, 1959, ibid., p. 118.
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