Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1964.
‘Will you do something for me ? I know you are angry at Diawadou. Anger makes us stupid. Use the anger against me and so cure your anger. Do not play the song again. Do not dance the song again. Forget the song. The Fula is your brother. He is the most oppressed, the saddest, the poorest. Diawadou is not Fula. Diawadou is without a country. You are Fula. You are all races.’
The tendency to ethnic division, particularly between the Fulani and the rest, remained a serious problem to the PDG.
To overcome regionalism, the PDG leaders used a variety of techniques: symbols — of the elephant, Sily, ‘who does not forget’; PDG banners and colours; clothes such as head-scarves, and the grey Muslim hat, somewhat like a fez (it came widely to represent the Guinean political position abroad). The women wore dresses cut of identical cloth. There were party songs, poems, dances, and slogans. To spread the party message, Sékou Touré and his associates used, in their words ‘auto-suggestion’. Though the party regularly did publish a newspaper since 1951, 1, circulation in 1957 was still no more than 3,000; and there were only 6,000 copies even of the historic 24 (?) September independence issue. The population of Guinea was largely illiterate, and communication was largely by word of mouth. The images and anecdotes of Sékou Touré's speeches were translated and re-translated into the many different languages and spread rapidly. PDG organizers used concrete examples from everyday life to hammer home the ideas that men are equal regardless of tribe or race, the need for unity, for faith in action, for discipline in the PDG. They mentioned often mother, the family, fertility, planting and harvesting, and God. PDG leaders paid special attention to women and children for these social categories cut across clan class, ethnic and regional divisions.
My mother carried me. She carried me for twenty years and five months before my birth. My age is her age. The women are the fire of the RDA. When we want to make a knife we need iron, water and fire. The knife is Africa. We are the blacksmiths. We must use fire to make out knife. Our fire is our women. Our women mold us, carry us.
To point out that all men are equal, only the environment makes a difference, Touré said:
Man is water. Put fire under the water. What is left at night?' 'Steam' answers the crowd. 'Take the water and put it into an ice box. What is left at night?' Answers the crowd 'Ice'. 'Is ice the same as steam?' answers the crowd 'NO'. 'Is the water which made the steam the same as the water which made the ice?' Answers the crowd 'Yes'. 'Man is like water, equal and alike at the beginning. Then some are heated and some are frozen and
1. Before, Coup de Bambou came out occasionally.
