Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1964.
so they become different. Just change the conditions, heat or freeze, and the original equality is again clear.' 'Do you think you are Soussou, Malinke Bambara ? No, you are water and you are equal. At sunset when you pray to God say over and over that each man is a brother, and that all men are equal.'
The point that men are equal but the environment is not, was repeated:
'Take twins. Separate them at birth and send one to Mecca for his education. He will speak Arabic, have much experience in the world, be accustomed to human society and to machines. Take the other. Put him alone in the forest. Bring them together when they are thirty and compare. One will know speech and the other not. One will crane his neck in awe when a plane passes overhead, wonder when the electricity is turned on, tremble when a car passes, shout when a pair of glasses is placed on his nose. The other will be perfectly at ease before this wealth of things. Does this mean God made the twins unequal?'
A variant of this theme was:
'Take a peanut. Break it open. Find two seeds inside. Plant one in the ground. Put the other on a table or in a drawer or under a drum or on a stone floor. The seed in the earth will sprout, the other will forever be dead. Does it mean God made the seeds differently, that tiod is unjust? No, the seeds are equal, only the conditions surrounding them vary.
A man can be what he thinks he is, a slave is he who thinks himself a slave.
'Say to yourself, I am Mamadou, boy of the Commandant. I am the same as Vincent Auriol the President of France, as the Governor, as the Commandant. Pinch the Commandant and he is hurt. Do not let Auriol sleep, and he is tired. Give the Governor no food and he is hungry. You are the same. You are equal. If you tremble before the Commandant, before Auriol, before the Governor, then you insult God. He made men equal.'
The technique of making general points through particular anecdotes Sékou Touré developed first in the West African trade union context.
'If I wore a grey boubou and were called Amadou Guèye and spoke Wolof you would think me Senegalese. If I wore a white cloth and spoke Bambara and were called Mamadou Sissoko you would think me Soudanese. If I wore tan wool and spoke Fulani and were called Diallo AIpha you might think me Peul. If I wore khaki trousers and spoke Ewe you would think me Togolese. But I am called Sékou Touré and I am Soussou and I speak Soussou. But I also speak Bambara, and Malinke, and Wolof…. I change my clothes and I change my language. The clothes can change and the language can be learned. I am like you; I am a man like you; my race is African.'
