Reading time: 6 minutes
A trilogy, to denounce the modern figures of neocolonialism: the Milliardaire, the White Sorcerer and the Black Scholar. Three masks, three roles, three complicitys.
The Milliardaire and the Frontier
"It takes arms there, but no faces here."
A rich businessman, full of profits,
Ruled over the universe as a challengeless god.
From Africa to the Levant, his hand was master:
He sowed misery, reaped a litre of it.
Mines, ports, plantations, cargo convoys,
Everything bowed under his yoke, everything served his ransoms.
« Look. », He said, « I'm dispensing!
I offer to suffering peoples work and subsistence. »
Now these good workers, whom he called his people,
Digging under the sun, bones in torment.
Their blood fed the tree with the fruit of his actions;
Their punishment increased his bad contributions.
Back home, barred with capital,
He rained gifts to the loyal media.
The press on his knees, dragging on his treasure,
Singed the great peril from the South or gold.
« Foreigner threatens us, we have to close the door!
France to the real French, let the scum come out! »
But, irony of the spell – or ignoble logic –
These « intruders » that he cursed before everyone,
These were the same, in the shadow and in the vcarm,
They loaded his boats, they forged under his weapons.
But our good tyrant, sure of his ploy,
Saying in a cold tone, without trouble, without dilemma:
« There I needed them, to build my palaces;
But don't let any of us go over my relays. »
The people applauded, drunk with warlike words,
While crunching its fruit from deadly fields.
And logre, behind the scenes, rubbed his hands full,
Counting voices and notes as antique coins.
Analysis
This is the great humanitarian capitalist, who makes Africa sweat in the name of development and calls for the expulsion of foreigners in the name of security. He thrives on the poor, while pointing at them. His fortune, built on distant exploitation, buys a good conscience with patriotic discourse. This fable denounces a hypocrisy that has become structural: the hypocrisy between the worker and the migrant, while they feed the same value chains.
The White Wizard and the Negro Kings
"I'm just managing, I'm just a relay."
An old sorcerer, all white, at the scholarly mine,
Lived in the living rooms, away from burning land.
He had no tribe, no fetish, no bush,
But discreet accounts where the maggot pushes back.
From Congo to Chad, every autocrat in place
I was calling « My friend », as long as he made the pass.
He knew the secrets, the safes, the palaces,
Detours of suitcases and gold in bracelets.
When a king threatened to be a little less docile,
The sorcerer smiled, then pulled a wire.
A general appeared, in lattice or verb,
And the friend of Paris became a proverb.
« I serve order and peace », said this notorious white,
By placing millions in well-known banks.
He offered the mighty, for the price of loyalty,
Villas in Switzerland, and eternity.
And for a few elected officials, in bad countryside,
He'd lubricate his elbows, oil the mountains.
He walked without costume in African lands,
But wore the black suit when it went down.
Because under his discreet airs as a simple consultant,
Hidden the pivot of a vibrant traffic:
Oil, uranium, forests and diamonds,
Everything went through him, everything except the children.
And when he was accused of turpitude,
He laughed slowly, full of certainties:
« I'm just managing, I'm just a relay.
The real thieves are the ones you never see.. »
Analysis
Where power gets dirty too quickly, the white sorcerer intervenes: discreet adviser, illegal launderer, liaison between dictators and Parisian elites. It embodies this figure of the shadow technocrat, invisible pivot of dirty fortunes and questionable stability. Behind its facade neutrality lies the art of maintaining order without ever naming it. This fable evokes the backstage of Françafrique, where coups d'état, mining contracts and offshore accounts are never but another form of financial engineering.
Black Scholar and White Salon
"Your verb is so brilliant that it says nothing."
An African doctor, barred with parchments,
Practiced to shine under worldly chandeliers.
From the Sorbonne to the clubs, from seminars to dinners,
He spoke of Africa without ever bothering.
Costume well cut, accent almost off,
He quoted Montaigne, but never in the morning.
It was called "Master”, “Dear colleague, my dear”,
And he took pride in a haughty and clear tone.
« My people », Did he say, « is right,
I'm working on raising him out of his mind. »
He published endlessly on decolonialism,
But dinner at the colonial elite every night.
He frowned the eyebrow when others, less polite,
Dare to name the Empire or its wilted remains.
« Let's leave these old debates, let's be post-modern,
Africa, you see, is too dull. »
And in the felted salons of great well-thinking,
He was plasticizing, docile, in the window of France.
One day, a young brother, dressed in a pagne,
Tell him: « Speak for us, not for their equivocals!
Your verb is so brilliant that it says nothing,
Your mind was sold to the perfume of wine. »
But the scholar smiled, as we smiled at the poor:
« You will one day understand, when your soul opensCome on. »
Analysis
It is the intellectual of service, the one that is invited in the symposia to adorn the discourse of universalism. Trained in the best schools, he traded the revolt against recognition. More francophone than the French, he became the docile illustration of decorative postcolonialism. This fable questions the place of these integrated African elites, who shine in Paris but disappear in their own country, sometimes becoming accomplices well dressed in an unjust order that they no longer dare to name.
Three faces, one theatre
These three fables are not intended to make people laugh: they are intended to make people grin. Grind teeth, grin with shame, grin with lucidity. Because behind the masks of Billion, White Wizard andBlack scholar, is the same mechanics: that of an empire that does not need flags to dominate.
The Billion Pills with a smile, preaches progress in distant lands while advocating the retreat at home. The White WizardHe organizes the disorder with method: he greases the elbows, whitens the fortunes, maneuvers dictators as one adjusts a valve. As for theBlack scholar, he embodies the elegant servitude, exiled from within, flattered by those very ones he should have bothered.
Everyone plays their part brilliantly. One with full suitcases, the other with secret networks, the last with a brilliant verb. And all, in their function, participate in the great neocolonial comedy, where exploitation is now done in costume, in standards, in words — but always to the detriment of the same.
For basically, these fables are not aimed at individuals. They are aimed at postures. Systems. Well-oiled routines. And if they take the form of stories in verse, it is to better emphasize a truth too often drowned in diplomatic chatter:
The empire never dies. He's changing his face.
