Some have been invaded, driven out, dispossessed and destroyed. The others, exploited, violated and reduced to the state of good. We are still struggling, collectively, to look him in the face. To come about, the North American colonial project crushed indigenous and black existences, annihilating, in the construction of its collective narrative, their humanity.
“Western modernity owes its existence to the production of black abjection and the production of indigenous absence”, writes Philippe Néméh-Nombré in his essay Sixteen black times to learn how to say kuei, published these days by Mémoire d’encrier. Including in Quebec. “The world in which we live, what is it really about? he wonders, reached on the phone by The duty. We live in territories that we can occupy because of colonization, and a society built on slavery. It is essential to ask these questions if we wish to consider anti-racism. »
Elsewhere in America, reflections on the links between black racism and indigenous assimilation are growing. In the province, these considerations are still in their infancy. It is in particular to fill these gaps that the essayist and sociologist made it the subject of his doctoral thesis, and of this essay, which is more narrative and accessible.
“I think it is necessary to build on these links, to use them to imagine the history and the possibilities of the meeting of peoples beyond colonial violence, so that people from indigenous communities and black people get better, can move forward and free themselves from the problems they are experiencing. »
Dissect the violence
Sixteen black times to learn how to say kuei lets consider sixteen possibilities of meeting through the story of moments and gestures erased by the great History, and which, however, illustrate the proximities and the solidarities between the black and indigenous nations of Quebec. Sixteen fragments, therefore, drawn from the archives, human experiences or mythology, which intersect, repeat, echo and intertwine in a dance which carries both the wounds of the past and the present, and the hope for this just, egalitarian and fraternal elsewhere.
The first part is based on the violence that occupies the existence and identity of these two peoples. We come across, among others, the Portuguese expedition led by Captain Antão Gonçalves in 1441, which ended with the first capture of slaves by Europeans on African soil. Then we board the ship carrying Samuel de Champlain, the first step towards the process of founding New France, and towards its desires for exploitation and possessive occupation. We meet the frigate Duke of Bourbon, built in Quebec in 1715, returning to the New World with, in its hold, 317 slaves and the spatialization of black abjection. We remember Pierre Coriolan, a man of Haitian origin struggling with mental health problems, who died in 36 seconds under the beatings of the police. Or Sindy Ruperthouse, an Abitibiwinnik from Pikogan, last seen on April 23, 2014 in the emergency room of the Val-d’Or hospital, in Abitibi-Témiscamingue, with three broken ribs.
In this great crossover, each piece can move, recompose, be caught in flight, late without losing its strength and richness, recalling the rhythms and coherences of jazz improvisations. “I’m glad you brought that up,” replies Philippe Néméh-Nombré. I write from a black posture. The writing of my people is closely linked to musicality. I do seek to invite it, I wanted to use the words and the structure in a way that is understood, because I think it is essential to render the meaning of the black experience through the text. »
Becoming with and towards
The second part of the essay — in this melodic vein — dwells on becoming “with” and “towards”, on the perspectives and accomplishments that union can create, in excess of colonial violence. We dive into the mythologies, the traditions, the stories carried by the ancestors, the crocodiles of Pagou, in Burkina Faso, the multiplicity of voodoo beliefs, the roots which link the human to the territory.
“For this section, I started by returning to the village of my ancestors, in Burkina Faso. If we want to hear and welcome the history of Aboriginal creation — whether we are Quebecers, descendants of French Canadians, or from African immigration — we must first understand our own stories, know where the we come and find our bearings. I propose, for me, crocodiles as the beginning of a posture to begin to relate to the ancestral knowledge of the First Peoples. »
In this knowledge, he finds, as it is up to everyone to do, other points in common, particularly in terms of territory and environmental protection. “Black perspectives have ecological thinking that is very different from that of the colonial world, and more in symbiosis with that of Indigenous people. Because black freedom was achieved through escaped slaves, who found themselves in the forest, and learned to perceive the environment as a set of relationships, rather than as a well of resources. »
This meeting point, which also increasingly appeals to the Quebec population, constitutes a fundamental node in the reflection of the researcher, as well as in the solidarity, the relationships and the future that we can envisage and build, together.
“All of our respective stories are an open door to a new way of telling ourselves collectively. They give us clues, keys to thinking about things that we have no choice but to think about: a future towards which we tend to have less inequality, a healthier relationship with the environment, harsh criticism and destruction of capitalism… the rest, let’s improvise it together. »