Dakar, Nov 30 (APS) – The historian and general inspector of education, Mor Ndao, calls for a fight against oblivion to maintain the memory of the Senegalese riflemen massacred at the Thiaroye Camp on December 1, 1944.
»What remains is this fight against forgetting that we must wage and go beyond the duty to remember. It is very good to recognize the facts, take political acts, recognition of the nation, but beyond the duty of memory, there is the work of memory to be carried out,” he said during the an interview given to the APS.
According to the historian, the work of memory involves the conjunction of all forces, intergenerational dialogue in order to pass the baton to future generations.
“There is an act of transformation, of citizen participation, of dialogue and co-construction, of transmission of values to future generations,” recommends Mr. Ndao, also director of the Ethos Doctoral School.
The general inspector of education requests that this massacre, in Thiaroye, perpetrated on “our valiant riflemen who participated in the construction and edification of the free world, and murdered on their return from the Second World War” be taught in all schools, but ”in an objective manner”.
Professor Mor Ndao, who describes this historical fact as “an assassination”, calls for us to project ourselves into the future in order to work on memory.
”There is the duty to remember, the work of memory and the will to remember. These three components must be in conjunction,” he insists.
This desire for memory must, according to him, be the culmination of long work, of long awareness and also of battle.
”I think that, as they [Les Français] made for the Algerian war with the Stora commission, France must recognize this crime against the riflemen. There is also Angola where there has been progress, as well as in Rwanda. Why not for Thiaroye?”, asks the specialist in military issues, who calls for continuing to lead the fight.
”We must pass on this memory to future generations. And that’s very important. Sooner or later, France must recognize that it is a crime,” he said.
Professor Mor Ndao also invites his colleagues to “bring out this truth by rewriting this history to put things right so that people know what really happened and draw lessons and lessons to project us into the future. future”.
FKS/OID/ABB
