The inaugural lesson of the panels and conferences as part of the commemoration of the 80th anniversary of the Thiaroye 44 massacre is delivered by Professorofessor ibrahima Thioub at Ucad. This forum of historians and researchers looked at the causes of the tragedy, the journeys of the riflemen as well as the difference between the work of a historian and memory. Thioub also advocated for the construction of the archives house and the national library.
The spirit of colonization has a racial basis. Colonialism, Thioub introduces, carries within it terror, but it carries within it the most harmful (…), hatred of man, in short racism. Whether we go about it as we wish, we always arrive at the same conclusion: “there is no colonialism without racism”, he thus quoted Aimé Césaire, “Colonialism is not dead”, Nouvelle critique, revue du marxisme militant, January 1954. Which allowed him to dive into the heart of the matter. “If there is one event that occurred during the Second World War and remains vivid in African memories of colonization, it is the massacre of riflemen that occurred on the morning of December 1, 1944…” declares Professor Thioub. It relates the historical journey of the Senegalese riflemen, whose battalion was created by the decree signed by Napoleon 3, on July 21, 1857.
The Thiaroye 44 event, continues the historian, is linked to a long tradition of the colonial government in terms of repression and maintenance of public order. However, it occurs at such a specific moment which relatively detaches it from this past. Especially since the event shook the system as a whole. Which consequently pushed the colonial administration to deploy an initial strategy aimed at “stifling the event as best as possible and making it immediately invisible”. Faced with the obvious limits of this angle of attack, underlines the academic, it has deployed a range of measures including the production of a supply of reports with often discordant content on the unfolding of events as if to lose historians and researchers. But all tend to establish the guilt of the riflemen and to be part of a euphemization of the event. “The scale, then this mass killing, the context of its occurrence as well as the status of the protagonists left no chance of success for the strategy of the colonial administration.”
For Professor Thioub, immediately, a significant number of actors became involved in the management of the issue, spreading it widely in the imperial public space and even beyond. This is, among other things, what kept the subject alive.
The anticolonial movement
The anti-colonial movement, which experienced a strong revival following the Second World War, took up the issue and ensured the preservation of its memory. “Subsequently, Thiaroye 44 became the site of an intense war of memory,” recalls the historian. However, he enjoins that the writing of history arriving late at the scene of the crime experiences enormous difficulties in making sense of the event despite the remarkable efforts. It is added that the withholding of information from the occurrence of the event, the blurring of archival and documentary tracks, the difficulties of distancing oneself from conflicting memories, made the task particularly difficult for him, regrets the historian who warns. “Whether or not the military and political authorities distorted the figures, whether they consciously wanted to cover their tracks, premeditate the massacre, cannot prevent us from writing this story like that of the entire journey of the riflemen of 1857 to 1860. (…) The attitude of the authorities remains an integral part of this history that studies must clarify,” informs the historian. The historian’s investigation, certainly attentive to static data, must however be more concerned with reestablishing and finely analyzing the facts in order to extract from their analyzes a problem to be deciphered. What makes Thiaroye unique in the history of colonial repression? What is Thiaroye called? Why does its evocation continue more than ever to arouse such strong emotion and serious historical controversies decades after its occurrence? This is, he said, because the metropolis emerged from the war extremely weakened. She suffered a resounding defeat during the Phoney War. The Senegalese riflemen were active witnesses of this painful experience which reveals a manifest discordance between the pretensions of the French colonial power to civilize and the reality of its forces. To the defeat were added the occupation of its territory, the surrender of its State, lists the academic. According to him, it is indisputable that without the contribution of the empire and the African army in particular, France would not have occupied a place at the table of the winners of the war. But the fear of losing dominance was real.
Plea forerection of the archives house and librarynational library
How can we reestablish the ideology of racial superiority after such an experience of war? How can we erase the experience acquired in war by riflemen? How to manage the new consciousness of riflemen from the war? It was predictable, in the historian’s opinion, that the civil and military administration of the Aof (…) would do everything to contain the political consequences.(…) The historian also notes the differences even the conflict between history and memory. For historians, it is a question of giving readers, when they write, the means to challenge the thesis they defend. This, he underlines, is the radical difference from memoirs which call for often militant support. “The audacity of historical truth to nourish the national memory open to sovereign Africa is the guarantee of future conquest of our emancipation,” he said. He ultimately pleads for the erection of the archives house which can house the national library.
