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On Francophonie

From Interview with Daniel Maximin (Guadeloupian novelist, poet, and essayist) on the occasion of 2006

Francophonie Festival.

http://www.rfi.fr/Fichiers/MFI/CultureSociete/1703.asp

Question: As a man of culture are you happy that we finally put forward the cultural dimension of the

Francophonie rather than its political dimension, which has been the case?

Daniel Maximin: I am further satisfied that the Francophonie was first cultural, literary, poetic. The

French idea is really born in the postwar years when Damas and Senghor released in quick succession

two anthologies of poetry French-speaking writers, bringing together authors from Africa, Indochina and

the Caribbean. These anthologies, demonstrating an unwavering faith in the language and culture as

vehicles of liberation, founded the Francophonie culture, long before the emergence of a political and

institutional Francophonie. Like it or not, it is culture that is the true legitimacy of the Francophonie. For

the Francophonie is not only a language but also, and perhaps above all, a tradition which has its roots

in the resistance to imperialism that his identity has incarnated writers throughout history and in the

solidarity that has made the Francophonie possible beyond races, continents. I think of Haitian literature

that immediately spoke to the world. I also think of the First Congress of Black Writers and Artists held in

Paris in 1956 and which this year marks the fiftieth anniversary. This conference was an important step

on the road to decolonization. The young Frenchman/woman today, whether from Metropolitan France

or around the world, is heir to all this anti-imperial tradition, as he is of the Enlightenment tradition.

Question: You are right to recall the important role played by writers and poets in the construction of

the Francophonie. Yet the writers of today do not share your enthusiasm, especially in the Caribbean,

where French was often perceived as an imperial language and alienating.

Daniel Maximin : La Francophonie is an indelible aspect of the Antilles. It is part of our experience. For

three centuries, we West Indians were fighting French imperialism without rejecting the language or the

culture: elements that are constitutive of who we are. As for West Indian writers who feel they live in a

country dominated, I remind them that the struggle to free itself from the shackles of language is

organic to the work of every writer, he writes in his native language or a language Colonial. It is not trueeither that it is easier for an English or a Hispanic to express their individuality through their borrowed

languages. Simply go to see up close the work of Walcott or Asturias.

Question: Yet the West Indian writers are not the only ones who are cautious of the francophone

world. Africans also distrust.

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Daniel Maximin: They distrust because they believe that Francophonie is a vehicle for the imperialist

project that seeks to alienate the writer from his/her indigenous setting. But it seems instead that the

emergence of Francophonies, of Hispanophonies, of Arabophonies, of Russophonies, of Hindiphonies

are in line with the affirmation of cultural diversity on the planet. I feel that the alienation felt by the

writer from the French colony is actually the result of a certain cultural Jacobinism that trapped the

French language in the hexagon, making it difficult to express other identities through the french

idiom. The interest of the Francophone Festival in France will also show how colonial writers have taken

the French, have transformed and adapted it to their geographic and cultural realities. The universality

of French through acceptance of local Francophone identity; be it Congolese, Martinican, Vietnamese or

anyone who wants to enter the French to absorb its uniqueness!