{"id":548,"date":"2008-04-20T04:16:00","date_gmt":"2008-04-20T12:16:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/?p=548"},"modified":"2008-04-20T04:16:00","modified_gmt":"2008-04-20T12:16:00","slug":"merci-papa-aime","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/merci-papa-aime\/","title":{"rendered":"Merci Papa Aim\u00e9"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Today, Sunday, Aim\u00e9 C\u00e9saire will be buried with “national honors” on his island of Martinique, with French President Sarkosy in attendance. The people of Martinique have been honoring their poet-politician these few days since his death \u2014 go here<\/a> to check Le Monde<\/span>‘s photo gallery.<\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

“The skies are heavier, now that his shoulders are no longer here,” says Gilles Alexandre, the owner of the oldest bookstore in Fort-de-France, Martinique.<\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

But a controversy has already erupted. At least two French figures have called for C\u00e9saire to be buried in the Panth\u00e9on, which houses the remains of a few of the great French writers such as Victor Hugo, Colette & Paul Val\u00e9ry. This would of course be a pure recup\u00e9ration<\/span> for political ends, and if this was to happen you would see, right behind Sarkosy at the official ceremony, all those right wing French politicians who only two years ago passed a law stating that Colonialism had also had its good sides.<\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

To those who didn’t agree with or were simply trying to understand his politics, C\u00e9saire said: “Read my poems, and you’ll understand my politics.”<\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

Le Monde also follows<\/a> the blogs speaking of C\u00e9saire, though essentially the francophone ones. Interesting is the C\u00e9saire blog <\/a>on which, <\/b>Amadoue Iamine Sall, the president of the Maison africaine de la po\u00e9sie internationale<\/span>, responds to those who have criticized the poet in the past for not having been a radical enough politician (i.e. coming to an accomodation with France and being for 48 years the Martinican represenative in the French parliament, rather than fighting for complete independence for the island) by quoting C\u00e9saire:“Consider my poetry as revenge for my politics !”<\/i> For Aim\u00e9 C\u00e9saire, Sall suggests,“true independence”<\/i> consisted in “decolonizing oneself culturally. That’s where he fought his major and profoundest battle .” <\/i>
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\"\"<\/a>The city hall of Fort-de-France with visitors coming to honor C\u00e9saire.<\/span><\/div>\n

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