26th Colloque de l’Académie des lettres du Québec

Montréal, Friday, October 17, 2007

A STATE OF BLACKNESS
Aimé Césaire’s Way

Nwè kon an péché môwtèl
([Translation] As black as sin)

“[Translation] I am an animal, a Negro”

Arthur Rimbaud, Une saison en enfer

“[Translation] Men with African blood in their veins can never do enough to restore the good name of Negros, those whom slavery has put into a state of decline; for them it is a filial responsibility.”

Victor Schœlcher, Esclavage et colonisation, Éditions Désormeaux, 1973

On June 1, 1990, I wrote a letter to Aimé Césaire—poet, mayor of Fort-de-France and member of parliament in Martinique—explaining why I wanted to make a film with him.

Dear Mr. Césaire:

The idea for a film often comes from an unnamed emotion, a long-held dream or the development of an unsettling thought. (. . .)

I was first introduced to Martinique through your words, your images, the breathtaking way you pushed the French language to the extreme. I imagined the gentleness and the violence of that country in the West Indies so much like our own, usually hidden from us by the tour companies that plan escapes from our long winters. I felt at home in your words, but I had to wait over 20 years and for the opportunity to make a film before I could take the journey your poetry inspired.

In order to help you understand my request, I would like to quote a few paragraphs from the project itself:

“This journey to Césaire’s country, a pleasurable walk through the works of the man who wrote Cahier, Les Armes miraculeuses, Cadastres, and Ferrements, will allow us to measure the distance between poetry and politics, between utopia and reality, and to learn from them. Because in Césaire’s works, each word holds a wealth of ideas, each sentence is a grounding thought. Never has anyone been so embodied in his work; it has human qualities: generosity, imagination, a desire to find the truth, and respect for others . . . And rarely has a politician seemed as determined to stand up to dominant ideologies.

“That is no doubt why Césaire the Martiniquan is universally renowned. At the international congress dedicated to his work in 1985, without prior consultation, participants stood up one after the other and stated, with great emotion: “Césaire is a Columbian writer”; “Césaire is a Nigerian writer”; “Césaire is Haitian”; “Césaire is Italian” . . . which is a vivid illustration of his universality. For Gaston Miron, Gérald Godin, Paul Chamberland and a number of other Quebec poets and writers, Césaire could be Québécois. And this affirmation is not only in recognition of the debt they owed Césaire in the past, it is still a reflection of today’s Quebec.”

(. . .)

  “That is the reason for this journey towards this man, a man who one day ‘[translation] decided to be Black to the bone,’ as Gaston Miron said in a letter to Claude Haeffely in the 1950s (in À bout portant, Leméac, 1989).

“It could very well be that this forgotten relationship is written in an ancient mixing of cultures and an unspoken Creole identity that secretly unites the North and the South of the other America, a place for which there remains a few traces that only a few rare geographers can read, and a few signs that only poets still know how to decipher.

“Old maps from the 17th century said: ‘The Caribbean Sea begins just south of Anticosti . . .’

“At the beginning of this project, when I considered the kind of film I wanted to make and I decided not to make an Aimé Césaire biography, I instead chose to focus on the solitude and rage of poets who work tirelessly through political channels to change the world.

“From the beginning, I wanted to make a film that would remind us that poetry is visionary and prophetic, and that it is at the crossroads of the direction the world is now heading.”

(…)

And that, dear Aimé Césaire, is what I wanted to tell you about the journey I am taking to Martinique and towards you, at the dawn of the possibility of making this film.

And for me—shamelessly no doubt—it is as though, in answering poetry’s call, I am responding to the poet’s invitation.

Two years later, after the release of my movie (A State of Blackness: Aimé Césaire's Way)[1] at the Fort-de-France festival, Aimé Césaire gave me a two-volume, complete collection of the Tropiques journal that he created with René Ménil during the war, to protest and completely oppose the Vichy regime and to affirm the originality of the West Indies and their African roots. In his dedication, he wrote: “[translation] to Jean-Daniel Lafond, I give this testimony of the birth of a nation as thanks for having so well understood and felt the West Indies. In true friendship.”

When he gave me the books, he said with a mischievous smile, “[translation] You know, Jean-Daniel, you may be white on the outside, but you are Black on the inside.”

Today I lost a friend and a companion on the critical path: Césaire is dead.

The news spread all over the world in every language. The death of a poet from a tiny island in the West Indies left no one indifferent, from Paris to Timbuktu, from Algiers to Tokyo, from Moscow to Sao Paulo, and in Montréal, Havana and Port-au-Prince. Francophones were not the only ones in mourning; he was remembered universally.

Mayor of Fort-de-France and member of parliament for over 50 years, he helped develop Martinique’s independence while reinforcing ties with France—a supporter of regionalization and a realistic opponent of any form of separation and splitting, he gave the French West Indies the political place it deserved in the Metropolis. An extraordinary personality and eminent thinker, he was a respected representative of de Gaulle, Pompidou, Mitterrand and Chirac. Despite all his partisan concerns, Césaire remained universal. He always refused ministerial positions in order to devote his time to his island and his work. He and his friend Senghor were role models for Mandela and for African countries.

As for me, the author of Cahier d'un retour au pays natal, Discours sur le colonialisme and La tragédie du roi Christophe had a decisive influence on how my opinion and analysis of the situation in Quebec evolved. He helped me to see the Quebec-Canada relationship in a positive light and to broaden the horizons of my opinion by distancing myself from unnecessary battles.

It was an honour and a pleasure to make this film—which marked a turning point in my career as a filmmaker—to write a book (A State of Blackness, written) and to produce a radio series on Radio-Canada, Aimé Césaire, chemin faisant, journal d'un film.

I would like to add that, in 1990, thanks to this movie, I met my wife, Michaëlle Jean, who is today the Governor General of Canada and the first Black woman to be Head of State in Canada. It is a pride in Césaire’s legacy that adds to the feeling asserted in Paris, in 1956, at the first congress of writers and artists from all walks of negritude: this world will never again be white.

Fifty years later, in 2006, Aimé Césaire was 93 years old. From Fort-de-France, the man who was a star player at the 1956 congress along with Léopold Sédar Senghor addressed delegates from all over the Black world at UNESCO, in Paris, just like he had done 50 years earlier: “[translation] We must continue to fight with diplomacy and intelligence so that we do not fall into Black racism; we must be aware of our identity while remaining open to the universal.”

Author René Depestre,[2] another survivor of the first congress, added: “[translation] Because we raised the collective consciousness, a lot of things have changed in the past 50 years. In the United States, Black people occupy high political positions, and the Ku Klux Klan no longer lynches or hangs people. Apartheid was dismantled in South Africa. My niece, Michaëlle Jean, is the Governor General of Canada. All of this is proof of a marked improvement in our condition, even though racism obviously still exists.”

Racism does still exist, but big steps have been taken to improve human dignity, steps we hope are irreversible. Of course, the battle is ongoing. Vigilance is required; we must never be content to sit on our laurels and simply admire our accomplishments.

That is why, today more than ever, Aimé Césaire—papa Aimé—I salute you and thank you for your friendship, you who told me so eloquently that the only battle worth fighting is the one to put a human face on humanity. That is why I continue to make films[3] and write books.

[1] A State of Blackness: Aimé Césaire's Way (1991)

[2] I also made a film about René Depestre entitled: Haiti in All Our Dreams (1995).

[3] The two Jean-Daniel Lafond films quoted in this text, A State of Blackness: Aimé Césaire’s Way and Haiti in All Our Dreams are part of a boxed set of six of his films entitled TRUTH AND CONTROVERSY, distributed by www.imavision.com and www.onf.ca.