She was once called “the most dangerous woman in Africa.” But Andrée Blouin, who took part in multiple struggles for independence across Africa in the 1950s and 1960s, described herself as an African woman “inflamed by injustice” on a mission to free her continent from colonial rule.
She was born in French Equatorial Africa, a federation of French colonial territories. At age 3 she was abandoned, then escaped an arranged marriage at 15 and became politically active after French officials denied her 2-year-old son medication for malaria. He ultimately ended up dying from the disease.
Blouin shared the whole story from her own perspective in her autobiography, “My Country, Africa: Autobiography of the Black Pasionaria.” Originally published in 1983, a new edition of the book edited by her daughter, Eve Blouin, has just come out.
Joining the show from London, Eve Blouin spoke with The World’s Host Marco Werman about the book and shared personal recollections of her mother. Below is an excerpt from the book’s epilogue, written by Eve.
My mother’s typewriter was her most treasured possession. She struck its keys with all her heart.
Only recently, a friend from Kinshasa sent me the video of a press conference in which Victor Nendaka Bika, former chief of police and director of the Congolese intelligence services under Kasavabu, reveals that my mother wrote the speech Lumumba delivered on June 30, 1960, at the Palais de la Nation in Leopoldville. At minute 13:16 of the recording her name is pronounced in front of a gaggle of Western journalists.
“Lumumba chose the speech prepared by Madame Blouin,” Nendaka remarks. “A number of people had written drafts, but he chose Madame Blouin’s version.”
On the day Congo declared its independence, Lumumba had several typescripts in his bag. He opted for my mother’s. She never spoke of it— her silence was eloquent.
Our living room was an obligatory waystation for political leaders when they first arrived in Algiers. “Welcome to the chancellery of the United States of Africa,” my mother would say, laughing. She hosted delegates of the Parti solidaire africain who almost prostrated themselves before her; Lumumbists of the Conseil national de libération (CNL), with their calling cards that read “La patrie ou la mort”; tea- drinking representatives of the Eritrean Liberation Front (ELF); François Tombalbaye’s Chadians; South African ANC members; the Mozambicans of FRELIMO; Angolans of the MPLA; Palestinians; Black Panthers, at war with Babylon; and more besides. There were even envoys from Free Quebec and the Canary Islands.
Mother was a consummate, extravagant host. In the kitchen there was always a stew on the boil, a steaming bowl of rice, and cold beer in the refrigerator. The revolutionaries didn’t have to be asked twice to stick around for supper. “An African will walk miles to come enjoy ‘le manger de sa bouche,’” she would say, generously serving their plates. Our domestic routine was that of an uncomplicated, middle- class family. My brother and I attended the Lycée français; my father went to work every morning; my sister got married. We had an active social life, with friends
of all nationalities.
For the Fourth Summit of the Non-Aligned Movement, emissaries of the seventy- five member states and a bevy of national liberation movements congregated in Algiers. Behind their dark sunglasses, the Russian, Swedish, and Austrian delegations arrived, followed by those from Bangladesh, Cambodia, and Perón’s Argentina. No fewer than fifty- seven heads of state were in attendance, including Castro, Tito, Gaddafi, Bourguiba, and Hữu Thọ. The Third World was now a force to be reckoned with. My mother went from one symposium or special session to another. The
Non-Aligned Movement, inspired by the Panchsheel Agreement, put on a marvelous demonstration of the “Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence.”
We were invited to countless diplomatic cocktail parties, the most coveted being those hosted by the Vietnamese embassy, overlooking the neighborhood of El Biar. Petits fours, flutes of champagne. At the beginning of the evening, Dalida’s “Histoire d’un amour” played as background music, before things got serious and the dance floor filled to the first sounds of “Super Bad” by James Brown. In this unforgettable, occasionally fantastical ambiance, it was not unusual to see a Czechoslovak delegate or a Canadian observer dancing the shuffle with a slightly tipsy official from the People’s Republic of China. A playful truce before the pillaging recommenced. If renaissances last no more than a decade, as it’s sometimes said, how exhilarating the post- independence ’70s were—an epoch of euphoria, enthusiasm, and edification! But no celebration surpassed the one that kicked it all off, the 1969 Pan- African Festival in Algiers. At the time, the future of Africa had never looked brighter.
After a period of political incubation, the Congo from which my mother had been expelled would be rebaptized Zaire, then the Democratic Republic of the Congo (RDC). Across the river, Congo- Brazzaville remained faithful to its name. But in both states, the looting of natural resources continued unabated, worse even than under colonial rule.
“The neocolonial interests that rely on local potentates and national traitors will always fail us,” my mother affirmed with conviction. “They are our worst enemies.”
She shared the sorrow of populations who knew that their leaders were betraying them. This betrayal did not only bring shameful profits to those responsible. It provided the means for keeping whole countries in shackles.
My parents divorced at the end of 1973. We left Algiers for Paris. The shock was terrible: the separation, the cold, the gray skies. I was born and raised in Africa—we had only taken a few short trips to France, which was terra incognita for me. My mother fell into a deep depression. On her own, she had to construct a new life and a home for her children. But she managed. Her hold on life was remarkable; she had courage to spare. She could have given up on so many occasions, but she always pulled herself together. Although my father also lived in Paris, they did not see each other. Divorces are sad affairs. I resented the revolution that had impoverished and torn apart our family, leaving incurable sequelae in its wake. How can one withstand so much pressure, so much tragedy, so many sacrifices? We were merely collateral damage.
In Paris, the struggle continued in the form of articles and almost daily meetings. My mother found less and less motivation to read the papers; news from Africa depressed her. One day a friend from Guinea came to see her at her apartment in the 20th Arrondissement. He had lived in Siguiri, where my brother and I were born and where our parents had spent their happiest years together. My father ran the gold mines there, those ancient quarries that had enriched the Mali Empire for centuries. Entire families from neighboring countries traveled by foot to Siguiri to pan for gold. Everyone had the right. At the end of the day, the prospectors would get together to weigh and distribute the fruits of their labor: one-third went to the tribal chief; one- third to the company that maintained the mine and furnished the tools; and the last third went to the person who had discovered it. All in all, everyone was satisfied. Usually the lucky party would go buy a goat and some palm wine and everyone would join in the feast.
“Do you know who operates the mines these days?” the Guinean asked. “The Swiss and the Canadians. Gold panners today can barely make ends meet.”
In the Congo, the calamity seems only to have grown in proportion. When Mobutu died, he left the country a debacle. Today, it is blighted by endless conflict, the deadly dance of factions and mercenaries in the pay of multinational conglomerates, a genocide that has claimed six million lives passed over in silence. For shadowy forces fearful of pressure from below, all means are justified in eliminating resistance. Recolonization has insidiously taken hold, barring any peaceful way forward. Predation continues under new auspices.
My mother never doubted that Pan-African revolution would overcome all the neocolonial intrigues and conspiracies that lay in wait, for the future belonged to the unity of free, sovereign peoples. She was a romantic for whom the lessons of contemporary history were cruel. Beneath the indomitable bravery she displayed throughout her life, there was the incurable pain of childhood trauma. She had brushed against a dream that appeared to be on its way to being realized, and she was burned by contact with an ideal that collapsed, revealing no more than utopia. She believed there was no such thing as inevitability, that the people were the ultima ratio.
“You cannot sell off a nation’s rights,” she would proclaim to anyone who cared to listen.
She was convinced that a sovereign people owed it to itself to be the source of its own destiny, capable of expressing authentic political power.
When she died, the prodigious, Edenic ideal of a free Africa disappeared with her. Her old comrades, gathered around her body, understood.
Click the player above to listen to the extended version of the interview.