Playwright as public intellectual

[Leanore Lieblein]

Hello all,

To pick up on Denis Salter’s reflections on the playwright as public
intellectual, I thought I’d share some recent news in France that may not make
it to the Canadian press.

Nicolas Sarkozy was to have visited Martinique this past week.  Sarkozy is
currently Minister of the Interior and aspires, rivalling Prime Minister
Dominique de Villepin, to be the candidate of the Right in the 2007
presidential elections.  (Jacques Chirac seems to be conceding that he can’t
hang in for another term.)  The visit was cancelled because playwright, poet,
essayist Aimé Césaire, author of Et les chiens se taisaient (1956), La Tragédie
du roi Christophe (1963), Une Saison au Congo (1967) and Une Tempête (1969) and
for many years mayor of Fort-de-France, made clear that he was not welcome:  «
Je n’accepte pas de recevoir Nicolas Sarkozy. (
) Je reste fidèle à ma doctrine
et anticolonialiste résolu.  Et ne saurais paraître me rallier à l’esprit et à
la lettre de la loi du 23 février 2005. »

The law in question, reiterated by deputies of the ruling UMP just last week
when a coalition of the Left tried to have it abrogated, stipulates that « Les
programmes scolaires reconnaissent en particulier le rôle positif de la
présence française outre-mer ». Teachers of history at all levels have been
outraged, and of course for Caribbean islands like Martinique and Guadeloupe
the history of colonialism is a history of slavery.  In addition, Sarkozy’s
blanket characterization of the communities involved in the recent rioting as
“racaille,” which my Robert & Collins dictionary translates as “rabble,
riffraff, scum,” was taken very negatively.

Also featured in the newspaper Libération (8 Dec. 05), which is the principle
source of my information though the story was covered elsewhere as well, was an
interview with writers Edouard Glissant, Prix Renaudot 1958 for La Lézarde, and
Patrick Chamoiseau, Prix Goncourt 1992 for Texaco, who had sent an open letter
to Sarkozy.



Professor Leanore Lieblein
Department of English
McGill University
853 Sherbrooke West
Montreal (QC) H3A 2T6
Tel: (514) 489-5651
Fax: (514) 398-8146

Address Oct.1 - Dec.18, 2005:
215, rue de Vaugirard
75015 Paris, FRANCE
Tel/Fax: +33 (0)1 40 61 90 61