Migrants and Militants. Alain Badiou

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      The first version of this text was a lecture given at the Maison de la Poésie in Paris. The idea for this evening came from the Textes & Voix group, directed by Nadine Eghels.

      I place at the threshold of this book a ‘Madagascan Song’, written in 1783 by Évaryste de Parny, apparently inspired by Madagascan traditions. The song shows – and this is good news – that a radical, indeed violent anti-colonialism is as old as colonialism itself. Maurice Ravel, who was himself a true progressive, and who in particular supported the Bolsheviks, took this text, in 1926, as the basis for a superb melody.

      A.B.

      Beware of the white men,

      You dwellers on the shore.

      In the time of our fathers,

      White men descended on this island.

      One said to them: here is land,

      May your wives cultivate it;

      Be just, be good,

      And become our brothers.

      The white men promised, and yet

      They built entrenchments.

      A menacing fort arose;

      The thunder was enclosed

      In brass canons;

      Their priests wanted to give us

      A God that we did not know;

      They spoke at last

      Of obedience and of slavery.

      Sooner death!

      The carnage was long and terrible;

      But despite the lightning that they vomited,

      And that crushed whole armies,

      They were all exterminated.

      Beware of the white men!

We saw new tyrants,

      Stronger and more numerous,

      Plant their flag on the shore:

      The sky fought for us;

      It made rain fall on them,

      Tempests and poisonous winds.

      They are no more, and we live free.

      Beware of the white men,

      You dwellers on the shore.

      ‘Madagascan Song’, Évaryste de Parny