“ We are all bound to the same destiny, Africa’s destiny and if we can lead the struggle for peace within our country, peace amongst our countries, peace amongst our countries and the rest of the world, we will then have been of service to Africa.”~Félix Houphouët-Boigny

We saw how in 1946 the Rassemblement Democratique Africain (RDA) was founded at Bamako in Mali under the leadership of Felix Houphouet Boigny of the Ivory Coast; how the RDA was a federation of parties from Dakar to Brazzaville; how for five years (1946-51) the party campaigned for radical reforms within the colonial system; how the RDA survived determined French Government pressure to destroy it; and how from the early 1950s the RDA adopted a new policy of constructive collaboration' with France.

Houphouet Boigny addressing a rally in Ivory Coast

The RDA was a multi-ethnic party insofar as it was a pan-regional party, with branches in all French West Africa and French Equatorial African territories. At the local or territorial level the RDA also made serious attempts to overcome ethnicism. The repression of the RDA by the colonial government in the Ivory Coast between 1949 and 1951 provides evidence to back up this assertion. Houphouet's initial support was among the Baoule from which he sprung. But the killing of his supporters in Korhogo and Dimbokro by French-led Syrian mercenaries created sympathy for the victims and their political party throughout the Ivory Coast. Northern Muslims now supported Houphouet, who became a new Samori in the way he focused multi-ethnic resistance to the French.

 

 

Houphouët-Boigny in France as Member of French Parliament

Significantly, among Houphouet's followers were the Muslims of Odienne and the Diula of Bondoukou. Samori's most faithful allies against the French in the 1890s. Because of multi-ethnic support and his strong party organization Houphouet was able to lead a highly successful campaign of non-violent resistance: strikes by railway workers and domestic servants, hunger strikes in prisons, a boycott of European firms (whose profits fell by 90 per cent), and protest marches by unarmed women. The French sponsored ethnic parties to counter the RDA: a Northern Muslim party, an Agni-Brong party, and a Kru party. By rigging the 1951 election the French produced a bogus victory for their ethnic parties against the RDA in Ivory Coast. However, the French abandoned their ethnic creations in 1951 in favour of an alliance with Houphouet and the RDA, which now seemed more likely to serve France's long-term interests.

The break-up of the RDA into territorial sections sometimes assisted the growth of ethnicism on a territorial or national basis, as we saw when Mossi sub-nationalism became Volta territorialism and led to the administrative separation of Ivory Coast and Upper Volta. This kind of territorial nationalism did not transcend ethnicism.

 

Félix Houphouët-Boigny 

  On 7 June 1962, at the Royal Institute of International Affairs in London, he set out his political philosophy and expressed his confidence in the 'human spirit': "We have always preferred negotiation in all circumstances, because we are convinced that a compromise acceptable to everybody can emerge from a confrontation of the ideas and interests in question."  In the West, Houphouët-Boigny was commonly known as the "Sage of Africa" or the "Grand Old Man of Africa," after the General Conference of UNESCO created the Félix Houphouët-Boigny Peace Prize for the "safeguarding, maintaining and seeking of peace". UNESCO conferred on the title the "Sage of Africa" on him. His attitude towards peace was exhibited when he disagreed with other Pan-Africanist leaders on using war to combat apartheid in South Africa. Arguing like as a political visionary he maintained that ""It is a mistake to think that there is no alternative but war to get rid of apartheid: if peace is to be brought to Africa we can and must engage in dialogue. In any event, dialogue will be essential one day, whether it comes before war or after war. It is infinitely preferable to engage in dialogue as early as possible in order to avoid war, which, and I cannot repeat this often enough, can never settle anything in our day and age."

The Loi Cadre of 1956 encouraged balkanization and the break-up of the RDA into territorial (now 'national') branches. Henceforth RDA leaders had to fight against ethnicism on a local rather than an inter-state level. In Guinea a localized battle against ethnicism had been raging since 1954.

In 1947 the RDA founded a branch in Guinea known as the Parti Democratique De la Guinee (PDG). The PDG did not become a significant territorial mass movement until the emergence in the early 1950s of Sekou Toure, a great-grandson of the Mandinka Emperor Samori Toure and the leader of the Guinea branch of the French communist Confederation Generate du Travail (CGT), the trade-union congress. By 1953 Guinea was undergoing rapid economic growth, largely a result of a boom in bauxite, iron ore and diamond mining. An increase in the industrial labour force increased the importance of the trade unions.

Sekou Touré organized a successful 66-day strike for higher wages and shorter working hours, which resulted in a 20 per cent increase in the minimum wage and a 40-hour week. Sekou Touré became the most popular and most powerful figure in the PDG, a strong proponent of social reform and a determined opponent of the ethnicism that bedevilled Guinean politics at this time. The French administration actively encouraged ethnic unions and their transformation into ethnic political parties. Sekou Toure strove to unite the Mandinka, the Foulah (Fula or Fulani), the coastal Susu and the 'various communities of the forest in a non-ethnic PDG.

The rise of Sekou Toure drove the old ethnic parties to form a Bloc (alliance) to fight the PDG in the election of 1954. The administration rigged the election, adding names in pro-Bloc constituencies, striking names off the register in pro-PDG areas, and by blatantly abusing the machinery for issuing voting cards.

The Bloc was declared the winner, but the manner of the election only consolidated the people's support for Sekou Toure and the PDG party membership rose from 300 000 in 1953 to 800 000 in 1957. However, Sekou Toure was also able to channel mass support to the PDG because of his relative success in combating ethnicity and achieving ethnic balance in the party. The four strong men in the party were Sekou Toure (Mandinka), Sayfaulaye Diallo (Fula), B. Lansana (forest) and B. Camar (Susu). Diallo, a Fula of a chiefly family in Futajalon, played a key role as Sekou's deputy.

In the battle against ethnicism Sekou used two differing concepts of brotherhood. First there was his immense trade-union experience that had enabled him to establish many contacts among communities in different parts of the country, as well as the CGT philosophy, of workers' solidarity which rose above ethnicity.

Then there was Islam, Sekou Toure told his followers, 'at sunset when you pray to God say over and over that each man is a brother, and that all men are equal'.

Another factor was Sekou Toure's adroit playing upon the memory of his great-grandfather as the symbol of the unity of resistance to the French invasion.

Sekou Toure won support among the Mandinka who under Samori Toure had unitedly fought the French, among the Fula with whom Samori had co-existed in peace, and even among the people of the forest whom Samori had, tried to convert to Islam by force, but who now welcomed Sekou Toure as an egalitarian politician and as a man who would free them not enslave them.

The PDG's first action in the battle against ethnicism was the nomination of five PDG leaders to contest the 1956 municipal elections outside their regions of origin. Sekou Toure was elected Mayor of Conakry, the majority of whose inhabitants were Susu- speaking. The other four PDG candidates also won.

Sekou Toure

The French by now had changed to a policy of co-operation with the PDG in the face of almost total lack of support for its opponents. In 1957 the PDG won 56 out of the 60 seats in the Territorial Assembly (set up after the Loi Cadre of 1956). The party leadership then decided that all assembly members should be responsible to the electorate in areas different from those of their ethnic origin. Members from Middle Guinea (inhabited by Fulas) were to be responsible to the electorate of Upper Guinea (Mandinkas); Upper Guinea members were to be responsible to Maritime Guinea (Susus); Maritime Guinea members were to be responsible to Forest.

Guinea (various ethnic groups); and Forest Guinea deputies were to be responsible to the electorate of Middle Guinea. Then in December 1957 the PDG decided to abolish chieftaincy, in the interests primarily of democracy; but this decision also helped to promote ethnic integration by destroying a traditional centre of ethnic-based power. The PDG congress in January 1958 abolished ethnic-based party committees.

Thus by the time of independence, after the famous 'No' vote of 1958, the PDG had won several important victories on behalf of ethnic integration. The constitution of newly independent Guinea made ethnic particularism illegal. Article 45 declared that 'Any act of racial discrimination as well as all propaganda of a racial or regional character shall be punishable by law.' By 1962 President Sekou Toure could claim:

There is no more in the Republic of Guinea the Malinke [Mandinka] race, the Soussou race, the Foulah race, the Guerze race, the Landouma or Kissi race. The Soussou. Malinke, Toma, Guerze, Foulah, Landouma or Kissi have taken up their language differentiation as a means of communication between men. Thus, every youth of Guinea, every adult of Guinea asked about his race will reply that he is an African.4

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