I had arrived to study in France as a young assistant lecturer from Ahmadu Bello University (ABU), and at that time all of us in ABU Zaria were Marxists, and I was very surprised and pleased to see that almost everybody at Cite Universitaire appeared to be Marxist. A more accurate way of putting it was that the activities of Marxist and radical groups were so dominant that the impression was created that it was a Marxist debating society.
Last week I was in Paris, following a surprise invitation to attend a conference on the internationalisation of African higher education and research. The conference was opened by the French Minister in charge of Francophonie and international partnerships, Thani Mohamed Soulihi, and maybe this reflects a pivot away from some of France’s traditional partners, towards some Anglophone Africa countries. It was focused on building partnerships and networking between universities in France, Nigeria, Angola, Senegal, South Africa, Kenya, Morocco, and Egypt. The meeting was closed by Ambassador Hajo Sani, Nigeria’s representative to UNESCO. Other Nigerians in attendance were Professor Adamu Abubakar Gwarzo, president of the Association of African Private Universities and Professor Yusuf Bala Daraja, vice chancellor of Capital University, Kano, as well as someone from the Presidency.
For me, the big story was that it was held at the Cite Universitaire de Paris, where I was a student in 1984 to 1985, and I was excited about seeing my old campus after forty years. The following day, there was another conference at the hostel for African students on the theme of, “African Students in France: Stakes and Perspectives.” I did feel a bit strange debating life on campus with a group of students who were not born when I was on the campus. There was also an excellent presentation on the political life and engagement of the Federation of African Students in France, which was very involved in the nationalist movement and independence, the post-independence enforcement of French neo-colonialism, the 1968 revolt against Charles de Gaulle, and so on.
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I had arrived to study in France as a young assistant lecturer from Ahmadu Bello University (ABU), and at that time all of us in ABU Zaria were Marxists, and I was very surprised and pleased to see that almost everybody at Cite Universitaire appeared to be Marxist. A more accurate way of putting it was that the activities of Marxist and radical groups were so dominant that the impression was created that it was a Marxist debating society. Every weekend, dozens of Marxist, radical, nationalist and political/religious activists converged at the square in front of the central restaurant for campaigns and mobilisation, and I set out to seek who to ally with.
In Paris, howbeit, everything was about choosing the correct political line and condemning the wrong line, and no one spoke of the political economy method. I started by listening to Trotskyists attacking Stalinians, which I already knew about. They were three or four factions insulting each other about which bloc of the Chinese Communist Party had the correct political line, and whether Chairman Mao was a great revolutionary or a vile reactionary.
I, however, quickly got alarmed and confused because in ABU Zaria, our Marxism was largely methodological and was focused on adopting the approach of Marxist political economy. In Paris, howbeit, everything was about choosing the correct political line and condemning the wrong line, and no one spoke of the political economy method. I started by listening to Trotskyists attacking Stalinians, which I already knew about. They were three or four factions insulting each other about which bloc of the Chinese Communist Party had the correct political line, and whether Chairman Mao was a great revolutionary or a vile reactionary. The Albanians also had many factions insulting themselves and they were so vehement that I got the impression that resolving the correct political line in Albania would determine the future of the proletarian revolution. The situation was so confusing that I quickly gave up the idea of aligning with the correct Marxist-Leninist line. I turned to more consensual forms of radicalism and struggle.
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One of the most stimulating was the African National Congress (ANC) weekly platform, which was well organised and it inspired a massive following on campus. The anti-apartheid movement was very strong and the ANC Representative in France, Dulcie September was a great and persuasive mobiliser, who was always at hand urging the movement on. In 1988, three years after I had moved from Paris to Bordeaux, Ms September was assassinated by Apartheid murderers conscious of the success of her advocacy in Europe, especially the success around boycotting South African products. May her soul continue to rest in glory.
The other very popular movement on campus was the pro-Palestinian one. Already at that time, the fraternity between the ANC and Palestinian movement was strong, as both were cases of occupation, land alienation and apartheid. The current success of the South African government’s defence of the Palestinians against genocide and crimes against humanity is rooted in this long period of mutual support of their struggles. The Palestinian movement was very broad at that time, with the PLO as the umbrella; Arafat’s Fatah Movement on the right and the Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a Marxist-Leninist and secular movement led by George Habash, on the left.
Looking back at the Paris campus political scene forty years ago, the greatest success was the independence of South Africa, Namibia and East Timor. The deepest disappointment has been the failure to establish a Palestinian state, and now much worse, the starvation and genocide the Palestinians are subjected to by Israel.
Other struggles popular on campus were that of the Tamil Tigers against Sinhalese oppression in Sri Lanka; the only insurgency in which the insurgents were eventually wiped out completely. While in City Universitaire, the struggle was in its infancy and different sets of Sri Lankan students debated the way forward. The other popular struggle on campus was the nationalist struggle by East Timor against Indonesian invasion and colonial rule. The struggle ended in 2002 with victory and independence. Cite Universitaire was unique because it was a large campus of international students all coming to the site with their political struggles. My next shock was when I moved from Paris to a normal French university in Bordeaux, where political excitement ended and life became boring.
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Looking back at the Paris campus political scene forty years ago, the greatest success was the independence of South Africa, Namibia and East Timor. The deepest disappointment has been the failure to establish a Palestinian state, and now much worse, the starvation and genocide the Palestinians are subjected to by Israel. As American imperialism goes haywire and it abandons the rules-based international system it claimed to have built, the new reality of bombing and destroying every country that resists imperial control can only be considered as a call for greater mobilisation and resistance by progressive forces. The struggle continues. Victoria a Certa.
A professor of Political Science and development consultant/expert, Jibrin Ibrahim is a Senior Fellow of the Centre for Democracy and Development, and Chair of the Editorial Board of PREMIUM TIMES.
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