Côte d’Ivoire

I know some of you will look at the name of this country and then say “Oh! The Ivory Coast!” but I’m discouraging that. The reason? The Ivoirian government officially discourages this usage, and asks that Côte d’Ivoire be used in all languages. Côte d’Ivoire is in West Africa—and, yes, it is on the coast, with the Gulf of Guinea to the south.

We don’t really know much about Côte d’Ivoire from the period before the Portuguese pulled up in the 1460s. Apparently the major ethnic groups arrived quite recently. So pre-European contact it’s a little bit of a blank slate.

The country didn’t suffer from the slave trade as much as neighbouring countries—the European ships seemed to like other areas of the coast better, so the Ivoirians were lucky there. The colonial era started in the 1840s when France decided they wanted to get involved, and built naval bases along the coast. Taking over the interior took longer—into the 1890s the French were battling it out with the Mandika forces that were coming in from Gambia, and the Baoulé kept up guerrilla warfare until 1917—even as France had another war on its mind.

And what did the French have to offer? Coffee, cacao and banana plantations. Of course, with plantations came forced labour. How is it that the abolition of slavery only applied outside of Africa? If the mountain comes to Mohammed does that suddenly allow the mountain to put Mohammed to work? (I suppose it’s obvious that this makes me a little grumpy. The country basically dodges the bulk of the slave trade, only to be effectively enslaved after its over.)

But then came independence: first Félix Houphouët-Boigny started a trade union for cocoa farmers. Good stuff. Soon enough Houphouët-Boigny was elected to the French parliament, and the French abolished forced labour. And about time. In 1958 Côte d’Ivoire became autonomous, followed by independence in 1960. 20 years later Côte d’Ivoire was the world’s leading source of cocoa. Yum.

So Houphouët-Boigny became the country’s first president. Unfortunately this was a one party system, and he ruled right up until his death in 1993, though his government was forced to support a multi-party system at the end. Nonetheless Houphouët-Boigny’s favoured successor (Henri Konan Bédié) succeeded him, nad was then re-elected. (The opposition was disorganised.)

The next step? A coup in 1999. This was followed by a peaceful election in 2000, which saw Laurent Gbagbo oust the stager of the previous year’s coup. Unfortunately in 2002 there was an uprising while Gbagbo was in Italy, and some say that Robert Guéï, having led one coup, attempted another—this is disputed. Either way, Gbagbo returned, signed accords with rebel leaders and, when the peace agreement fell apart, ordered airstrikes against the rebels. While Gbagbo’s term expired in 2005 it was deemed impossible to hold an election under the circumstances, and Gbagbo’s government was extended by a year. In 2006 the UN backed another one-year extension of the Gbagbo government. In 2007 a peace deal was signed.

Oh, child soldiers. There are child soldiers serving in militia groups linked to the government in Côte d’Ivoire. Ex-rebel groups also employed child soldiers. Needless to say, I—to understate my position in the extreme—am not a fan.

A poem. “Leaf in the Wind” by Bernard B Dadié, who was born in Côte d’Ivoire. He worked for the French government in Senegal for a time, but when he returned to to his homeland he became part of the independence movement. He was Minister of Culture in Côte d’Ivoire from 1977 to 1986. Once again I’ve failed in my duties to record the exact place I found this poem, and it’s translator. I’ll have to followup when I get a chance to clean up these entries…


Leaf in the Wind

I am the man the colour of Night
Leaf in the wind, I go at the drift of my dreams.

I am the tree putting forth shoots in the springs
The dew that hums in the baobab’s hollow.

Leaf in the wind, I go at the drift of my dreams.

I am the man they complain of
Because opposed to formality
The man they laugh at
Because opposed to barriers

Leaf in the wind, I go at the drift of my dreams.

I am the man they talk abut:
     ‘Oh him!’
Him you cannot hold
The breeze that touches you and is gone

Leaf in the wind, I go at the drift of my dreams.

Captain at the stern
Scanning the scudding clouds
For the earth’s powerful eye;
Ship without sail
That glides on the sea

Leaf in the wind, I go at the drift of my dreams.

I am the man whose dreams
Are manifold as the stars
More murmurous than swarms of bees
More smiling than children’s smiles
More sonorous than echoes in the woods.

Leaf in the wind, I go at the drift of my dreams.

—Bernard B Dadié