Ancient history

The tribal frame


By temperament, the French are assimilators. What suits him, what he willingly puts up with, seems good to him for others. But if he assimilates easily and with a very good heart - individuals, even small social or ethnic groups, he hesitates in the face of the difficult to measure consequences of an assimilation as massive as that of 60 million people of color to only 42 million French. We cannot blame him. So, we should logically commit ourselves with resolution to the path of association.
However, we see, in practice, responsible French people doing more and more
direct administration in the very countries of protectorate, which is diametrically opposed to the spirit as to the letter of the treaties and the resulting policy of association. The result is that these countries now pay two administrations, one, French, invading, dominating and omnipotent, the other, indigenous, reduced to the poorly figurative role of poor relation. This is patent in Morocco, Tunisia, Annam, Cambodia and Laos. It is easy to imagine the discontent aroused by these procedures, not only among the sovereigns thus injured, but also among the local elites, offended in their national pride, deprived of administrative outlets and thus left idle, away from the conduct of business, which gives them plenty of time to chew over their bitterness and criticize our actions.
We also note that our administrative and legal tendencies remain assimilative despite everything, without our even realizing it. account.
We favor the individual to the detriment of the community to which he belongs and which was previously all-powerful. Schools are multiplying. The most gifted students go on to secondary school and the best follow university courses. Education, security, facilities for transport, communications, the press, books, radio broadcasting, all help to spread new ideas, wherever they come from, while the faculty of reasoning and exercising critical discrimination is still weak.
The tribal framework is breaking up, the authority of the chiefs is crumbling, that even of the father of the family is often greatly diminished. And in black Africa as in Indochina, the action of Christian religious missions undermines traditional religious customs by the mere fact of their presence. In short, there is a general upheaval of the spirits and of the ancestral society. Everything is called into question and at the same time.
“From a community society with a mystical base, we are moving to a capitalist society with a state framework. »
Everything thus leads to the awakening or reawakening of local nationalisms. We blame the Frenchman, the white man, for the difficulties of the present, we dream with nostalgia of the good old days, of the golden age of the past, which seems all the more admirable because we generally ignore what was in it. of deep misery, arbitrariness and bloody anarchy. The evolved are among the most disappointed. They rallied enthusiastically to assimilation, yet they are not full citizens, but only French subjects. They feel that if they are welcomed everywhere, with a lot of spontaneity and even kindness, they are not necessarily accepted on the same level in French society. They stay out.
We don't put them anywhere on the control levers. Thus, the gap is gradually widening between France and the new local elites.