Letter to Jimmy

by Alain Mabanckou

  Setting aside any doubts one might express about some of Bruckner’s theories—how for example, if asking these questions, can one not expect generalizations from the fiercest opponents, not only from the side of the “victims,” but also from his own side that “cries,” and now repents—one is obliged to respond to his outstretched arm and to his sense of dialogue: “There are no innocent or chosen people; there are only more or less democratic regimes capable of correcting their failures and of assuming responsibility for their past transgressions . . .”132

  He argues against the “triumph of the abdication-minded,” which is in conflict with the triumph of the accusation-minded from the other world that he considers to have been at all times and in all places the punching bag for the white man’s monstrosities and appetite for conquest. Between these two antagonistic positions, the side that cries and the side that accuses, the cease-fire is a long way off. Self-criticism is a rare commodity we no longer find in the marketplace. Add to that the absence of thoughtful and objective reflection, and the coming together of people is further undermined, and the path down the famous “competition for victimhood” further widened.

  In 1961, Jimmy, your friend Jean-Paul Sartre, in his preface to Frantz Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth, legitimized this theory of victimization: “Our victims see us in their injuries and in their chains: this is what renders their testimony indisputable. They need only show us what we have done to them to make us understand what we have done to ourselves. Is this useful? Yes, because Europe is in danger of dying.”133

  To the Europeans who insist that they cannot be held responsible for the consequences of colonization—because they were never in the colonies, you see!—Sartre underscores the duty of solidarity burned into their collective conscience, which is probably the cause of the tears currently being shed by the West: “These are your pioneers—you sent them overseas, they made you rich. You warned them; if they spilled too much blood, you would politely disavow them, in the same way a State—no matter which—maintains a network abroad of agitators, rabble-rousers and spies that it disowns when they are taken . . .”134

  •••

  Meanwhile, Jimmy, the strict regulation of migration and the political restructuring of European states as one bloc have created “individuals without fixed nationality.” The entire definition of the immigrant’s status has to be revised. The presence of these people from former French territories becomes as a result the subject of great debate, and the subject of agitation and political posturing during election campaigns.

  The African immigrant is no longer the same, to be sure, but one must from now on consider his descendants who, not being from “over there,” must nevertheless find their place “here.” They are torn between two, sometimes three continents—their place of birth does not guarantee them any sense of belonging—while at the same time the “values of the Republic” to which they must adhere do not take into consideration the history of their ancestors. The little “black grandsons of Vercingetorix” can do nothing but try to see themselves in Rimbaud’s Bad Blood: “I have the whitish blue eye of my Gallic ancestors, the narrow skull, and the clumsiness in conflict. I find my clothing as barbaric as theirs. But I don’t butter my hair. The Gauls were the most inept skinners of cattle and scorchers of earth of their time. From them I take: idolatry and love of sacrilege;—Oh! all the vices, anger, lust,—magnificent lust—above all lying and sloth.”

  The son of an immigrant could perhaps from one day to the next be picked up from school and deported with his parents. It is the politics of diversity that is being discussed now; you would be surprised to discover that a debate has begun to rage in France over affirmative action, and that your native country is sometimes used as a model to follow.

  We are still a long way from understanding that other is not necessarily a synonym for loss and subtraction, and even less so of division, but rather of addition and even multiplication, two operations that we can no longer engage in sparingly in a world that challenges more than ever the rigid definition of national identity.

  It is in this sense that the philosopher Achille Mbembe reproaches France for its lack of the kind of hospitality practiced mostly by the United States that has allowed it to “captivate and recycle the world’s elite. Throughout the last quarter of the 20th century, [the United States’] universities and research institutions managed to attract nearly all of the top black intellectuals on the planet.”

  But can we applaud the American model of hospitality blindly, Jimmy? The Cameroonian philosopher argues, “Whether we like it or not, things now and moving toward the future are such that the specter of the third world in our culture and collective lifetime will not rise in a quiet way. The presence of this specter forces us to learn to live exposed to one another. And although we have means of limiting this increase in visibility, in the end, it is inevitable. Therefore we must, as quickly as possible, make the specter into a symbol that facilitates understanding.”135

  •••

  At the same time, relations between the “dark continent” and France bring to mind a children’s story with, as yet, no moral. Europe and Africa avoid the issue of history—or at least stifle their differing views of it—while quietly muttering their respective reproaches behind each other’s backs. They are like a couple who hides their incompatibility in public, promising to a family court judge, saddled with the same case for centuries, to keep their dirty laundry behind closed doors.

  Is there any hope for these spouses? I am not sure, because when they run into each other on the street corner, they hastily gloss over their differences, telling each other they will discuss everything later. But one of them never comes home on time, returning whenever he feels like it, adding to the ever-growing list of infidelities while swearing, on all that is holy, his undying love.

  To stick with fairy tales, Jimmy, I would say that once upon a time, a rooster crossed the ocean, ran aground on African shores, did without parental consent to force himself on the dove as her husband, accumulated acts of domestic violence, and all with such an arrogance that he practically declared war on any other animal eyeing his barnyard. This is how, in my country, Congo-Brazzaville, the Gallic rooster and the Belgian lion would have killed each other over a patch of land had it not been for the intervention of the German mediator who made them sit down at a table in Berlin to work out a way to share.

  The marriage between the rooster and the dove lasted for decades. The 1960s were the divorce years, sometimes through mutual consent, but more often than not through the wife’s bitter fight for liberation; the losses were incalculable and would deplete the inheritance of the children born of this union. The rooster decided the settlement. He would leave, but his spouse would be nothing more than a dependent at the mercy of his charity. The rooster could return to the marital home whenever he pleased, and behave like the master of the house. Moreover, he reserved the right to choose a new husband for his ex-wife. At best, this new husband would have attended French schools and universities; at worst, he would be nothing more than an old house servant, a Senegalese Tirailleur, or a frustrated military man, but who got along well with the rooster, to whom he vowed to keep careful watch over his former home.

  With time, the new husband would become temperamental, would build castles for himself, proclaim himself “General in his Labyrinth,” president for life—or even in death—with a cane and traditional uniform. And we are the children of this divorce who must be understood.

  You would have spoken today in particular to the former colonies of black, French-speaking Africa, Jimmy. These are undoubtedly the only ones since the “The Suns of Independence,” since the refrain from Grand Kallé’s song, “Indépendence Cha Cha,” who remain on the platforms, deceived, and cheated, watching the phantom trains passing, bemoaning the cursed Ham. How will they not yield to the lure of the “competition for victimhood?”

  I am sure that it would be to them that you would address your
words, though not to scold them, but to look them in the eyes.

  You would tell them that the attitude of the eternal victim could not for much longer absolve them of their inaction, their equivocation.

  You would tell them that their current condition stems, directly or indirectly, from their own illusions, confusion, and their one-sided reading of history.

  There is nothing worse than the person who plays the role he is expected to play, aiding even the most mediocre of directors to exploit his own despair. The world is now full of this type of artist short on ideas, and it has been a long while since the plight of the Negro inspired anyone’s altruism. His salvation is to be found neither in commiseration nor in aid. If that were all that was required, the wretched of the earth would have changed the course of history.

  For me to say “Negro” is no longer enough to evoke in the mind of the other the memory of centuries-long humiliation endured by my people.

  It is no longer enough, Jimmy, for me to say I am from the South to get assistance from the North in their third-world effort, because I know that aid is nothing more than a veiled prolonging of enslavement, and to be black no longer means anything, starting with people of color themselves. Moreover, Frantz Fanon finishes Black Skin, White Masks in terms that should inspire us in our understanding of our own condition: “I do not want to fall victim to the black world’s ruse. My life does not have to be a summary of negro values. [. . .] I am not a prisoner of history. I do not have search through it to give meaning to my destiny . . . In the world into which I direct my own step, I create myself endlessly.”136

  Instead of seeking out the definition of one’s status, one is better served by interpreting and untangling the meaning of words, what they convey, what they imply, for the destiny of the person of color. In the end, definitions imprison us, take away from us the ability to create ourselves endlessly, to imagine a different world. As long as these definitions appear absolute, the question of the other remains acute. It is in this vein that I understand your warning: “And, in fact, the truth about the black man, as a historical entity and as a human being, has been hidden from him, deliberately and cruelly; the power of the white world is threatened whenever a black man refuses to accept the white world’s definitions.”137

  •••

  In 2004 Albert Memmi published Portrait du décolonisé arabo-musulman et de quelques autres, in which he tasked himself with assessing the condition of the formerly colonized, a half century after the “Suns of Independence.” This work shows us to what extent the offspring of immigrants, having lost their cultural bearings, invent themselves by espousing other forms of culture that are now the subject of many studies. The children of immigrants live in a sort of social exclusion that ultimately drives them to delinquency, as Memmi highlights. Disoriented, they turn to the culture of your native country—I should say: to black American culture—that some consider to be a subculture, with all the negative associations that come along with that: “Having refused to identify with his parents, believing himself to be rejected by the majority, nothing remains for the son of the immigrant but to exist on his own. He must therefore seek a model to emulate outside of mainstream society, and outside of its borders [. . .] Naturally he will not look to foreign conservatives, with whom he would experience the same type of rejection. Rather, he gravitates toward the opposition and the marginalized, to what one refers to as the ‘subculture,’ preferably American, and principally black culture.”138

  The son of the immigrant who “borrows” from black American subculture creates a status for himself not unlike the one you experienced as a black American in Europe: you came from somewhere, yet Europe was not interested in your roots. Except here we have the son of the immigrant who does not see that the black subculture he chooses has for a long while been an expression of the need to return to the mythic land in the eyes of the black American: Africa.

  The immigrant’s son, Memmi continues, “still doesn’t know, believing he is borrowing from the blacks, that the blacks sought their inspiration in Africa, not only because of their common skin color, but because, judging themselves to still be under the yoke of whites, after having been their slaves, they believe they have in this way found their pre-oppression origins.”139

  In this way subculture is a reflex, a refuge, for an entire group that considers itself to be the victim of marginalization. They participate in a mob mentality and a collective desire to reject the mainstream vision of the world. Anyone who rises against the west is a hero for these minorities. We saw this, Jimmy, in the wake of events that changed the face of the world on September 11, 2001.

  Finally, through the invention of their own language and style of dressing derived from African-Americans, the young immigrants wear these differences as badges of their revolt. They defy law enforcement who, in their minds, look at them as lifelong “Natives of the Republic”. . .

  afterword

  dialogue with Ralph, the invisible man

  Yesterday I walked the length of Santa Monica Beach in hopes of crossing the vagabond to whom I dedicated this Letter to Jimmy. I hadn’t seen him in some time, and I began to worry.

  I asked the ice-cream vendor if he had seen this character, easily recognizable by the bundle of clothes on his back. But the vendor had not seen him in some while, either.

  So I walked back up toward Ocean Boulevard and sat down at a table on the terrace of Ma’kai, my manuscript in hand. I intended to read over the first few pages of the text since, in several days, I would have to send it off to the editor in France. But I could not do it without finding the wanderer.

  •••

  I was immersed in my reading when the sound of a horn startled me.

  Lifting my head, I nearly jumped for joy: my wanderer was crossing the street, the “don’t walk” sign still flashing red. He approached Ma’Kai.

  I stood up and waved to him. He looked away, hastening his step toward Santa Monica Boulevard. I quickly paid my bill and tried to follow him. Near a big hotel, I saw him sit down on a bench and open his bundle of clothing. From the disorder of his belongings, he pulled out a book: Invisible Man, by Ralph Ellison . . .

  I took out a five dollar bill and handed it to him, as a pretext for striking up a conversation.

  “You take me for a beggar, too? I see, I see,” he said.

  “Actually, I . . .”

  “Don’t apologize. Please. —Sit down.”

  “You like Ralph Ellison,” I asked, to change the subject.

  “I read him every day. If I had a bed, I’d say that it was my ‘bedside reading.’ Let’s say that it’s my beach reading, or, better yet, my sand reading. On top of it, my name is Ralph, too, so it’s almost like I wrote the book.”

  “I haven’t seen you again at Santa Monica Beach, Ralph.”

  “But I see you every day.”

  “Oh really?”

  “I even know where you live.”

  “How’s that? You’re joking, Ralph!”

  “It’s a long story.”

  “Can’t we talk about it now?”

  “No, I don’t feel like it . . . Just know that you live in my old apartment.”

  I remained speechless, simultaneously skeptical and gripped by a sudden distress.

  “You think I’m crazy, is that it?” he asked.

  “You have to admit that . . .”

  “Ask around and come back to see me.”

  “I haven’t seen you in quite awhile!”

  “Oh, sometimes I change locations. Last month I dreamed that people were attacking me here. So I went out around Venice Beach to get some rest. It’s nice there, but there are too many people. People also trample my sandcastles and I can’t read my Ralph Ellison in peace.”

  “But sometimes you destroy your sandcastles yourself.”

  “So? I’m the one who built them! I have the right to do what I want with my castles. I just can’t tolerate people coming to destroy them. They don’t realize how
much time it takes me to build them.”

  “I’d like to talk to you about someone—an author. This year is the twentieth anniversary of his death . . .”

  “James Baldwin?”

  “How do you know that?”

  “It’s written right there, on the paper you’re holding. And I see his picture there, too.”

  “Oh, right . . . Actually I’ve just dedicated my Letter to Jimmy to you, the text that I’ll publish in France in honor of the author who lived there.”

  “No kidding! But why would you dedicate it to me? I’ve never read Baldwin.”

  “I’ll give you one of his books tomorrow.”

  “Don’t bother, I only read Ralph Ellison. The others aren’t my thing.”

  “But why Ralph Ellison?”

  “Because I’m an invisible man, too. I’m white, but I’m really black . . . And since I’m a white man, people don’t see me; they don’t see my misery because I’m part of the majority. So for a long time I’ve lived this way, hoping that God would give me my true skin color one day.”

  “I don’t understand . . .”

  “You can’t understand. Come see me tomorrow.”

  “Where?”

  “At one of my castles, I will tell you about the place you live. You will know the whole story, and I’ll show you things.”

  “What time?”

  “Four o’clock. By the way, don’t forget to bring me one of James Baldwin’s books.”

  postscript

  James Baldwin the brother, the father

  The paths that lead us to a writer are as mysterious as the ways of the Lord. Several years ago, I was far from imagining that I would one day “talk” with the American author James Baldwin, who died in the south of France in 1987, in Saint-Paul-de-Vence. I was not drawn to him because we had the same color skin. I was born in Africa, the land of his ancestors. I had lived in France, his land of refuge. And now I live in his homeland: America. Was this reason enough to devote my admiration to him, even though most of the writers I admire often have nothing to do with Africa, France or America? Was I simply in awe before a writer whose uncommon path and chaotic life could not help but move me? More than this, the life of every author is often its own novel, sometimes even a tragic one. This is perhaps why the genre of biography exists . . .