RECYCLING THE HISTORY OF DECOLONIZATION: FICTION AND PLACES OF MEMORY

In French West and Equatorial Africa, the transition from colony to independent nation was preceded by various forms of resistance ranging from the Dakar-Niger railroad strikes to the full-blown armed resistance of the Union des Populations du Cameroun. As independence proceeded, the memory of such resistance was silenced, particularly in light of the neocolonial ties that linked France to her former colonies. This article shows that in the absence of recognition of anticolonial resistance at the institutional level after 1960, writers and filmmakers became the creators of postcolonial national narratives that included the "lieux de memoire" omitted from the official national narratives.