Lucie Cousturier, les tirailleurs sénégalais et la question coloniale (review)

Lucie Cousturier (1876-1925) was a French painter and writer who lived in Fréjus in south-east France in 1916 when some forty thousand tirailleurs sénégalais — the 'force noire' made up of African soldiers enlisted in the French colonial army — temporarily settled there during the winter months. Through a combination of biographical information, correspondence with the painter Paul Signac and the influential writer and art critic Léon Werth, a comprehensive bibliography, critical essays providing overviews of Cousturier's commentaries on French neo-impressionism, assessments of political movements and the formation of nationalist consciousness, engagement with the tradition of female travellers, explorers, and adventurers from the late nineteenth-century on, and treatment of the subject of the tirailleurs in Ousmane Sembene's films, we are better able to situate and understand Cousturier's role and influence in the broader context of artistic, literary, and political developments during the early years of the twentieth century. This framework also provides important insights on the archaeology of the African presence in France and the evolution of racial discourse. Cousturier's life and work were unequivocally transformed by the proximity to African soldiers, and she remained determined to narrow the distance between her and them, as confirmed by her interest in questioning presuppositions concerning Africans and by her motivation to spend an extended period in Africa. Her own position evolved from a 'regard généralisant' to one in which 'le regard qu'elle porte sur ces nouveaux visiteurs s'affine et s'individualise' (Elsa Geneste, p. 201); this evolution was reflected in the titles of her works, initially in Des inconnus chez moi (1920) and then in Mes inconnus chez eux (1925), which were the product of her African experience: '[c]ar en Afrique aussi elle aspire à connaître les autres, c'est-à-dire à discuter avec eux, découvrir leurs coutumes, leurs sensibilités' (p. 202). Nevertheless, her position on colonialism remains the subject of debate. Little argues that '[l]a critique du colonialisme de Lucie Cousturier est donc mitigée en ce sens qu'elle n'en refuse pas ce qu'elle considère en être les bienfaits. Jamais elle n'envisage l'indépendance des colonies. Son point de vue demeure foncièrement paternaliste [...] il ne lui vient pas à l'esprit de mettre en doute le principe de la présence française dans ses colonies' (pp. 160-61). Yet Cousturier and writers and activists such as René Maran and Kojo Tovalou Houénou 's'engagent également dans l'action politique en faveur des Noirs. Nombre d'entre eux s'allient avec des colonisés dans leur lutte pour l'accession à la citoyenneté française' (Geneste, p. 188); and Cousturier 'fait partie de ceux qui ont en effet compris très tôt le lien entre la force des préjugés contre les Noirs, leur visée infériorisante et la nature même de la domination coloniale' (Geneste, p. 200). Seventeen sub-Saharan African countries that achieved independence from European colonial powers in 1960 initiated various ceremonies and events in 2010 to mark the fiftieth anniversary, and President Nicolas Sarkozy invited conscripts from the former territories in sub-Saharan Africa who contributed to the liberation of France during the First and Second World Wars to participate in the 2010 Bastille Day celebrations. Given France's questionable treatment of the tirailleurs sénégalais when the war had ended, accurate historical contextualization such as that available in this book remains sorely needed.