IN MEMORIAM ALFREDO BARBOSA AMADO (in A Semana)

Fra de Dadá, figura carismática da Praia, morre aos 84 anos

21-01-08

Alfredo Barbosa Amado, Frá de Dadá, figura carismática da Achada de Santo António e da Praia, onde viveu durante largos anos e onde lhe nasceram parte dos seus 31 filhos, morreu no passado dia 14. Polícia, desportista e comerciante foram algumas das actividades desenvolvidas por este cabo-verdiano de sete costados. Deixou 31 filhos, entre eles o autarca Aqueleu Barbosa Amado (Santa Catarina, ilha do Fogo), bem como o antigo comandante da POP, Abailardo Barbosa Amado.

Na Praia, sobretudo no mundo do desporto, não havia quem não o conhecesse. Aliás, foi graças à sua paixão pelo futebol que o mundo lhe abriu as portas quando, jovem ainda, tornou-se guarda-redes na sua ilha natal, Fogo, da equipa dos Nazarenos. Agente da antiga Polícia de Segurança Pública haveria de ser transferido depois para Praia, Boa Vista e S. Vicente. Na Praia, pelo menos, alinhou pelo Sporting. Reformado dessas lides, tornou-se árbitro de futebol. Além de polícia, Frá de Dadá foi também operador de máquinas das antigas Obras Públicas, dando ao mesmo tempo os primeiros passos na actividade comercial, actividade essa que haveria de preencher o resto dos seus dias, até a idade de 84 anos. Alfredo Barbosa Amado deixa 31 filhos, 79 netos e 17 bisnetos, além da viúva Maria Felícia Monteiro, que completou 78 anos no passado 15 de Janeiro, um dia depois do “passamento” de Frá de Dadá. A este homem íntegro e intransigente na educação dos filhos, um foguense que nem os largos anos da Praia tirou o vulcão e o sentido de honradez de um bom filho de Djarfogo, «A Semana» rende a sua mais sentida homenagem. À família enlutada os sentidos pêsames desta equipa, que todos continuem a honrar o legado de Frá de Dadá. Fonte: http://www.asemana.cv/article.php3?id_article=29092

Review of Dorothy White "Black Africa and de Gaulle"

Black Africa and de Gaulle: from the French Empire to Independence. By DOROTHY SHIPLEY WHITE. University Park: Pennsylvania University Press 1979.

(Picture: General de Gaulle and Governor Eboue in Chad during World War II)

No other French president had had much impact upon Africa than Charles de Gaulle. This is a conclusion that one easily reaches by reading Dorothy White’s Black Africa and de Gaulle. The book sets up to uncover a subfield of research hitherto neglected by Africanists and students of French history and politics alike. Although there is a vast literature dealing with the France’s presence in Africa, in both its colonial and postcolonial perspective, not much have been written concerning the role played by de Gaulle, both in strengthening and, ultimately, leading the fall of the empire.

De Gaulle relative political position to Africa, as analyzed by White, can be split into two stages. In a first period, which runs from 1940 to 1946, when he abandoned his active political role, de Gaulle, as a “man of Empire,” had used all of its political capital, in the aftermath of the Nazi conquering of France in 1940, to mobilize the empire toward salvation of the great nation. Dorothy explains that such mobilization was not easy process. In fact, the empire had either followed the Vichy regime rule or had been taken away from the French domain – as in the case of the Asian possessions. The empire went to support the war machine of Free France, instituted by de Gaulle in London, because of the political sympathy of the Governor Eboué towards de Gaulle’s cause. It needed just one colony, Chad, to cause a chain reaction of colonies mobilized for defense of l’hexagone.

When the tide of the war began to change, it became necessary to reward the Africans, who had given sweat and blood for the sake of France. This is the context of which the Conference of Brazzaville was called into existence. Such conference had the objective of revising (if not improving) the political relations between the metropole and the African colonies. One of the key recommendations of that conference, which would be made part of the post-World War Constitution (of the Fourth Republic), was the principle of representativity of Africans in the National Assembly. Crucial in this new post-war political configuration is the promulgation of what became known as Loi Lamine Gueye, because of its key promoter, a law that guarantees French citizenship to all Africans of the French empire.

From 1946 to 1958, de Gaulle remained out of active politics through self-imposed a political retreat to Colombey. This did not mean that he kept himself away from the news of the political game. White argues that de Gaulle was pretty much kept informed of all the crises and other political games of capital importance that were taken place in France and in her empire. During his stay of active politics, a lot had happened regarding the political configuration of the African colonies. Africans were now thinking more in terms of their political Africanity instead of their supposedly French Africanness. Among the most important event, the Loi Cadre of 1956 provoked important political consequences in Africa. This law, a framework law, considered among other things, the establishment of local assemblies in the French African colonies, thus, given more political agency to African politicians.

The 1958 crisis, one of the many political crises of the Fourth Republic, was the coup de grace for de Gaulle re-entering in the French politics. Back to active politics, however, de Gaulle found himself in totally different political circumstances of that of the first half of the 1940s. He used all he could to save the empire, by proposing new political constitution. Relative to the African colonies, the new constitution proposed to kill the old and outdated French Union and replace it with the French Community. The problem, however, is that some African politicians were actually speaking of a confederation – or even independence within that community, a solution unacceptable to de Gaulle (there were, nonetheless, those like Houphouet-Boigny who were siding with de Gaulle, rejecting any independentist or confederacy solution). Since the new constitution was to put under referendum, those who had chosen to stay out, de Gaulle warned, would mean totally abandoning by France. This was the route taken by Guinea, under leadership of Sekou Touré.

The book, however, does not delve into the post-independence linkages between de Gaulle and black Africa. It is clear that it mentions about the many agreements of cooperation between these France and her former colonies. Dorothy seems to neglect the role played by Jacques Foccart, de Gaulle’s Africa policy spin doctor, who had played an important role both in the negotiation of those agreements of cooperation and in the many political development that had taken place in Francophone Africa in the 1960s – to include many coups and counter-coups. Much could have been said about the many “dirty wars” that France, under de Gaulle and Foccart, engaged in Africa.