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	France sets Slavery Memorial Day by Reuters, BBC News, The Guardian France   Jan. 2006   France sets Slavery Memorial Day. (Reuters)   French President Jacques Chirac has announced a memorial day to mark the abolition of slavery, his latest attempt to soothe racial tension stoked by winter riots and a law on the country"s colonial past.   Chirac said France should be proud of its history in a speech delivered days after he told his government partially to repeal a law encouraging French teachers to paint a positive picture of the country"s colonial history. The law had caused anger in the country"s overseas territories, forcing Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy to cancel a visit to the French West Indies last December.   "A country"s greatness lies in accepting all of its history, with its glorious pages but also those steeped in shadow," Chirac told members of a committee working to ensure that France"s slave-trading past is not forgotten. "Our history is that of a grand nation. Let"s look at it proudly. Let"s look at it as it was," he said. Chirac set the memorial day for May 10, the anniversary of the Senate"s adoption of a 2001 law recognising slavery as a crime against humanity. The day would be marked by events in mainland France, its overseas territories and also in Africa.   Pressure groups pushing for recognition of France"s role in the slave trade were outraged by a law last year that urged teachers to stress the "positive role of the French presence overseas, especially in North Africa".   The law, quietly passed last February, became politically explosive when lawmakers from the ruling Union for a Popular Movement refused opposition calls to revoke it in November after riots by youths, many of North African and black African origin. Critics said the debate raised questions on whether France, whose empire ended in wars in Indochina and Algeria, had learnt anything from its colonial experience.   Following the riots, the government has promised to tackle racial discrimination that was seen as one of the underlying causes of the violence in poor suburbs around France. Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin was set to meet ministers later on Monday to discuss racism and anti-Semitism.   Jan. 2006   Chirac proposes end to colonial law. (BBC News)   French President Jacques Chirac has said a controversial law on the teaching of France"s colonial past will be overturned. The law requires teachers to stress positive aspects of French colonialism, especially in north Africa. But during a New Year address, Mr Chirac said the law was "dividing the French" and should be rewritten.   MPs from the Socialist and Communist parties say rewriting the law is not enough and it should be scrapped. Victorin Lurel, from Guadeloupe, whose Socialist Party had tried to block the law, said: "The only solution is to repeal this law of shame, pure and simple."   The colonial history law was passed by the conservative-led parliament in February last year. Overseas minister Francois Baroin told France Inter radio the law was a sore point for French people whose families came from the former colonies.   Around 44,000 people signed a petition calling for the law to be repealed. Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy was forced to cancel a planned trip to France"s Caribbean islands of Martinique and Guadeloupe by the risk of angry protests, according to AFP.   Dec. 2005 (The Guardian)   A new law calling on schools to promote positive views of French colonialism has provoked outrage.   The ghosts of France"s colonial past have returned to haunt its present, to the embarrassment of the centre right government and the fury of historians and immigrant associations.   A heated debate is currently raging over what to do about article four of the so-called Law of February 23 2005, an amendment slipped in unnoticed during the final stages of the bill"s passage through parliament.   The disputed clause, inserted by a group of provocative rightwing MPs headed by Christian Vanneste, currently on trial for alleged homophobia, reads: "School courses should recognise in particular the positive role of the French presence overseas, notably in north Africa."   This has upset historians, on the grounds that the state should not write history. It has angered the left, from socialists through communists to Trotskyists, which, in an all too rare display of unity, has come together to demand that the clause be scrapped (and gathered 180,000 signatures for a petition to that effect).   It has infuriated immigrant groups and citizens in France"s overseas territories, who know full well that "the French presence overseas" was, on occasion, every bit as brutal and exploitative as that of any other colonising power. And it has severely embarrassed the government.   The prime minister, Dominique de Villepin, has repeatedly confirmed in the national assembly and on television that there is "no official history" in France, and that it is "not up to parliament to interpret our past".   But, with the more or less willing backing of his UMP party, he has so far refused to countenance any immediate move to repeal the law, preferring instead to wait for the results of a three-month parliamentary inquiry ordered this week by President Jacques Chirac.   (Mr Chirac is plainly feeling less than comfortable himself with the whole matter: in the same breath as ordering the inquiry, he stressed that "the recording of our collective memory can only be a task for historians", and promptly proposed a national day of remembrance for the descendants of French slaves.)   In the assembly this week, Mr de Villepin resorted to the kind of patriotic lyricism he always indulges in when he is unsure of himself. "I am proud to be French, and I accept all France"s history," he insisted, to howls of "Repeal, repeal!" from the opposition benches.   "We are a great nation that has known hard times and grandeur. In our history there are exemplary battles, the affirmation of the ideals that has forged our identity, the great principle of the 1789 revolution," he added.   There are also a number of less glorious episodes. In the words of a second petition signed by 1,000 historians, writers, intellectuals and entertainers, "In retaining only the positive aspects of colonialism, this law imposes an official lie on massacres that at times went as far as genocide, on the slave trade, and on the racism that France has inherited today."   Leading historians are outraged. "In Japan, a law defines the contents of history lessons and textbooks minimise Japan"s responsibility in the Sino-Japanese war," said one eminent professor, Pierre Vidal-Naquet. "If France wants to be like that, it"s going the right way about it."   Immigrant groups and angry citizens of France"s overseas territories are less concerned with state interference in the teaching of history than with the cruel lie that the clause perpetuates. Like most forms of colonialism, the French empire caused enormous suffering.   Laws governing how certain periods of history should be taught in French schools have been passed before: a 1990 law outlaws denial of the Holocaust and a 2001 law dictates that the slave trade be described as a crime against humanity. But those episodes are unambiguous.   "The reality of the Holocaust and slave trade is self-evident," said Thierry Le Bars, a law professor at Caen University, who has also signed the petition. "It is by no means self-evident that France"s colonialism was positive. Think of the ignoble legal status of the Muslims in Algeria, of the massacre of up to 5,000 Algerians in Setif in 1945, of all the unfortunates who endured the hell of slavery to assure France"s Caribbean prosperity."   Feelings are running so high in the Caribbean departements of Martinique and Guadeloupe that Nicolas Sarkozy, was forced to call off a planned visit last week in the face of impassioned marches and the threat of further protests.   "This law is an insult to our forefathers and wholly unacceptable in a democratic republic," said a spokesman for one Martinican association, the Collective for the Repeal of the Law of Shame. "Imagine how the reaction would be in mainland France if a road was suddenly renamed Benefits of German Wartime Occupation Street."   http://memorial.nantes.fr/en/slavery-yesterday-and-today/ Visit the related web page
	Blazing a trail for Africa''s women by Lucy Fleming BBC News Africa - Liberia   African women are celebrating, as Liberia''s Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf has become the continent''s first elected woman president.   The 67-year-old grandmother said she hoped her win would "raise the participation of women not just in Liberia but also in Africa".   "It''s a historical phenomenon, which is going to be an example to other African countries... I could scream my heart out," Nigerian politician Sarah Jubril told the BBC''s World Today programme. So is Mrs Johnson-Sirleaf''s victory the start of a trend?   Ugandan academic Sylvia Tamale says African patriarchal societies like to see women firmly in their place. She quotes a Ugandan man at a woman candidate''s parliamentary campaign rally in 1996 asking: "Have you ever heard a hen crow?"   Yet, despite these traditional values, African women can crow success on a number of fronts.   For the past two years Rwanda has led the world in parliamentary representation for women. Its case is more unusual given the large number of people, educated and moneyed, who returned from the diaspora after the 1994 genocide - but it does reflect the trend in countries moving from post-colonial turmoil to multi-party democracy.   In rankings compiled by the Inter-Parliamentary Union, Mozambique, South Africa and Burundi have more than 30% of parliamentary seats held by women, compared to an average of 19% for their contemporaries in Europe.   New constitutions like those adopted in Burundi and Rwanda ensure ethnic and gender quotas, while political parties like South Africa''s ruling African National Congress have quotas for women candidates.   Affirmative action has it critics, but as Kulah Balo - a woman farmer in Sinje village in Liberia - illustrates things are changing even in remote areas.   "Women are becoming more involved in making decisions in the village. Before, when the men held public gatherings here, they told us women to stay behind. If we went, they wouldn''t let us say anything," she told the BBC.   Mrs Balo says with more educated women in the public eye, ordinary Liberian women have been given a sense of empowerment. "Before whatever the man said would go but now both husband and wife take decisions together."   And it was fighting a cause for ordinary women that won Kenya environmentalist and politician Wangari Maathai international recognition. Known for her tree-planting campaigns, last year she was awarded the prestigious Nobel Peace Prize for promoting social, economic and cultural reforms.   Mrs Sirleaf and Mrs Maathai share - as well as iron determination - a feminine approach to politics. Mrs Sirleaf says she wants "to bring motherly sensitivity and emotion to the presidency" as a way of healing the wounds of war.   Feminine sensitivity, however, is not something that is immediately associated with Zimbabwe''s Vice-President Joyce Mujuru, whose nom de guerre during the 1970s liberation struggle was "Spill Blood".   Analysts believe she was picked as President Robert Mugabe''s number two last year, not only because she is from his ethnic clan but because her husband, Solomon Mujuru, once led the army and can still guarantee their loyalty.   This is a slight role-reversal. In the past, it was by pulling strings from behind the scenes that women managed to exercise power.   In Rwanda, former first lady Agathe Kanziga, married to the late President Juvenal Habyarimana, and her family kept a firm grip on the steering wheel until 1994.   But despite concerns about Mrs Mujuru''s leadership qualities, she has earned respect for going back to school to finish her education as well as taking up a ministerial post after independence in 1980.   And education remains the biggest challenge as girls'' schooling is often sacrificed in favour of boys - for example in Benin only 47% of girls attend primary school compared to 61% of boys.   After Mrs Johnson-Sirleaf, a former World Bank economist, perhaps Africa''s most powerful woman is Nigeria''s feisty Finance Minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala. A one time vice-president of the World Bank, she is waging war on corruption in Nigeria and has negotiated a debt relief deal worth $18bn (£10bn).   Mozambique''s Prime Minister Luisa Dias Diogo is another former World Bank employee, who shares the nickname "Iron Lady" with Mrs Johnson-Sirleaf.   In a strange coincidence, Mrs Johnson-Sirleaf will be Liberia''s second female head-of-state, after Ruth Perry who acted as a transitional leader for a short time in the late 1990s.   Another concern for African women campaigners is that women are often raised to see each other as competitors.   Without unity, Zambia''s National Women Lobby Group argues that women will have no hope of capturing the presidency next year.   This week the umbrella group announced it was backing the candidacy of the FDD''s Edith Nawakwi. "This is the first time the women''s movement has clearly indicated to the country that it needs to take seriously the issue of having a female president," Ms Nawakwi said - urging women to go and register to vote.   Despite the fact women are a majority in Africa, to gain a meaningful mandate they need the respect of their male constituents and colleagues.   Even high-ranking female politicians can sometimes be treated with little or no respect. Three years ago, Uganda''s then Vice-President Specioza Kazibwe revealed that she had been forced to leave her husband after he had assaulted her. The revelation caused a stir in Uganda, where wife-beating is not uncommon.   In Liberia, Mrs Sirleaf will need to win over the ex-combatants, who largely favoured the brawn of her opponent, the ex-footballer George Weah.   With so many obstacles, female politicians in Africa must often feel it is almost impossible to get to the top.   But Mozambique''s Prime Minister Diogo - tipped one day to be president - says she just treats it like a Mozambican woman who has to create a meal for a large family, often without ingredients.
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