Marc Belissa invites us on a historical journey to the heart of the
Great French Revolution and the relationships with the realities ofcolonialism and slavery. He questions this period through the apparentlycontradictory prism of the proclamation of human rights and a colonialtype economy, based in part on slavery as the foundations of socialrelations in the French colonies of America or the Indian Ocean.Major contradiction between the proclaimed ideals of equality and therealities of colonial exploitation. The book is built around this issueof slavery and that of the colonial link. It was on February 6, 1794that the French Revolution, by decreeing the first general abolition ofslavery, increased the tension between the ideology of human rights andslavery, the economic foundation of opulence. of an unscrupulousbourgeoisie. This proclamation questioned the colonial link which unitedthe two ends of a chain in opposite destinies.The work begins with an inventory of the extent of the French colonialsphere. It begins with the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of theCitizen and the reactions it generated in the short and medium term: theTerror of the Colonists, 1789-1794, the resistance of the slave partyand the redefinition of the terms of colonization, 1795-1800, then thecolonial reaction, 1800-1804. During these fifteen years, socialrelations, "racial" and political identities have been disrupted. Theauthor takes care to always maintain this link which unites the twoterms of the contradiction in exploitation. He questions the colonialrelationship through trade, but also Power and ideology. He explores thecirculation of men, writings and reported words. He tries to extractcommunities and irreversible oppositions. He questions the imaginariesof freedoms and the imposed realities of colonial identities.This journey takes him to these lands of contradictions where battlesbroke out between abolitionist movements on one side and the defense ofa slave-based and counter-revolutionary social order on the other.Contradictions which were most often expressed violently, through dailyhumiliations and vexations, through colonial wars in opposition to thesacrosanct universal declaration. Browsing this link proves to be veryinstructive, and the author provides here a substantial synthesis, but,for all that, can we consider that from the meeting between the colonialrevolutions and the radical movements in mainland France emerged theproclamation of abolition of slavery in Saint-Domingue in August 1793?And that the vote for general abolition by the Convention in February1794 was welcomed with fervor in the country? As proof, the large slaveports of Bordeaux or Nantes did not stop their trade.Wanting a "common wind" of emancipation to have blown across the worldis not enough to exonerate oneself from the realities of capitalistdomination and its colonialist and slavery expressions which lasted wellbeyond the years in question.Dominique Sureau (UCL Angers)Marc Belissa, The French Revolution and the colonies, La Fabriqueeditions, November 2023, 300 pages, 20 eurohttps://unioncommunistelibertaire.org/?Lire-Marc-Belissa-La-Revolution-francaise-et-les-colonies_________________________________________A - I N F O S N E W S S E R V I C EBy, For, and About AnarchistsSend news reports to A-infos-en mailing listA-infos-en@ainfos.ca
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