April 6, 2011 – Little noticed and scantily attended on a warm and sunny spring day, France showed its gratitude to one of its “great men” today by solemnly awarding its highest posthumous honor to Aimé Césaire (1913-2008): a place in the tomb of the Pantheon in Paris.
The honor of being selected by the highest levels of the state to enter the Pantheon is a rare event, occurring every few years at the most. The entrance of poet, writer and statesman Aimé Césaire to the Pantheon can be seen as a symbolic recognition of diversity in France.
Introduction into the Pantheon of great men (and recently women) of France typically involves the transferal of the honoree’s remains into the tomb of the building. Césaire’s remains, however, will stay in Fort-de-France in the Caribbean French island of Martinique, while it’s a plaque bearing his name, unveiled today by President Nicolas Sarkozy, that consecrates the importance of Césaire’s influence in French letters and, to a lesser degree, politics.
Though Césaire served as mayor for the town of Fort-de-France for 56 and as a national representative from Martinique for 48 years (it’s possible to hold both positions at once), his national reputation derives especially from his poetry and other writings, particularly concerning the literary (and political) movement called “negritude” of which he was a founder.
The movement developed after WWII at a time when the four old French colonies of Guadeloupe, Guyana, Martinique and Reunion were in the process of becoming full-fledged departments (something like counties) of France.
In preparing today’s event at the Pantheon, the French Culture Minister said that in addition to recognizing one of the great voices of French departments overseas, it also “pays homage to the vitality of cultures from overseas that have long influenced French culture overall.”
Among the “great men” who preceded Césaire in the Pantheon is Victor Schoelcher (1804-1893), who was instrumental in abolishing slavery in French colonies in 1848. Schoelcher’s remains were moved to the Pantheon on the centennial of his death. In the preface to a collection of Schoelcher’s works published that year, 1948, Césaire called him “a rare breath of fresh air that blows on a history of murder, of pillage, of atrocities.”
Translation of works by Aimé Césaire in English include “Discourse on Colonialism,” “Notebook of a Return to the Native Land” and “A Season in the Congo.”
– Photo and text by GLK.