With less than 250 years’ worth of history to our credit,
our young nation most certainly wants to promote the little we do have and
share it with the quarter million visitors who holiday in our country every year.
And that is all the more reason why the stories and tragedies in our history
must be told in their entirety and not from a single perspective.
The story of Pompée, the slave who was sentenced to die at
the stake, is just one of the many tales already told through the critical eyes
of the historian and now the romantic eyes of the artist. And credit for the
dedicated art exhibition must go to our local artist and sculptor Egbert
Marday.
Opening the exhibition to coincide with this year’s edition
of FetAfrik, when our rainbow nation celebrates the African dimension in its
melting pot, was well chosen too. Except that as is so common with our
omnipresent party politics and political rhetoric in everything we do, the
occasion seems to have given government ministers and officials another golden
opportunity to claim credit on behalf of their government for improving things
for everyone.
That the exhibition showcasing the life of the Mozambican
slave and his ‘heroic’ murderous act against what some have termed “the barbaric
system of 1810” should ‘bring the story to life for all Seychellois to
understand what really happened so we can fully appreciate the future,’ may
seem evident to the culture minister.
That it should ‘promote our vibrant history and give tourists
and residents alike the opportunity to learn more about important aspects of
our history’ may seem less evident to the rest of us, especially since the
slave was tried and convicted of murder, even if he pleaded in court that he
killed his white overseer because the latter beat him up and because he did not
like to be commanded by a white man. The punishment received by the
Mozambican-born field worker was that he be burned alive by the French colonial
authorities on 15 August, 1810 near the Moosa River in the tiny nameless
establishment of a very young colonial outpost barely 40 years old.
“We need to learn from that past so that we can appreciate
the future,” the culture minister said as he opened the exhibition which could
only have been one artist’s perspective on the slave’s life story. Of course
Pompée’s story evokes oppression and repression, and heroism and revolt against
barbarism. But it also evokes rebellion and a heinous crime by a man who broke
the law. Pompée cleaved his overseer with a sickle whilst his partner in crime
held him down. Hardly the stuff of romance and certainly no act of self
defence!
This may have been one of the tales upon which our so-called
people’s revolution of 1977 was justified with its promise to restore power to
an oppressed nation. But it also illustrates perfectly the dangers of viewing
history through rose tinted glasses and seeing it in a rosecoloured romantic
perspective.
Whilst no one doubts that Pompée may have lived “a very hard
life”, or ignore his courage in taking on a ruthless system, this like many other
similar stories, must be told in its entirety if it’s to be a true lesson in
history and if every Seychellois is to fully understand and appreciate its
significance. The Colony of Seychelles in 1810 was part of Napoleon’s First
Empire – a time when protest was met by repression. History recalls that Pompée
was not burned because he was a black slave but because the small colonial
outpost had no executioner to behead him. And besides, his death had to serve
as an example to all who dared challenge the authority of the day in a colony
of only 317 whites, 135 free blacks and 3,015 slaves.
Since 1810, our liberated country has seen many more Pompées
and their stories too are waiting to be told. The post-revolutionary period after
the 1977 coup d’état provided the backdrop for many other tragedies and their
heroes that remain part of the living memory of many citizens to this day.
Stories abound of those who lived, were persecuted and died for their sustained
loyalty to the party politics of our pre-independence era. And if they may not
have suffered the same fate of Pompée, history does recall Simon Denousse and
his friend Mike Asher who died in the inferno of a vehicle on a deserted beach in
the South of Mahé in 1982 and Gérard Hoarau gunned down on his front porch in a
London suburb in 1985.
Pompée may be an
essential part of our young history. But so are the likes of Simon and Gérard,
Davidson Chang Him, Bérard Jeannie, Alton Ah-Time, Gilbert Morgan, Hassan Ali
and many others who disappeared or were killed in circumstances that have never
been elucidated and whose stories have never been told.
That’s why we must also make the same space for their stories
in that place where “wonderful art can be placed” and where students, residents
and tourists alike can “appreciate the history of Seychelles” and the barbaric
acts of a liberator.
N. Tirant
Source:Today in Seychelles
