An Interview with Werewere Liking by Christine Cynn, "If I Had a Hundred Arms, I Would Do Many Things"
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ON IVOIRITÉ [the governmental restrictive redefinition of Ivorian citizenship that began in the early 1990s, in the aftermath of long-time president Felix Houphouët-Boigny's death and the struggle for his succession that ensued among politicians]:

Personally, I think that generally people withdraw into nationalism when they feel threatened. And my grandmother used to say that it's up to the person who's causing fear to reassure those who are afraid. Because when someone is afraid, they become nasty, so if you are causing fear, it's up to you to reassure the person. And when the person is no longer afraid, they are less nasty. So, I say that Côte d'Ivoire found itself at a moment in its history that many peoples have known. It's not only Côte d'Ivoire! It's like that: a human, an animal, everyone, as soon as they feel they are in danger, they show their claws. But it's temporary. For me, this is an epiphenomenon. The problems of ivoirité, if they exist, I truly believe that they are temporary. This is a moment in the history of a people and then it passes. I think that Côte d'Ivoire is a land of hospitality, a country in which people used to be very open-minded. Well, if they felt they were in danger at some point and they showed their claws, that's the survival instinct.

But I think that that can't last because Côte d'Ivoire is a country of hospitality. Everybody came from elsewhere to come here, so that can't last. It can only be temporary. As for myself, I saw this while reassuring people, trying to . . .. Because it is useless, when somebody's afraid, to start pointing guns on them. They will only become more afraid. So, that seems all useless to me. I think Côte d'Ivoire is the capital of Africa, at least of Sub-Saharan Africa. Côte d'Ivoire is the capital—it was the first to show receptiveness to other countries, and this is not about to change now. That's the way it is. In any case, I am here, I feel at home and I don't see how anyone can prevent me from feeling comfortable here in Côte d'Ivoire.

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I've told you that this business [ivoirité], almost all developing peoples have known it at one point or another. Even in the West, at a given point, people start feeling a bit invaded. Today, it's Europe that feels invaded and that is afraid, that rejects everyone and wants to withdraw when it did almost everything to bring people over there, with ropes around their necks, shackles around their feet and all that.

People came here to fetch us to bring us there and now, today, they want to drive us away. But they no longer can. They can't. They won't be able to. Because Europe has responsibilities toward Africa. Even if it's immigration. How do they call it? Selective? [a reference to the new direction given to French immigration policies under the ministry of then Minister of the Interior Nicolas Sarkozy in 2005] I forget the exact term. Whatever! Today, when people talk about globalization, people think that they are the only ones entitled to market shares, but everyone is entitled to market shares! Therefore, everyone is looking for market shares in their own way, that's it.

I am amused by all that, even though it's extremely sad. Because many lives are lost. But death is also man's destiny. Death is part of life, so people will die, but people will always be born; people will keep on fighting until they capture [the market] since it's the West that shows us that it's heaven. Everyone wants to go to heaven!

When it turns into hell over there, everyone will come back here. No, but seriously, what I mean is that this business of ivoirité, how long did it last.? Not even five years. It was stillborn. Because this is not what people meant when they used that term, I believe. I believe people misused the term and then it awoke some things at a time when people were afraid. But today, nobody ever mentions this thing in that particular form, not even the people who came up with the concept and who, I am sure, never thought it would lead there.

When people talk about "francité" ["Frenchness" as opposed to ivoirité], nobody complains. So, for me, it is, as I told you, really, an epiphenomenon. The roots of the harm stem from one part of the world, the dominant Western civilization. It has made people understand that there is only money and you have to have it and have more and more. There is only the material and wealth is only on the exterior. It's things, it's monopolizing lands, things, etc. So that everyone . . .. It's this same civilization that is now showing its limits. It's this very civilization that is offered as a model for development. What is given to us as a model for development today? What we are given as the model for development, is, well, you have to have cars, houses, go to the beach, I don't know. You have to have a lot of money because things are getting more and more expensive. And this is unrestrained. How many people are rich? Everyone knows that there are at least five wealthy individuals in this world who would be able to stop the world from being poor, humanity from being poor, who would be able to save humans from starvation. But no, they don't do it. They keep this money for themselves alone. They build things while humans don't even have anything to eat. So? This is how it is. We are chasing a development that is not one and that is showing its limits. In this civilization, as long as this dominant civilization has not been corrected in its spiritual foundations, well, things are going to keep going the way they are.

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I think one should not look at what happened in Côte d'Ivoire as something so extraordinary or strange. It was a reaction to an instinctive fear and that is quite accountable in the face of a civilization whose ground rules are unknown to us. Because it's always the same people . . .. You work, but it's the other who decides the price of your goods, who dictates to you what you have to do. But in the end one day that falls apart, and that is going to fall apart more and more. Because it's civilization itself, the current dominant civilization, that poses a problem for mankind.

But as long as we refuse to see that, one is going to see epiphenomena everywhere, well there will be more and moreÉ People say: "We're fighting a war against terrorism"—and terrorism grows! "We're fighting a war against some disease"—it becomes pandemic! I think we need to stop these battles "against." Useless wars. We need to try fighting "for" things. We need to do battle so people live better. We need to do battle so that people can cope. But as for wars against terrorism, against drugs . . .. Since we began fighting drugs, there have never been so much! Since we began fighting terrorism, there has never been so much! And the more you fight those things, the stronger they become. This is the way life works: when you fight against something, well, the thing fortifies itself from your own energy. There.

So for me, Côte d'Ivoire, really, I have nothing to say concerning what is going on here. These are normal jolts in the life of a people. Also, the roots of this need to be located. The roots being that we are lost in false needs, in things that aren't essential that are passed off to us as essential. So everyone is chasing after it and it's natural for everyone to want to reach heaven, isn't it? And yet, heaven is not this form of development. This civilization is not heavenly.

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And I think that we, Africans, had better try a lot to imagine what could have happened for what happened not to have happened that way. And that would certainly allow us to prepare for future situations not so distant or different from these. Let me use this example, the other day I was watching a movie. I think its title was Les Temps Changent (Changing Climate, Changing Times, 2008, directed by Marion Milne). This is a movie set in the future.

And this man [director Marion Milne / scriptwriter Philippe Dussau] sets this movie in 2075. And, really, the movie is very interesting. I think he made some beautiful points because he warns about global warming and all those greenhouse effects and all that mankind does: deforesting, machines and the rest. And he manages to rescue a few things, a few people. Except that what he manages to rescue from Africa and Africans is that we're still being selected at the border, over there, and those who manage to go through and have the luck of being selected; they go off to rescue people's orange trees. That is to say that at no time could he imagine that Africans could find other solutions or would be able to play a role other than that of the eternal slave.

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