Françoise Vergès: The world is made through struggle

Added: 2026-05-09

[00:00:01]Hello, the psychic militancy. My name is Lara and I'm delighted to introduce you to our guest today. Before we get started, please make sure you like, subscribe, think about becoming a Patreon. These episodes go live sooner to you in audio form if you are a Patreon. And you can find us on www.patreon.com/sychicmillitency.

[00:00:26]Make sure to share this with a comrade.

[00:00:28]Get the word out. Um, and I'm especially excited for you to get the word out today with my guest, Franis Ves, uh, who is somebody that has been a pillar for my own growth for, uh, feminist organizing, thinking, psychic militancy extraordinaire, uh, par excellence as we say. But so I'm going to hand it over to her as I usually do. There are many things I could say about her and how her work has been uh just so meaningful to the way that I'm thinking about psychic militancy, my own feminist approaches to the world, my orientation to the world.

[00:01:08]Um, but I want to hear from her and I'm sure you all do too. So, welcome. Hello, Sahiki.

[00:01:14]>> Well, welcome. Very happy to have this conversation. you know, I would love, you know, that would be together, but already, you know, >> it's it's a way of meeting.

[00:01:26]>> Well, um I never do that very well, but you know, okay, Fruis, I'm from Reno Island, uh which is still dominated by the French state and which has been very important in my life. It's a smaller island in the Indian Ocean. So already the Indian Ocean has been very important because it's also getting me away from the Atlantic paradigm and being much more in Africa Asia access with you know uh and the importance of the Muslim world from the beginning you know we're there I always say when I was going to to school I was walking by the medasa you know and there was a temple and my I had friend um uh you know they were Muslim and so for me when I arrived in France after that and I noticed the Islamophobia I I was like what that so it was already so I grew up there it was very important as I said because my parents were anticolonial communist and feminist and I grew up as a child and as a teenager and I follow them very a lot I follow my father a lot I follow my mother a lot and so that was an education which was totally different from the school education so I like two education. Um but I mean the one I had at home and with the people of Reon in fact shed me much more than the education at school. Um and um I left Reon uh I had not finished high school because I was uh I felt that I will never finish high school if I was staying there. I was getting in fight with the teacher all the time. And I went to Algeria uh where my uh uncle lived. My uncle was Jack Vas who had been a lawyer for Algerian nationalist and he had married Jam Bered you know the heroine. Uh and so I I I went to their place. This is also for me was also a second extremely important political education to be in Algeria to be in a country that had freed itself from the French colonialism to meet this woman where had been icon for me when I was a child. Uh to be and to be in a place that was independent to be a place that for me I think was very important.

[00:03:48]So I did my bachelor you know the high school diploma and I went to France but I couldn't stand it. So I stayed like a month or two barely was supposed to go to the university and I went back to Algeria and at the time I wanted to stay there to settle there in fact to live there to started to learn Arabic that was that would be my home. uh but for different reason I left and then I went to France when also I was supposed to go to the university which I did for a while but then I started to be an activist and um and I worked I worked also which meant that also that distance with the university was also very important I think in my making because when I went to the university finally this was you know because I found myself in the United States for the reason we can talk about it's not like nothing mysterious. This is when I went to the university and so I had like years of activism and working as a journalist activist and also as an editor uh about um women's struggle in the world was I did not so it was never the university that gave me you know the feminism or or decolonial thinking or whatever I had.

[00:05:07]So but the point for me was like okay let's get a PhD so I can have have a job perhaps you know after that and these were also very formative years the United States and I was very involved uh in the movement against imperialist war in Central America then uh I went to Salvador during the civil war and to Padama after the invasion and so that was very important for me to understand that uh that imperialist state was to be there to it was also very formative. And then so my point was um I was a little girl in Reon and a teenager um and that was and Algeria really also deeply shaped me. I think the anti imperialist struggle was really what guided me in life even though I did not say it like that you know but it was that and um so I now I write I do also independent creating um doing a film I mean I suppose we will talk about it um and still involve into what we can call uh political education.

[00:06:27]So going working with collectives or young people um um doing a workshop or um reading seminar or or going also recently a lot to meeting and a public uh public meeting uh for Palestine that has been you know this since 2023 a lot of this happening a very it's a very how can I say very professional >> yes actually I think >> okay >> it's a very hard question to to locate ourselves but I think you did it amazingly well for me >> you went right into the ways in which desentering which I feel a lot of your work is about desentering hegemonic processes desentering the imperial access decentering Europe as the center of the world. I feel like you took us there immediately.

[00:07:33]>> Yeah. I mean, if if I say something a little less, I mean, I love to cook. I can say I'm a good cook and uh I have two arc I say, you know, one go from Re and we'll go to um East Asia, but also South Asia because that's also what I learned. My father was a very good cook.

[00:07:54]And the other one is Mediterranean. So, you know, it's go from Morocco and will go down Lebanon up to, let's say, Armenia.

[00:08:04]Um, not very good at French cuisine or >> whatever out there is the French cuisine.

[00:08:14]>> The biggest myth.

[00:08:16]>> Yeah, the vegan. So, I'm not very good at that. I Okay. And the other things I mean I I know. Okay. I love to read literature. I need to read literature.

[00:08:26]It's not just I love I need to read it.

[00:08:28]I cannot just read essay. And uh I sew I I I used to sew a lot when I was younger my own clothes. I was always been interested in that. And since I did not have a lot of money then I was doing a lot and and also when I was going to party I needed to have a a new things every time. So I I I saw something for that occasion and of course the next one I could not have the same thing. So it was it was always with you know kind of a inspired by I don't know 18th century this or 19th century that or I don't know some painting or Yeah. So I did that a lot >> and for a while I I was I sold my my my thing to get some money. So I did that too. But I want to go back to that a little.

[00:09:23]>> That's impressive and and I think the through line is the creativity here which I see not only in your work and in your writing and but the curating as well. Um, I wanted to go back to Reunion for a second because some of our listeners might not be aware of the island of French colonization, but it factors heavily in your work. It to me when I read your work, when I listen to you speak, um, it feels like again that disruption of certainly of French colonization and ownership, right? continued ownership over um certain spaces being one of them. I'm wondering if you could just situate the island for our listeners.

[00:10:12]You started to speak a little bit about antic-colonial struggle which your parents were a part of which you are continue to be a part of. I mean your family in general we you know has a long history in being engaged in anticolonial struggle around this but perhaps situate it for the listeners and then also just how you how it shapes you like it the centrality of it in who you are and then how you came to be. You you gave us a little bit about it by way of Algeria.

[00:10:40]Uh but wondering if you can give us a little bit more background so people >> can can listen to the rest of our conversation with that in mind.

[00:10:49]Yeah, it's a small island east of Madagascar, very small island which was a non-native population and when the French and the British wanted you know to arrive I mean the Portuguese before but then the French and the British and competed to have you know to get some colony in the Indian Ocean. It was very important because they wanted really to reach India and get the resources. It was very very important.

[00:11:18]it it was really a race between the French and the British. So the French took over that island, Reo and Moses and also try also to colonize Madagascar, but they would be able to colonize Madagascar much later. And so they was no native population, which has also interest me a lot. How would we think colonization when you don't have native population? And so some of the French will say, "Oh, this is not a colony because there were no, you know, native population. So there is no colonization." And I always argue that causation is also about the you know the regime of private property you know of of of enslavement of exploitation of land theft of course and you know and all these things and so they brought I mean they brought um enslaved from Madagascar and also the east coast of Africa but also from other part I found in the archive you know pe people also from Yemen or you know Malaysia. So I mean they were picking you know all around the Indian Ocean rim. Uh so slavery was coffee and sugar big plantation.

[00:12:27]Then they lost the French lost Micious to the to the British and they kept it and slavery was abolished in 1848 but in fact the land remain in the end of the white you know supremacist.

[00:12:39]Um and then in 1946 when you had this incredible move of decolonization everywhere and the French Empire was you know falling apart with Madagascar but also what they call Indochina which was Vietnam Laos and Cambodia Cameroon Algeria and everything. Um the movement in Reon but also Martin Gu and Guana asked for the status of department like equality. They wanted equality.

[00:13:09]So that was the they won in 1946 and this was really the antic-colonial left in this territory. That is important to understand. But it was by the 50s there was total disappointment and you had the creation of communist party and also of a movement and that asked for what they call democratic and socialist autonomy which was that they will be sovereign and for just foreign affair and military affair they will be on equal level with the French state. Everything else they will be totally sovereign. This was fully attacked by the French but criminalized. I mean there were a moment in the communist newspaper in which my you know my mother was a journalist there and my father also the word itself you know could get the the the newspaper uh sensor.

[00:14:04]There was even for some years it was also the photo. I mean, if you just had the photo of my father, you could, you know, get a fine and be jailed. So, that was really So, this way of me, I grew up in that situation of of incredibly of understanding that there was a France I learned at at school, you know, literature and, you know, Victoriao and Bodler and everything and there was a state. I I didn't I didn't don't think I put this word as a young person but I understood that France was also a state and that a state never hesitate to kill to sensor to to torture to absolutely crush anything that does not go with its you know decided the second thing also I understood that the French will never um um really accept equality will never accept equality of its colonize and that the state will absolutely you know rather have a war and send soldiers that as they did. Um I mean Madagascar was important because my parents supported a lot the insurrection of 1947. my grandfather particularly and you know defended and supported the insurrection and that insurrection I mean already for instance uh the French threw um people the Malagashi from the plane you know I mean that was not the Argentina who invented that and also they had ceremony of of submission when the Malagashi had to crawl on their knees in front of the officer to say that they surrender So this I learn about and for me that was really important to you know how it penetrated my child you know consciousness and my teenager consciousness that the state will never hesitate never hesitate and this I have carried that a lot with me and of course I see also um my parents being very well you know like constantly police surveillance and in 1964 my father was um uh was was he was tried it would be he should have been tried for um um threatening the security of the state that was something that had been you know put together during Algerian war to really really put people in prison that you know that threatened the state which mean that you weren't colonial and so he decided not to um not to accept that and he went underground and he wanted to prove that in this small island someone very well known as he was because he was the leader of the poor could hide because of the solidarity of the people he wanted also to prove that despite white supremacy the police and so on in fact you know you could hide and even hold public meeting and that was also for me I remember the first time so I we We we knew that my father my mother explained to me to us and I remember the first time after lunch I was going to school to high school. I was I don't know eight, nine or whatever. And so I opened the the the door of the garden and there was like huge police everywhere like people with guns on the on the roof of everything. And the the go there was someone who come to me and say, "Okay, we want to get in, you know, because we we want to search for." And I said, "No." And I closed the door when I rush. And I went to see my mother and I say, "Okay, there were, you know, the cops are there." And they called a search. And so my mother told me, "Okay, don't go to school today." And we were taught never never leave the police alone in a room because they can put something.

[00:18:03]So we were we follow them, you know. So that was also part of the education of like don't trust the police. Never trust the police. Never cry. Also my mother told us never cry in front of the police. Um never show any any uh feeling. Uh we had children and they wanted you know so you don't see your dad that must be tough and so on. So that was also something you know like don't trust these people. Never trust them. Never absolutely don't trust them.

[00:18:35]We were I mean even where we are going my mother was taking us to the beach they were like two you know u plain clothes cops with us are following us.

[00:18:44]So that was also part of the incredible violence that the state law itself that is not just of course jelling people but also the pressure the fear the regime of fear of you can lose your job you will not have promotion uh but also the intervening the you know for instance the uh communists could not baptize their children and that was very important for them indu who could not have their ritual. Um you know so the Catholic Church which was of course totally complicit with the uh postcolonial power was you know was doing that or not you know the priest will not come when someone died which was also for people was terrible things.

[00:19:32]Um, Islam was, you know, like they like if you want to be Muslim, you just have to bow your head and shut up like silence and we will, you know, accept it. So that was that reo was that for me and also the incredible solidarity and uh my parents took I mean as I say I never I wanted to see that I wanted always I wanted to go to political meeting. I wanted to go to the uh you know like meetings. I mean I wanted to be there constantly even as a child. And so I I also saw poverty and racism. Uh I did not again I did not learn about it at school or for someone. I mean I just saw it from my eyes. And that I remember even as a child it made me mad. It made me mad. Really mad. Really mad. as like this incredible arrogance of of the wide this incredible and we had teacher coming from France which we call them zor which is a word into a tamil word which has been you know transformed into creole and they were like they arrive I mean they were you know at home they are did not bother to learn about the history the language could care less you know could care less but for me it was also how the police um I mean later on I understood we were not it's not because we were children that we will be protected that childhood was not universal will not been universal you were we were the children of a communist leader therefore we could be you know treated as adult and of course around of course all the children of other communist activists So this constant repression, this um cultivating a regime of fear uh taught me also a lot how power um uh work you know how domination work um and how it people are extremely courageous and I I'm always uh admirative of the courage of people uh even you know what some people here in France could consider little gesture, but I know what it is. I know what it takes to to send it to to to walk with your head like that, you know, not to bow to the power, you know, to be like that. I know what the price is. So I'm always uh very um I think courage is too often not really considered as a as something that not everyone has as courage. That's not true.

[00:22:34]Moral and physical courage. That's not true.

[00:22:37]>> Yeah.

[00:22:39]One of the things that I love about what you're saying is there's a way in which you were reared in a in a different register, a register that's anti-colonial, anti-imperialist, but you're laying out also the ways in which even as a child you were attuned to the other textures that were happening at the same time. And I think one of the things is that certainly we see with the global rise of fascism and people there's there's a a level of consciousness raising that has been happening certainly in the last two and a half years but almost like an entry of a lot of people into the worlds that people who are marginalized certainly from the global south those under the boot of power have always lived in simultaneously and that's what you're sort of describing to us. The other thing is that everything you're saying flies in the face of what the French state and its peoples like to tell itself, right, about how they're different, how they're fair, everything that we know uh about the myth of of French colonialism. certainly as a Lebanese citizen what we have been taught about no right and you know so I you're you're you're just sort of laying out for us how this is not a new story how this mythmaking has always been part of the fabric how this psychological impacts that include the internalization of superiority and then the these creating of subjects that are inferior, not because in essence they are inferior, but because power is marshaled to make them so, and all the ways in which the state will mobilize every lever it has. You know, you're you're laying out when you were a kid to walk out into a heavily militarized zone. And sometimes we think that these are things like modern inventions, but there are all these different versions that power has always worked in this way.

[00:24:52]>> Yeah. And you know, I I want I've been I mean the police archive have been released and given to the local archav I think. So I started to look at them in 2024 and 2025 between 1950 and um let's say 1980. I mean I could look for but anyway that that was the intense moment of incredible repression. Of course they are constantly uh report on my father but everything everything I mean what I was interested also is a machine of surveillance in this machine not just because we know oh where the police you know look no there I was interested in the production of a of a certain also vocabulary you know and and imagining these people you know taking note then transcribing then uh writing them in good and then typing like six copy of them because two will go to the minister of interior, two to the minister whatever and so imagining like this incredible production, this incredible industry that mobilized so many people and then also gave a certain I mean that vocabulary and the tone in which you know this report are written and and which is really something that is is not just the criminalization in there is something about Pacific a normalization of criminalization because it's not necessarily oh these people are bad whatever. No, it's it's a constant um um level of of it's natur totally naturalized. It's totally normalized you know the fact that these people are bad. So it's not necessarily even to say they are bad you know it's it's in the it's in the vocabulary. And I was looking at the 1968 um uh report of the police report and and I found report on me. I was a a kid. I was a teenager. I was a high school kid. You know, I was a girl. I was a girl. And there are some and what is interesting in in also and you would be interested in that also of course that there was a suspicion through the report of me being a lesbian.

[00:27:08]because I'm very close and there was the name of the young woman or whom I was very close you know this kind of friendship you have when you are a young girl and so that also interested me you know the body you know uh that is so it's not so how these people look at us how these people look at us and uh how sometime we may lack even the vocabulary to describe what it is you know that how they um how they see the world and uh and so to to understand that someone a guy had been you know um given as a mission to write a report on me and it's very precise the report is very detailed very detailed so I was really I mean the guy did this his work and so that also because I was beside my father in my family I'm not talking about so many other people who were of course you know I'd report on them but I am the only other member of my family to have a a fire on me and so my sister I had a holder sister oh she share the father h I did but she's reasonable the one we have to keep an eye on is that one >> I mean this is fascinating on the one hand but also such a confession right and I think that's what you're saying the ways in which certain bodies become more surveiled and become legible to the state as dangerous as a threat. But there's an always already piece of this like the fact that you're a communist of course throwing you know sexuality into it. All these ways in which a counter way of being becomes a fundamental threat to the state and its coherence.

[00:28:56]Um, and one of the things that you're saying also is how you perhaps over time have learned to destabilize the givens.

[00:29:06]You said it becomes naturalized and that's how ideology works of course, but like the givens of our world and for me this is a great sort of entry piece into your book. So folks, if you have not read a decolonial feminism, pick it up now. This is on my desk always. I did not just bring this up because you're here with me. It is a book along with Fenong that sits next to me constantly because it's that central.

[00:29:38]So, but but it feels like you're you're bringing the fabric of this book into it and and I'm wondering if you could sort of it's seared into my mind into my heart and has guided me about how I understand the world, imperialism and colonialism and also a method like you you lay out a method similar to the ways that you're laying out right now about how we read and track and denormalize, denaturalize, move away from the organic the way that these systems try to sell themselves as organic. Um, can you talk a little more about the making of this book? I I have a feeling we're already kind of there, so maybe this is a good way to move into it. I mean, for me, it feels like a love letter >> to comrades. Um, but also like a a journal of sorts to yourself, like a reminder of all these things that you're laying out in front of us. But I wonder if you could give >> some background history about how it came to be.

[00:30:35]Well, as you were as you are saying, I think it's very important also for us to challenge even the temporality that we are given, you know, and for me that it was not the French that gave us birth, you know, and so in Reo we were not born is not the French, you know, because we the our ancestor come from very different places where their own ideas about, you know, life and death and everything. So for me it's very I mean the the refusal like it it's not even as I say no I refuse.

[00:31:13]It's like no I don't I don't care about your temporality. I don't care about your specialtity. The I'm not in it. I'm not in it. I've never been in it. I mean of course I accept but I've never been in it. And I think this is extremely important. So decoding feminism was also to challenge the temporality of western feminism and its specialtity also I mean yours I mean of you you know sometimes they say oh western I say okay you know it's your things you know get but I don't even want to have a discussion with that I don't sometime I don't even want to challenge it and say no and so on and so forth you know because I'm I'm losing time you know I'm losing my time I have too much to do, you know, I have too much work. And so it's like to say also from the beginning, you know, another temporality, another speciality, other bodies, other imaginary and I don't have to prove it against you.

[00:32:19]I I don't have to go through you know that oh when you were saying that you would no you don't exist as the measure of our of of us. Of course, we pay attention to your existence because you spend your time killing us and, you know, torturing and bombing our brothers and sisters, but you don't matter that much in term of your, you know, of what you will want us to pay so much attention to you.

[00:32:52]Um, fo, you know, you may remember that say the settler is an exhibitionist and I do think there is, you know, an incredible exhibitionism in e effectively settler colonialism. The absolutely need also to be as a center of the play. You know, even if to be accused of crime, but still he will be at the center. If you tell him, okay, stay on the corner. We will call you when we need you.

[00:33:22]drive him crazy or her for that matter.

[00:33:25]I mean, yeah.

[00:33:26]And so for me it was like okay really a decentering that is not um that is does not go through uh saying that the center uh you know challenging the center constantly but situating myself already outside of the center you know like and without of course the illusion that the center but not I mean the center is not the center there is something called imperialism called militarism and they will kill and mamm and torture but they are not the center of our world.

[00:34:02]I mean people in what we call the global s have lives that do not depend on on these people you know um they they are of course impacted by the cruelty and brutality of these people but they have lives outside of this of this regime.

[00:34:22]So the book was about also I was totally annoyed you know by western feminism but even as I say by the having to talk to them constantly to tell them you know um their demand of attention you know for attention their incredible demand for attention it's like god it's like it's like you know like bad and spoiled children spoiled children you Oh, you you can it's like no interrupting the conversation, you know, even with with when they cry. Oh, I'm sorry. I'm a white person. I'm sorry. It's like no, you know, like please can you learn to shut up once in a while, you know? You know, so the book was about okay, starting with women on strike, you know, and this woman whose work is not invisible, but they are invisible, you know, invisible eyes. And so saying yes effectively a decolonial feminist will be will not be about a woman's right and equality will be radically anti-racist radically antiist radically anti- capitalist and therefore to some form of supremacist patriarchy but it's not patriarchy first uh you know I have no illusion of you know patriarch but I always al also quite often say that patriarchy has been racialized.

[00:35:57]You can be effectively a tyrant at home, you know, a tyrant at home, but when you get out, you're just a Muslim, an Arab and a black man, you know, and uh and the the white will be, you know, don't don't fool yourself.

[00:36:13]even if you're powerful at one point you would be reminded that um you know you may be a billionaire but you're still not white you know so for me it was that okay and to revive this you know the fact that effectively um imperialism is impacting women's life and colonialism in what we call the global s much more I mean to a to an extent that is absolutely I mean for me I mean it's absolutely enraged me because there was another book also I wrote Lea was about when womens in France were marching for free abortion and contraception I know they were right that that's not my point at the same time uh 6,000 to 8,000 women per year were aborted without consent in Reno Island at the same moment and my argument was it's not a paradox. It's not oh my god something you know from the past from the colonial past. It's the same state that will decide who can have children and who cannot have children and who children will be love and who children will be abandoned and left even to die. So if we don't understand that you know then and we stay women women we don't you know we we will be in this liberal feminism you know and there is in this liberal feminism A trust in the state.

[00:37:44]Trust in the state that the state will protect us, you know, that we that state will protect us against our um companion, brothers, father, war, you know, violence supposedly.

[00:38:01]But the state will not protect us. The state will never protect us. For me, for me, this is clear. the state I mean the French state or or the or the you United States or British whatever will not protect us. They are the they are the one who fabricate um racism and fabricate you know like effectively uh racialized masculinities that they they will you of course they will allow to torture. I was I mean I I move a little out of your question but uh the systematic rape of male prisoner Palestinian prisoner um I argue recently I say we have to extend our you know understanding of rape because if rape remain just male domination over women which of course I mean I know it's girls and women who are the first victim okay that's not but the point that um uh that men are systematically raped reminding me also of this um distinction that African-American theorists make between the body and the flesh and say under slavery men black men and black women became flesh to torture to men to sell to traffic and the body was white and fragile and the white woman body and I think this is what's happening in Palestine time and so there is a way in which colonialism ungender if we can say or degender uh so the the fetishism of gender in western feminism uh when we look at colonial war imperialist war colonization um colonial regime I mean this different declination of colonialism of colonization we do see that at one point gender is not at all what what we have been told by uh by a western feminist. This is very for instance that boys also boys are rape in Palestine in the it's really that you see it at the question and I I don't think it's just about humiliating men. Uh it's it's really as I say this distinction between body and flesh and and we see at Israel this also the way in which the Israeli show their body you know the beach and and they are so LC and and beautiful blahy blah supposedly and so that that exhibition is to go back to the exhibitionism and seeing Israeli soldier I mean their fetishism of of bra and niggon of Arab woman and things. So to go back to decolonial feminism was effectively that this um the the western feminism the insistence of gender and uh and that absolutely in um erase um really erase um the way in which colonization and imperialism work and degender or regender consonant depending and how effectively uh they construct their on masculinity and femininity and um I saw that in Reno when I was going with my mother who was um a member of the union of women of Reno which was anticolonial feminism and for instance they were against the woman the French movement for abortion because they say we have to deal differently because we have been aborted without consent constantly So decolon femism was also reminding that and the method you were talking about the method for me is um is um also how we are trained from school no longer to see what we have under our eyes.

[00:42:07]So we see but we don't we have we are taught and not not to make sense of it.

[00:42:14]So for instance for me the the question of cleaning wom it's not that we know they exist we see them when we walk through airport or railway station but we don't see them we we don't see them and this question of for me of how we are trained uh not to see what we see what what we see uh was also important and so how we are told to look like that and not like that and I know that in our exchange And you were telling me about this question of the banana and of course for me it was like how do you take a banal absolutely banal object like everyone knows about like everyone knows through the world what is a banana and it's the most famous fruit and so not just looking through you know okay that's good for babies and elderly and the sick no but whole you pull what has to do with geography, anthropology, sexualities, gender, pollution, contamination, um capitalism, um uh consumption, um music, uh visual culture and then you you you expand your analysis and it's not just you know the way through disciplinary approach but how it touch different um area of our lives and that's so It's also to make sense because to absolutely denaturalize what's happening to us because there is a sense of like why is that like that what is unfair but unfairness is built in the fabric of capitalism and and colonization there was no it will not be it cannot be otherwise so feminism was if it okay let's be materialist also >> yes it's not an aberration this is part of what you're saying this is not an aberration the contra contradictions fit within this and one of the things I think that you so beautifully hammer home in in a truthtelling that's unbending and militant which is why I use your work so much and it centers me is that there isn't a bending away the seductions to bend away to present oneself as a particular way is also part of the seductions of a liberal white feminism that still demands that people become legible that show themselves to be softer some ways and fundamentally are fixed in their positions. They're fixed in their positions rather than recognize that all concepts, all identities certainly can be mobilized and weaponized in certain spaces and create fixed notions. back to the the the concept you're saying about the supremacy that's involved with fetishization and also um the exhibitionism. I just heard this morning that Zionists and I soldiers are already putting like Tik Tok videos up of the sexual fantasies they have of Iranian women after the liber quote unquote liberation of Iran, which it runs through it. it runs through it because of the supremacist nature that is inbuilt like you're saying that's the fabric of settler colonialism that's a fabric of expansionism it's the fabric of racial capitalism that's why we see it all the time and I think that your book I want to situate for folks the piece about the banana that you were just saying and I want to read a little bit I will put this in the show notes from the book it's on page 21 but just reading it closely and I love that you said that you take something bananal, you take something mundane, which I think is one of the easiest, you know, on the easiest things to overlook because they hide seamlessly. The mundane, you know, conditions us to look away from it because it's a space that has already been turned into normativity and turned into ideological common sense. So I love that you trouble this for us and you you say here this is a presentation of a critical decolonial pedagogy. I used a familiar fruit the banana to shed light on a number of analogies and elective affinities. The banana's dispersion from New Guinea to the rest of the world. The banana and slavery.

[00:46:40]The banana and US imperialism. Banana republics. The banana and agra business pesticides insecticides. The chloridone scandal in Antilles. The banana and working conditions. The plant plantation regime. Sexual violence. Repression. The banana and the environment. Monocultures polluted water and land. The banana and sexuality. The banana and music. The banana and performance. Josephine Baker.

[00:47:07]The banana and branding. Banana republic. The banana and racism. When did the association of bananas and necrophobia begin? The banana and science. researching the perfect banana, the banana in consumption, bringing bananas into the home, suggesting recipes, the banana and rituals for ancestors, and the banana and contemporary art. The method is simple, starting from one element to uncover a political, economic, cultural, and social ecosystem in order to avoid the segmentation that the western social science method has imposed. I mean, the brilliance of that breakdown, right?

[00:47:48]Too bad.

[00:47:48]>> That's incredible. The brilliance of that because it transforms a mundane thing into a contested conditional >> and it shows us the regime of clarity and militancy we have to have to unpack every single element that this world constructs for us.

[00:48:10]Because part of what you're saying to us is if the world is saturated by racial capitalism, by imperialism, by colonialism, by the hegemony of power, every element within that also is saturated. And this practice, >> this practice of consciousness in many ways, there's there's a piece of this that I'm taking up in my new book that's coming out in May. But this political commitment to practicing this method is one of the ways in which maybe like you're saying we unlearn the misatunement that schools and this world >> are insistent upon for us. Um, so I'm wondering if we can apply this banana method to the current day events. Like if you might have an example that does this or something that you think about or associate to that deserves our attention like our urgent attention to do this method >> uh together.

[00:49:06]>> Yeah. perhaps something in fact I would like to have your um how you you will react to that.

[00:49:15]Um when you had the flood in Pakistan remember in 2022 the terrible flood I read about you know the flood and I read about everything. In fact also it was one of the consequence of the way in which the British transformed the that area uh uh the transformed the irrigation because they knew better of course you know engineers and this was a place that I've known flowed for century and then because of the British became much more dangerous. So that was one point but u my point to go back to to your point about the mundane uh what I read you know among many many things it was um nobody had thought about that the fact that there will be pregnant women so out of one million victim there were like almost 400,000 pregnant women with no care for them no medical care no whatever so there were a lot of silvers and this was like but this is like so banal this is like so bananal that they will be pregnant women I don't know how many but they will be right and they were those and then you had the earthquake in Turkey and I was reading also about it and I read about the you know the corruption the fact that was you know and and how Syrian refugee were not you know um there was not a rush to sell them but among all again buried among all this uh nobody had thought of bringing sanitary pads for the women and the fact the banal things again like you know women from I don't know 12 14 year old to I don't know 58 like every month and this is not an extraordinary fact it's bal it's mundane again and then I read about Palestinian women in camp in Gaza who had to cut you know the their tent to do that and that for Israeli the Israeli state was forbidding the entry of vagenic product all of this the concentration on the body you know what I call vital needs that has nothing to do with desire you know like I need to urinate you know I need you know like it has nothing to do with desire has no something to do with the fact that you have a body and you know like and there are things that I cannot control and of course for woman demonstration and you know no intimacy I was reading um also a story of a young uh girl in in Gaza about the her difficulty to go to the toilet because they were none and to be in the open and and how that was almost terrible and she would rather be sick and it lar it's really touched me a lot you know because it's it's it's really about something that you cannot control you know like and and so that the the targeting of these vital needs that are daily, that are in the fabric of our lives, of our daily life, and they are absolutely mundane. And the constant constant repression about that in colon in colonization and no access to water or you know or or privatization of water or so all these you know that will affect your the body uh not in term again of you know desire or sexuality but about you know like the balancing of being a human being and um So that that really this the how do we reintroduce you know the mundane and the banal in our struggle.

[00:53:00]How do we start from vital needs? The satisfaction access to vital needs for everyone which mean land, water, hair, you know, but how this is being privatized and how there was a normalization, a banalization of the denial, the structural denial of these vitals. And I wanted to see that it was not just in during war or what we call natural catastrophe but I was sure it will happen also in rich country. And then I read that in some for instance factories uh you have to wear diapers because you will not be allowed to go to the toilet you know and so and in in the US or in in Europe. So that was so how do we bring in our struggle uh you know what what in fact was part of the antic-colonial struggle of the 60s and so on that you need to attend um to to the vitalies of of the people you know uh that part of the liberation uh it's part of the liberation and the dignity and um so that that question of the mundane and and um banal um and h and why it it disappears sometime from um the way in which we think liberation.

[00:54:32]So I've been listening to you. I've been reading you also and I wanted also to say what US would think how did you you know about what I say you know what would be your reaction also as you know as also conversation because I know it it's also I'm been listening to to to you and and the importance of course and how this denial is also related to form of psychic um wound I don't find the word but you you I mean of humiliation and and uh but deep humiliation >> yes >> uh >> yeah I mean I part of what I love about what you're saying is that you're bringing us back to where you know you started us and about the machinery you said I was interested in the machinery that was constructed to do all this violence And I think the best way to do that is to hide it in the banel. But but part of what I also hear in what you're saying is that part of our militancy or our commitment to an anti-colonial, anti-imperialist struggle is to always remember that it is an infrastructure and machinery that's working that deexclusivizes places. Like in many ways I think it's easier for us to see it in and we should because we see it at a spectacular you know rate and and in a way that that is you know evident so evident so violently and um and and perversely present. And yet part of what you're saying is that if you pay attention to the flood which can look like a natural disaster, right? It's there's there's an seduction for us to think about it in this way. If we think about farmer laborer movements in India, if we think about Kashmir, if we think about um you know using forever chemicals in Lebn, if we think about Kuba, if we think I mean you can >> you can do a a loop of the world >> and saying that >> part of what I hear you saying or where where I'm drawn to is to say this political commitment is also one that deexclusivizes the local and instead head >> troubles the condition because the condition has a portable logic that creates psychic suffering as well. It creates physical suffering.

[00:57:06]>> It makes the the hierarchy of needs one that becomes localized in the individual rather than a right of of living. Then we're in the position kind of like what you were saying with white female imperialists that you have to argue your position upfront rather than say this is a demand as a precondition to everything else.

[00:57:26]>> People should have access to water, air, land. That feels to so many people like such a large and sort of out outrageous demand and yet it is the most basic one.

[00:57:39]And so I I think you refocusing us refocusing us on the condition that's where I I go with this is saying okay that is that is the political commitment and if we are serious about the work of liberation of anticolonial struggle >> the condition that creates this type of suffering in a way that can also hide as a a problem of that space rather than as a problem of >> right imperial violence and colonialism and racial capitalism. Absolutely.

[00:58:10]>> That's great.

[00:58:11]>> Yeah. Absolutely.

[00:58:12]>> Yeah. And again, you know, I mean about all this work about, you know, with life matter. Uh for me, I was trying to explain that to some place with western feminism. I say your body, your life, I mean the the your healthy body uh your life rest on the explodation of 20 or 30 bodies. The person who is, you know, cultivating the avocado for your avocado toast, the one who is, you know, build doing the yoga mat that you're going to use, the one who clean the yoga place where you're going, the one would, you know, satisfy the sexual needs of your husband, the one extra, etc., etc. And I think you know like how do we make that really legible you know that that so it's not just it's it's how I mean again your bal life you know like that how this is Eden your life the fact and the life of your children that are most or less comfortable you know having access to fruits and vegetable every day and things like that rest really and so it's not abstract it's not abstract at whole.

[00:59:24]It's not about oh yeah we sad that you know children are exploited in the global south. No, for your body to be that body, it it require that other body will be deprived of water uh you know hygienic uh hygienic product uh decency intimacy there will be there is no other way you know so it's not about you uh you know um I don't know doing little thing like recycling your paper you that will not change anything you know it it's much deeper than that it's it's so psychic for me militancy and it's also about that you know like how this incredible um naturalization um it's cover even under history you know uh like that but um how do We again show the materiality of exploitation that it's deep in the body of people and in their psyche. It's it's not just oh they oh they don't eat three times a day that's sad.

[01:00:42]>> No >> that's right. That's right. And fundamentally for you to live like this it has to include the exploitation domination and coercion of others.

[01:00:51]That's that's the basic premise here. So what are the ways that we might disrupt that? I think that's for me part of what your work does is always invite us into troubling the fixedness of that and to implicate us in this struggle and to say that part of the trappings of white female imperialism is to imagine that you can fight these fights without paying attention to that. That me just becoming a boss is going to fix all of this. you're being the head of empire as a black woman is gonna fix all of this, right? I I I think, you know, your work has been very clear to me about saying >> no and and you believing that is also part >> of the mismaking of >> imperialism and part of how we we sort of get get stuck there.

[01:01:41]>> Um I'm wondering where the state of affairs are right now in France around these issues. I mean, I feel like if I had you living in the place that I was living, I'd be like, "Fuck yeah, I'm going to be doing everything that she's doing and thinking." But I am well aware, as I know you are, and some of our comrades that we share, um, that it's it's there's a troubled there's a troubled space um, in France around these ideas. So I'm wondering if you could let us know what it looks like, what are some of the contradictions, what are some of the tensions?

[01:02:21]>> Well, on the one hand, you know, things have u have moved and uh I mean nonetheless there mean there was a big demonstration against Islamophobia and finally some people of the you know institutional left march with us. So that was uh and also there is an understanding of racism that is structural.

[01:02:43]I mean we fought enough you know for a long time for that but um it's a it's a really neoliberal government uh we intend of crushing every movement there is a huge criminalization of pro Palestine solidarity people are very very you know like incredible a lot of pressure I was for instance invited to a seminar by university and uh I mean the student to have this seminar. It's about Palestine and so they invite people about you know the land the story I mean different you know approach and the the president told them if you want to keep the seminar going no Fraser and okay so they told me that they you know I say okay if you want to keep the you know the seminar going please you know I'm not going to make a fuss you know I'm I'm an activist so I I will I will go back what you are saying what you are asking me that not making a first So there is that there is it's incredibly racist. I mean the French for instance I mean replaying today in 2026 Algeria you know like they like you know guys you know you lost in 1962 is done okay bye-bye you know but they still playing there is something about nonetheless the French society um that is incredibly colonial and I think also being very afraid that they understand they are losing uh their status And uh white people are very anxious about that. I think this feed partly the far right their far their addation to far right not being not being much anymore you know having to share the world with other people that until now they thought they were superior to even in a patternistic way you know. Uh and but at the same time, you know, the last election for mayorship, a lot of the black and uh subsarian African and North African men, mostly men won and became mayor.

[01:05:02]And you see the incredible pride for them to be recognized as French. They they sang La Merc.

[01:05:10]And I have to say that I cannot sing, but this is you. But that's something else. I mean I have comrade who say no that's good that you know because they're now it's their country and it's true it's their country it's true they are French so they they they have a saying in in the country I suppose that for me the the only thing that I say that I'm I'm coming from a place that is still um colonized so I cannot have that the same I suppose the same um how can I say enthusiasm uh you know u I I think you know I I I nonetheless okay it this was incredible victory but I have not seen a lot of protest you know against the war in Iran against Iran. I mean there is a stupid things about Iranian women. I saw it even in a you know public meeting on for Palestine that a young woman you know arrive and say okay we should it's not because we are against US imperialism that we should support the Iranian regime I was like oh god no god you know do I have to hear that so there is a lack of yeah there is still a lack I think of understanding what it is and what is liberalism and also yeah this this um this woman's right is strong. It's quite strong you know the the the fact that women are oppressed and we should save them even though it's true in many case. Um so I have to say that sometime I this is me this is not political analysis of the situation. Uh I feel lon I feel lonely but I suppose that if you are u in you know psychic militancy as you call it uh you have to accept sometimes solitude otherwise do something else you know you know but that um you have comrades you but there are things that um I I'm too much I think an anti-imperialist No such thing as too much and we might not be in the same place but we're we're comrades and we share it. But you're right. I think it comes with the terrain is that if you are militant about your positions, if you're unbending, if you do, you know, to borrow from Sarah Ahmed, commit to being a feminist killjoy, if you are, you know, follow your method is that there are ways in which we will find ourselves alone but but connected across geographies in defiance of geographies with comrades who move similarly. I it one of the things that in our conversation leading up to this you'd uh you'd brought in the psychic realm of course psychoanalysis um then you and I joked before we got on here about how owns that space and how she to me is the representation of white you know female imperialism extraordinaire one of the most violent people I've seen that uses and weaponizes psychonosis in a very specific way but how is your sense of you know the writing out of certain methods of reading why the movement might look like this in France I mean to me it's not about psychoanalysis as like being uniquely positioned I happen to be trained in it so I'm always interested in subverting it and uh and uh not allowing it to unfold with the innocence that it relies on um but if nothing else it tells us there is such a thing as a psyche and that the psyche is contested space and so that seems important but what's your reading of like >> well that has been always important for me I don't know where how it how I came to it I I I cannot say you know there was this movement but I was interested very quick and when I arrived in France in the ' 70s I got interested there was also a lot of movement anti- psychiatric movement and also contested psychonalysis and reading a lot everyone you know like from of course when you cut me but also people from Argentina and things like that and also from Sagal fan also but also sineagal in South Africa and things like that. So for me, I mean the question of the the psychic has always been important also I suppose because I do think that um power can nonetheless destroy yourself psychically can kill psychically and it's important to know that uh they don't just kill you know physically and uh I have seen I have seen people um destroy psychically you know um they could no longer make it. I mean it was too much. Something was too much.

[01:10:19]And so how do we address that? You know, how do we address that? And and um I heard you also in in one of this exchange talking about if power want us to bend to to to become. So not not passively they would accept some perhaps some contestation, right? But as long as it remain within a certain space and a certain vocabulary.

[01:10:46]And so how do we train ourself also to resist here you know to to to have that um and so um how for me it was always been important to understand how fear um that power use function and not to and not to accuse people of being coarts you know like you know too easy or Um, so how do we enter in this uh incredible, you know, when we get into it uh in in that question of the without falling, as you say, into some kind of a, you know, general uh um statement, but that we acknowledge that there is a dimension that cannot be just resolved uh through ideology.

[01:11:44]um and how do we politicize that and there were that moment in the 60s7s in South America in Sineagal and Algeria but now it's totally it's practically lost and in France also it's it's quite lost I mean it's it it's moving a lot towards neurobiology and things like that and and there is a lot of trust into um form of self-help therapy because of constant distrust into psychonalysis and I want to be clear about psychis I'm not talking about the people who would do that into you know and but some of them also are doing good work but it's not but but in the fact that what is obscis telling us you know what what fo tried to tell us what what other also you know uh try to tell us um those who work in you know in in South America and central when you had torture and dictatorship and and and all this and what they understood of what was going on and you know and how effectively what will be um psychic militancy in in moment like that you know or what's happening today of course but as as you were saying before it's not just today that has happened before and I do think that there is a loss of that in in France but also I was talking in France in Italy when in Italy the movement was very very very important.

[01:13:15]Uh so there have been a loss of on the one hand I will say effectively not trusting you know feeling that psychologist was a pacif you know will be there to pacify which was which is partly true but in the in in the movement dropping everything practically you know and sometime using a psychic term in a way that I think much more ideological and not not letting it you know in the messy uh part of of you know of of what we are also and and and approaching that as if this is um how can I say a map as that we will circulate and not allowing uh yeah to to some you know moment of um of things being said that you don't quite know what how to answer.

[01:14:17]You know there is a lot of suffering. There is a lot a lot of mental what what we call mental suffering but a lot a lot a lot.

[01:14:28]It's incredible and it's growing and there was no answer to that. I mean there is institutional answer which is more and more chemical and you know less and less effectively taking care of you know lack listening or what trying and collectively and so I I I don't I sometime I don't feel that we what this this week are prepared for that or are really paying attention to that incredible mental suffering uh that people are going through um and which also happened with COVID and you know for the young people and with the climate disaster and the war everywhere the genocide in Gaza the war against I mean the falling that everything is falling apart right that and so how what is effectively the psychic militancy that you can that you can you know do that that will uh that people will feel Okay, there is something there that you know that I can do and I'm not going to fall apart. Um um because of course there is there is activism and this is it hold you and the collective old you but sometime within that holding there's not enough attention sometime to some you know uh that if we you know and then we learn that some comrad is you know being has asked to go to the psychic hospital because he or she is not cannot do it anymore. I mean cannot stand it anymore or kill herself or kill himself and so how do we do with that you know and that was um there were attention more attention to that in the 60s7s I will say I don't know what's your uh >> what's your absolutely I think you're you're right that I I I think this notion that somehow it's a bgeoa enterprise um psychoanalysis is an institutionalized form has a lot to blame for that and they did it on purpose it was a political project, right? It's not the psychoanalysis of deleg who are sort of thinking through these things and and being devoted Marxists and and materialists like you were saying. So I think that if we track the even though psychonalysis wants to sell itself as a non-political actor, the political project of domesticating it within the clinic and separating it from Fenon's sociogyny is part of how we end up here I think.

[01:17:11]So the instinct of re revolutionaries >> to reject the neoliberalization of it is a good one. And but at the same time we're losing the re like every revolutionary every political prisoner we know studied the way that the psyche is part of the contradictory machinery like you were saying and the ways in which these systems intend to intrude on our psychic space. They intend to steal our mind. So what are the ways in which we can remain militant in in uh being aware of that that that is a factor in it and even as outwardly everything moves to neurobiology and cognitive behavioral therapy and pop psychology and self-help like you're saying one of the things that I discovered in my research for this book uh that's come that's coming out soon is that the counterinsurgency manuals by the architects of psychological warfare continue to use psychoanalytic principles of the unconscious of impressing on people's minds of creat you know attacking the psychic relational social fabric.

[01:18:24]>> So outwardly you are telling people you are behavioral beings only but to mobilize power they are using all the tricks that you know Sigman Freud set in motion and our comrade Fenon warned us about. So it's a good reminder I think for us to reclaim it. What part of what I say is that we need to seize the means of production if we're >> instead of making it a bgeoa practice that rep replicates the social order and creates the individual. What does it mean for us to make sure that it among other things are also used as a weapon weapon for liberation you know?

[01:19:05]>> Yeah. Yeah. And so because also it it tell us that um we are also we remain individual but not individualistically and so the collective is also about taking care of this you know and uh and um um I remember I was in Brazil and I wanted I say you know I was it was a launch of a book um and uh I I asked to meet with women's group but not you know from academia whatever Anyway, so some women were telling me about um how how do they can they protect themsel from a psychic assault?

[01:19:50]So it was not just about the violence, you know, physical violence, but effectively the psychic assault and they had no place to talk about that in the the activist the militant uh space did not allow really for that. So they had to turn to what it's called traditional which does not mean so much but none but sometime they could not find really um yeah um yeah to be to be heard to feel to be heard >> and uh to have the space for that >> yeah and uh so for me I'm very sensitive to that you know when I see people um when I understand that there is a dimension of psychic suffering I'm I'm very because um I I see that there nothing is being done and um and it it because it's it's really suffering it's real suffering it's not is not a metaphor is Not a metaphor.

[01:21:08]>> No.

[01:21:10]>> Yeah.

[01:21:10]>> Yeah. So but yeah as you say reappropriating this because I I mean some years ago I was in Dhaka and they were you know it was a meeting from a lot of people from subsara Africa but also North Africa and there was a panel about psychiatry and they were telling me that everything that had been tried you know either the school of dha or bleed experience of bleed or in tunes what felon but also other places was totally abandoned and they told me it's back to chemical chemist. I say yeah and they say they say yes and I say in fact even people don't want to send their the member of their family to these places because they don't but so they don't know what to do and sometimes they will attach the person because the person you know will do whatever you know whatever goes through our mind and because they did not know what else to do you know and they did not want either also to abandon that member in the street or whatever. And I said, "My god."

[01:22:22]>> Yes. Yes.

[01:22:24]>> It's why we have to pay attention to it.

[01:22:26]Um, so as we're winding I mean, I could talk to you for the long, but I need to give you I need to give you your life back in a little bit, but I wonder if we could as we're winding down end up with this wonderful project that you're working on right now and give people a little bit of a preview. you you shared with me that you're making a film and that large part of it is based on the archives of your family and the anti-colonial struggle in Ron. So I wonder if you could give us a little bit of insight into it.

[01:22:58]>> Yeah. So um my mother uh died in 2012 and my father in 2016. Uh my father so um his mother was from Vietnam and his mother his father was from Reno. And um I mean there is a story also because my grandfather met this young woman, this young Vietnamese and married her and had two son uh Jacqu Ves and Paul Ves. and the fact that he married her and recognized her children, he was um it was a scandal for the colonial uh society because you could have a mistress and even have children with her, you know, whatever, but you don't marry her. So that was also part of the family narrative and it was very important for me. And when my father one of the attack also about my father was since he was partly you know uh Asian and for the white people or everyone is Chinese right whether you are Thai or he was Chinese.

[01:24:04]So anyway, when I started when they die, I gather all the archive and I went through it and even though I thought I knew my parents life, I discover a lot of things, you know, and that how they were absolutely committed to the struggle. It was incredible. I mean, this were two and and they love each other. uh when my my at one point you I was going through their paper and there was an envelope and I opened the envelope and there was a lot of little you know very smallly folded um paper and so I unfolded them. It was a love letter of my father to my mother dur when he was underground and so her letter were not kept because he was you know constantly moving and in this letter that I see that he's answering you know to something she had said and uh and she's a little I don't know concerned and he say no be strong I love you and so on and for me it was like oh wow you know it was like I was like a soap you know like so the this story also of of love and and activism.

[01:25:16]So my my thing I wanted to do a film on that but it moved to um uh how um anticolonial communism also which I think is totally ignored in Europe because communism also only ex exists in Europe and and the way in which for instance if there are communists in the south they have to be compared to um to someone in the north. So for instance, you know, I've been asking to write something about AML, you know, the communist from Leadant. And so it has to be a Gshi of the Arab world, right? And it's not Gshi being, you know, the AL of of your So all these things also started to annoy me a lot. the constant fact that we cannot exist without you know having you know a father over there >> a reference point >> or a mother over there and then we will exist you know so that was also to to revive this idea of anticolonial communism and what kind of communism was in in the south which was not at all this what you had over there the same way of what you're talking about effectively also psych analysis from the global source you know and everything like that. So I wanted also to show that to to to talk about that in the film and how come a a communist party in a moment of the uh cold war um and but also of incredible deconization everywhere and the connections through of my father to his brother to his twin brother Jagas uh and his involvement in the defense of Algerian nationalists also was very the internationalism.

[01:27:04]So an anticolonialism and internationalism very strongly. So I want to weave like it's going to be my story because I'm not a journalist. It's also my story as a child and as a teenager and but at the same time to talk about that to and also to um how can to celebrate the people of Reo who made it possible who who were so courageous and and defy the power and fought against the police you know with incredible determination and courage. I want to to celebrate that. I want to give their place because when my father died, I um I I said to my brother and sister that I will say something but and I will say something as myself as as France was not as a not for the family.

[01:27:57]Um because I wanted to say that of course he has been a revolutionary and very gorgeous but it was also because of the people of Reno that without the people of Reno it might have been very you know revolutionary but it was this connection and and how the people of Reno and I said this because there will be speech and there will be blah blah blah blah blah blah and I I wanted to say that so for me it's also to um give back. I mean to pay that debt to the people of Reno, but also to people of Madagascar, to people of Algeria, uh to the people of Cuba, to all these people about whom I, you know, I learned when I was a child and and that also gave me a a map of the world which was not the school map.

[01:28:51]So I knew what was happen you know Algeria was at the dinner table and and India and also Palestine in fact also you know so even though it was later that I I how can I say I couldn't make a a a theory or put word but this was part of the world you know it was part of my world this were word name that I heard they were not not name that I learned when I went to university or even has left his group. They were name that I heard at the at the family table and so it it was there you know and certainly it it shape also and I want to show that how effectively words also name uh shape also how you see the world.

[01:29:43]So it was not just France, it was Cuba.

[01:29:45]I I knew everything about Cuba, you know, and my mother read a lot and so it's also through literature because there were lot of books from all over the place. So I don't know, I read, you know, I read Georgia when I was a teenager, you know, not when I was and so that world that world of internationalism that that is so important for militancy.

[01:30:11]This is what I want to talk about. So through my parents archive uh through also my own archives and through things I'm finding here and there um uh and showing again also um um that fighting I mean uh part to be part of a struggle is a source of joy is a source of incredible joy and a lot of freedom because you understand how the world is made and not something that you know is obscure and you don't get it and why is like that and that's terrible and what can I do no it makes sense it has it makes sense and and the beauty the beauty of militancy also the com you know there is a there is I mean for me you know I was a child and I went to all these things in absolutely different social uh community among you know the um workers in the field or whatever and for me it's it's I was everywhere and it's and the beauty of of places the beauty of of people also also shape I think my relation to beauty >> yeah which is at the heart of revolutionary struggle whether that we're talking about chay or anybody who teaches about tenderness and love and as being part of a revolutionary struggle. I I am so moved by this project and I'm moved especially because all the things we've been talking about about refusals about troubling that you refuse to have the history of anticolonial struggle in your family and be sanitized because we know that liberalism loves to claim people after the fact and after they've criminalized them and punished them and have engaged in collective punishment like a your family >> many many years later there's a claim to their life and that claim often times sanitizes the deep political commitments and antic-colonial projects and I feel so moved that part of your refusal is no I will tell this story exactly how it is and this is what it's the heart of it >> drive me crazy it drove me crazy you know what they did to Mandela transform him into some kind of granddad you know the nice granddad for you know everyone of all humanity. I mean this was someone who was sent for 27 year in Jan was you know called a terrorist even by the French state and 5 years before his liberation and then after it's like oh like that and this pacification is absolutely an incredible tool an incredible tool and so for me it's it's the connection also on this very small island the fact also you can fight everywhere you don't need to be you know you can fight everywhere in your small place it does not matter. It's connect you to every struggle everywhere and so fight fight where you are you know don't because now it's like oh we are a small island no but you were also you were also you were a small island and you were connected to the world you know you were connected I mean I there is something also I want to show you know for instance I remember a woman I knew and I was often she was a black woman and you know for you know really from the popular classes and she was part a member of the communist party and a member of the women's union and she went to Berlin and she went to other place and that would have been possible as a person from from the French state.

[01:34:11]So the opening also that militancy gave you that you hear about you listen to people you meet people you hear about other story you compare to your own that open your world that you know is incredible it's part of the process process of liberation and that be and this is what neurobismization fight again they want us to be isolated from each other and also all as an individual you can come out if you are you know nice and speak well perhaps we will accept you but never as a collective and then isolation and division and so this is also I want to revive you know because this is not particularly specific to Reno but okay this place also and the connection also with the southwest part um Mozambi and South Africa and Madagascar and Moses and Komoro and also today.

[01:35:14]>> Yes, >> today explaining the pacification the process of pacification that I think is also important. They're I mean the French are quite good.

[01:35:25]I think you know for me they have really the the palm for colonization.

[01:35:33]They they make the colonized want to be French.

[01:35:38]>> Yes. and and pretend that they're nice doing it. We're the nice colonizers.

[01:35:44]It has been soul quenching to be in conversation with you. Is there anything else you want to leave our audience with as we wrap up?

[01:35:56]>> I know we have to speak and speak and speak for Palestine and for Iran. We have we cannot stop. This is really we have really to stop these people.

[01:36:08]They are really crap as we see in French. I don't know what there are the translation but the cruelty that we see which I think is in fact the answer to the to what we have been doing for so many years so many of us everywhere indigenous people everywhere and the queer and the and the Palestinian and the Iranian. And so there is a real real fear of the bourgeoisi of the global bourgeoisi. So on the one hand we we have to be care you know we have to see they take us to the abyss you know rather than with the climate disaster and the war but at the same time we have I think to be to understand that they fear us.

[01:36:53]They really fear us. So we have to keep, you know, making them afraid.

[01:37:01]And we have to keep to be together and have joy.

[01:37:05]>> Yes.

[01:37:05]>> And love.

[01:37:07]>> That's the political commitment.

[01:37:10]Thank you so much, comrade. I really appreciate this. I really appreciate it.

[01:37:15]And I'm sure everybody's going to love this. Until next time, inshallah.

[01:37:19]>> Until next time. Cha cha.