CRÉOLITÉ EXPRIMÉ EN MARTINIQUE

Many regions of the world have known colonization and felt its repercussions. Slavery, indentured servitude, and conquest included people from around the globe, Africans, Chinese, indigenous people and their conquerors were precipitated together under the colonial model. Albert Memmi addresses the consequences of colonialism in his novel, Portrait du colonisé, Portrait du colonisateur. He specifically discusses the repercussion on both the colonizer and the colonized. Although there is no formulated solution to overcome the problems that rise out of colonialism, Memmi draws from history and theory he considers useful to countries wishing to transcend colonial histories. Although Memmi is an African born writer his work addressing social, political, economic, cultural, and identity crises has global implications. I have taken his words and applied them to Martinique. Martinique has a problem-ridden past. Colonialism transplanted people of different worldviews and ethnicities to a foreign territory. Although such people have been coexisting for generations, social, political, economic, and cultural discontentment is still apparent. The oppressed, colonized people have been searching to place themselves in an island governed by the descendants of French colonizers. Current inhabitants of the island and their ancestors have struggled to find and equilibrium between the past and the future in searching for an identity. A literary movement stemming from the 1980’s has adjusted its priorities to address these discontentments. Authors Patrick Chamoiseau, Raphael Confiant, and Jean Bernabé wrote Éloge de la créolité (In praise of creole-ness) defining the movement they call ‘créolité’ as a movement of creativity. The authors propose creating a new future for Martinique; their objective is to transcend the aftereffects of colonialism, still present in their country, by embracing an amalgam of biological and cultural influences. A parallel exists between the words of Memmi and the words of the proponents of Créolité and is evident in both literary and the academic realms in Martinique literature. In drawing on these parallels, Créolité reflects Memmi’s philosophy regarding a colonial division between the colonizer and the colonized