America, Their America (John Pepper Clark)
Pour moi, John Pepper Clark, c'est d'abord cette phrase que répétait une amie originaire du Ghana : Contrition twines me like a snake. J'ai découvert longtemps après (merci Internet) qu'il s'agissait de la première phrase du poème Fulani Cattle de John Pepper Clark, un auteur nigérian. J'ai également découvert que ce dernier avait effectué un « voyage d'études » aux Etats-Unis en 1964 et qu'il avait raconté son expérience dans le livre America, Their America. Ce livre n'a pas plu à tout le monde parce que J.P. Clark n'a pas été impressionné par le modèle américain. Son ingratitude en a dégoûté plus d'un et il a dû écourter son premier voyage.
Et pourtant, c'était une chance incroyable pour lui, pauvre petit journaliste du Nigeria, de découvrir ce grand pays : visites organisées, invitations à des événements, accès à des personnalités de la politique, du théâtre et du journalisme... Tout le monde s'est démené pour rendre son voyage le plus agréable et instructif possible. Mais cet ingrat n'a rien compris et n'a pas été ébloui par la démocratie à l'américaine. On lui reproche à la fin de n'avoir pas assisté aux cours de propagande civilisation américaine avec ses confrères, bénéficiaires comme lui d'une bourse de recherche (fellowship) à Princeton, offerte par la fondation Albert Parvin. Cette bourse est destinée à des étrangers prometteurs de pays nouvellement indépendants, du bloc soviétique, en voie de développement... et vise à leur montrer la démocratie en pleine action. Le problème de J.P. Clark : les Etats-Unis ne le fascinent pas et il le dit.
J.P. Clark traite de différents sujets qui constituent le titre des chapitres : les noirs aux Etats-Unis, l'éducation, le rêve américain... C'est justement mon chapitre préféré : American Dream. Même si je ne partage pas toujours ses opinions (il faut bien dire qu'il se comporte parfois comme un enfant gâté et j'ai parfois eu l'impression qu'il ne cherchait qu'à choquer), les critiques de J.P. Clark sont dans l'ensemble valides, bien que pas vraiment originales. Il est arrivé en connaissance de cause, avec l'idée de ne pas se laisser avoir par la propagande, et ses observations n'ont fait que renforcer l'opinion qu'il avait au départ.
Ce livre m'a plu, même si parfois les propos de J.P. Clark étaient assez obscurs. C'est un poète. Je suis d'accord pour qu'il ajoute les poèmes que lui ont inspiré son séjour. Mais dans le texte même, certaines images rendaient difficile la compréhension. J'ai dû relire quelques passages plusieurs fois et je ne suis pas certaine d'avoir tout compris. Mais le point de vue présenté dans ce livre est plutôt intéressant. Même s'il a été écrit il y a 50 ans, certains thèmes restent d'actualité.
Extraits
For me, however, Firestone gave no security. On my way to America, I had stopped in Liberia and seen the one huge rubber plantation Harvey Firestone has made of it. All that land had at one time been made over to the Pan-Africanist prophet Marcus Garvey. But the combined powers of the United States, Great Britain and France disapproved of his plan of settling the coloured people of America in the midst of subject Africans. So instead, Firestone inherited the vast lots, and Garvey headed for jail and oblivion.(...)
Today it is Princetonians, and not young Liberians in any appreciable size, who enjoy part of the abundant harvest of Harvey S. Firestone. Yes, every book I plucked out of shelves in there brought the taste of ash to my tongue. But then for the owners, these are what they call endowments, benefits and donations. Indeed the gracious living of the rich and the civilized gives rise to the disgraceful conditions in the lower depths of the earth.
The American Dream
De Tocqueville's history is still held to be America's best testimonial. In the one hundred and thirty odd years since it was given, the great rambling loghouse of America all but fell down in a heap, as foreseen by the visiting Frenchman. True, old Abe Lincoln who was then head of the house gave his life in spite of himself to preserve a semblance of family unity. But bonds between the feuding relatives were already badly broken, and attempts to have them forged again have since proved a mockery. For not only have they resulted in the uprooted statues of the South being put up again and indeed on higher stands, but the so-called freed black bondsmen of the family lost their iron-cast chains only to be turned into ragged tramps and squatters on God's own rich estate, which they had sweated more than beasts of burden to build.
Almost at the same time and in the long harrowing aftermath of reconstruction and reaction, members of the small band of robber barons, operating on railway and shipping lines as well as in vast mines and banks spanning the entire continent, were piling up by hook or crook their fabulous billions on the ruin and rise again of the American house. In the predatory process, they established for the good of all that great American myth and apologia of the self-made man, the smart guy who makes good where all others have failed. Later came the universal crash on Wall Street after the Great War, and for a short but terrible period there grew the real scare that the entire structure and fabric of the house that the Yankee had built handsomely for himself would cave in and collapse. But that amazing cripple Franklin Delano Roosevelt was prompt on the scene, and what the colossus of Wall Street, J.P. Morgan himself had failed to prop up with his indefinite stock of dollars, the cripple successfully mended with words of comfort for America's forgotten man, holding out the promise of a New Deal for all.
Invitation d'une église baptiste de Trenton
A chapter of ladies (...), anxious to welcome graduate students from countries abroad, communist countries not included, asked those of us at Princeton to come over one Sunday afternoon for tea.(...)
First, it was not a tea party after all but a tepid punch affair, served liberally from bowls by two august women (...). The third and final shock I personally could not bear and rose up against was a roll-call of guests, already invested with badges telling their names and countries of origin, and the request, it was more like a command, that each stand up before the full church hall, announce to all there his name and nation, and recount for the gratification of his hosts how much he liked the United States of America. Which apparently everybody there did very much. Only a few, to the silent moral disapproval of all present, pleaded neutrality on grounds of their short stay so far in the United States. But, foolhardy fellow that I was, I threw all discretion and courtesy to the winds, and gave the great romping American dog a rather vicious kick on the backside, sending a terrible hush down and up the whole house.
Later, one or two soured-faced inmates sidled up to me: 'This is freedom of speech as it can only be enjoyed in the United States,' they drooled. And one middle-aged woman, something of a squatter in the place and sporting an Italian accent, stole a quick glance this way and that, and then hurried over to me to offer her surprised cheers: 'Only you Africans from abroad can afford to tell them the plain truth. We can't here, you know, having settled here for so long. But do you know, our children – my first boy is in the Army right now doing his national service and the girl after him is at college – they are all on the bandwagon, you know, and sometimes their father – he works in a garage – he and I kind of wonder if our children are not even louder at it than most.'
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