MONNAIE : NOS ARRIÈRES-GRANDS-MÈRES PLUS DOUÉES QUE NOS ÉLITES SURDIPLÔMÉES

Laden with degrees but deprived of their understanding of money, African elites have lost what African women, since the colonial era, had understood and defended at the cost of decades of resistance: money is a weapon of sovereignty. For economist Ndongo Samba Sylla, this amnesia is not a coincidence, but the enduring product of colonial alienation. African elites, laden with degrees and highly educated as they may be, do not truly understand what money is, to such an extent that even our great-grandmothers, during the colonial period, clearly understood it much better than these so-called elites. This is the analysis of economist Ndongo Samba Sylla, a professor and researcher who has been reflecting on monetary issues for years, and in particular on the monetary sovereignty of Francophone African countries. Ndongo Samba Sylla co-hosted a panel on currency at the international symposium dedicated to Frantz Fanon, entitled "Frantz Fanon's African Hope," held at the Museum of Black Civilizations in Dakar. According to him, this lack of understanding of currency among African elites is almost exclusively due to the alienation resulting from colonization. "When the colonizer arrived to exploit and plunder us, it was necessary to control the monetary system. And so, the first thing the metropolis did, in the context of the countries that would become French colonies—for example, in West Africa—when French West Africa (AOF) was created in 1895, was to prohibit the importation of cowrie shells, which were used for trade and also for religious reasons. Then, the colonial administrations said that taxes had to be paid in francs. Your cowrie shells were now worthless. The women resisted. The women said no." The cowrie shells had to be maintained, and things had to continue as before. When women organized trade, including intra-regional trade, they relied on cowrie shells. These women, without being theorists or having gone to university, understood the reality of money. They resisted for fifty years. The colonial administrators couldn't understand the resistance of these African women. They asked: "Why are these women resisting us? Is it because we aren't men?" It's because these women understood that when you lose control of the monetary system, you lose control of the economy and you lose sovereignty. Our great-grandmothers understood this. Paradoxically, our leaders, our economists, our financiers, who have earned degrees all over the world, don't understand what our great-grandmothers understood and experienced firsthand. "It's alienation," argued Ndongo Samba Sylla. #Currency #MonetarySovereignty #Africa #Colonization #AfricanElites #NdongoSambaSylla #FrantzFanon #Decolonization #MonetaryPower #AfricanWomen