[R-G] Return the statue of General Dumas to its rightful place

[Anthony Fenton]

HISTORIAN CLAUDE RIBBE FIGHTS FOR THE RETURN OF THE STATUE  OF  
GENERAL DUMAS TO ITS RIGHTFUL PLACE
http://www.claude-ribbe.com/
(IN FRENCH)

Many thanks to the IDRISS STELLEY FOUNDATION for the translation of  
the petition below from French to English.

CLAUDE RIBBE, historian, author, and philosopher; called the "human  
rights commissioner,” was born in Paris on 13 October 1954, of  
parents who were originally from the Caribbean. He has written many  
books, two of which are:

THE CRIME OF NAPOLEON, which puts Napoleon’s genocide on par with  
Hitler’s and states that Bonaparte’s regime was the originator of the  
gas ovens; using sulfur dioxide gas for the mass murder of more than  
100,000 enslaved AFRIKAN people in AYITI when trying [unsuccessfully]  
to prevent the AYISIEN revolution of 1791 – 1804. This was during the  
AFRIKAN holocaust of the Middle Passage, and 140 years prior to the  
gas ovens of Adolf Hitler.

LES NEGRES de REPUBLIQUE, published in May 2006; and now in  
bookstores as of 8 March 2007, was originally refused publication in  
France due to his discussions of global racism and his attacks upon  
some of the most controversial of European ‘heroes’ and  
administrators; among whom are Napoleon, Finkielkraut, Dieudonne,  
Halimi, Petre-grenouilleau, Tribu Ka, Sevran, and Freche.

RIBBE is presently campaigning to have the statue of General Dumas,  
the first French general of AFRIKAN descent, and father of author  
Alexander Dumas, author of ‘The Three Musketeers,’ replaced.
The original statue, which faced the consulate of Haiti in France,  
was destroyed by the Nazi invasion of 1942.


My father took on  a Man of Color...

By Claude RIBBE
If you have not done it yet, sign the petition now  about  the statue  
of General Dumas by Ousmane Sow

http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/generaldumas/index.html
(thank you  circulating this link among all your networks)

Villers-Cotterêts (Aisne) August 15 1789, 11 am///

A squadron of the "Dragons de la Reine" (Queen's Dragons)  arrives in  
the castle's courtyard.  Among the contingent, Thomas-Alexandre Davy  
of the Pailleterie, AKA Alexandre Dumas, 27 yr., born a slave in  
Saint- Domingue (Republic of Haiti). He has three friends. They are  
inseparable.  In the crowd, a blond girl with sapphire eyes, Marie-  
Louise Labouret, 20 yr.  She is not racist.  Here what she writes to  
her cousin two days later...


Please sign the petition and read the full text:

© 2006 Claude Ribbe all rights reserved



The petition


Petition addressed to:
Bertrand Delanoë, Incumbent candidate for mayor of Paris
Paris City Hall,  March 9, 2008 Elections

Mr. Mayor,

In 1838, writer Alexandre Dumas asked that a statue of his father,  
Thomas-Alexandre Davy of The Pailleterie, said Alexander Dumas  
(1762-1806), hero of the Revolution, first French general of African  
origin, eager defender of  Human Rights, born a slave in the French  
Island of Saint-Domingue (today's Republic of Haiti) would be erected  
in Paris, which was done on the centennial of the general's death,  
notably after a campaign headed  by writer Anatole France.

In 1942, due to racism, the statue of the general, that was at Place  
des Trois Dumas (alongside the statues of his son and of his  
grandson), facing the consulate of Haiti, was taken down by the  
occupying forces and collaborators.

After the Liberation, the Place des Trois Dumas was re-baptized Place  
General Catroux, indeed a great fighter and a great soldier, but also  
the General Governor of  French Indochina and Resident Minister in  
French occupied Algeria…

In 2002, writer Claude Ribbe, author of "Alexandre Dumas. le Dragon  
de la Reine" and founding president of the Association of the Friends  
of General Dumas, launched a campaign for the rehabilitation of  
General Dumas and return his statue to its proper place, on which the  
counsel of Paris voted unanimously in June 2002.

Very moved by the reading of Claude Ribbe's book, that related the  
life of General Dumas and appalled by the ingratitude of the French  
Republic, Senegalese sculptor Ousmane Sow had sketched a magnificent  
project, presented to your collaborator, George Pau-Langevin, current  
Paris' Delegate, on June 6, 2004.

Despite numerous reminders by Claude Ribbe, you left to pass the  
bicentenary of the death of General Dumas, on February 26, 2006,  
without reinstating the statue erected by the city of Paris on the  
occasion of the centennial, in 1906…

Despite the comments of Christophe Girard who declared in 2002 that  
it was necessary to restore the statue of the General to its proper  
place "To repair a historical diversion," nothing was done.  A  
commission even would have deemed the project of Ousmane Sow  
"mediocre," which is all the more disturbing one since there is not  
in Paris a single statue of this artist who you claim, nevertheless,  
to admire and who raised the enthusiasm of 3 millions of Parisians at  
an exhibit on the Pont des Arts, organized in 1999.  Even if, at that  
time, you were not mayor of Paris, are you really sure that the taste  
of these 3 millions of men and of women in not worth the taste of the  
members of the commissions in charge to advise you? At the very  
moment when you concealed the bicentenary of a French citizen as  
emblematic as General Dumas, to whom your city, nevertheless,  had  
rightfully known to pay homage in 1906, you expressed publicly your  
support to Pascal Sevran who supported sexual tourism and expressed  
his racism in the crudest and the most shameful fashion.

Today, we demand that you immediately clarify your position while  
honoring the excellent project presented by Ousmane Sow, who, not  
only was the first one to be very interested in General Dumas, but  
who, better than any artist, is particularly sensitive to what the re- 
erecting of his statue can represent for France, for Africa and for  
its Diaspora.

In these times where a certain France gladly displays its  
negrophobia, it is easy for you to most urgently take all  
commensurate dispositions so that the statue of General Dumas by  
Ousmane Sow may be inaugurated on February 26, 2008, anniversary of  
the death of General Dumas.  To celebrate the 60th birthday of the  
Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948-2008), a copy of this  
statue of General Dumas, realized in Africa by Ousmane Sow, next will  
be offered by the Association of the Friends of General Dumas to the  
Republic of Haiti, along with books by the writer, his son, intended  
for the underprivileged children of the suburbs of Port-au-Prince.

*****


Thomas-Alexandre Dumas was the son of Alexandre-Antoine Davy de la  
Pailleterie and a slave, Louise-Céssette Dumas, on the Caribbean  
island colony of Saint Domingue (now called Haiti). When his son  
Thomas-Alexandre proposed to join the army, his father only agreed on  
condition that he did not use the de la Pailleterie name.

Thomas-Alexandre Dumas' courage and strength was a legend, and by  
1793 he was a general at 31. Following a successful campaign with  
Napoleon in Egypt, Dumas seemed set for a brilliant future - but,  
involved in a dispute with Napoleon, he was dispatched to France,  
resigned from the French army, captured during the journey by King  
Ferdinand of Italy – who was at war with France - and imprisoned.  
Freed after 20 months he was lame, deaf in one ear, blind in one eye,  
partly paralyzed and penniless. At the age of 35 he had to retire to  
Villers-Cotterêts, a quiet village near Paris where he had married  
Marie-Louise Elizabeth Labouret in 1792.

Alexandre was born on 24 July 1802.

The boy adored his father, who died in 1806. Told that his father  
been taken away by God, the four-year-old Dumas angrily declared his  
intention of going up to heaven and demanding satisfaction. In adult  
life he was to fictionalize many of his father's real-life exploits  
in his famous novel The Three Musketeers.

...