A surgical operation ten years ago, at the time just released Central University Hospital of Asturias, was what he linked forever, although he still did not know, Michelle Gaspard Diatta with the Principality.
This was how, a decade later and with 29 years, this Senegalese student of the province of Casamance ends at the Humanities Campus of the University of Oviedo, studying the fourth course of the Degree of Modern Languages, where he knows the teacher who begins to a new chapter in the history of his life.
It was in one of the open debates in the ‘culture of French -speaking countries’, addressing the restitution of cultural objects, plundered during the colonial period to the African continent, where Michelle was encouraged to tell the story of his family, something That until then he had never done before, as his teacher, Vicente E. Montes explains.
“At that time I knew we had to help you,” he acknowledges, then, to put the case to the knowledge of the Teaching Innovation Group, Africa in Milan, Milan in Africa, which integrates with other professors from the Asturian University, from different disciplines.
From that group they have put to work to lend a hand to Michelle when it comes to presiding the letter they must send to the Senegalese government, explaining their application, as well as in the dissemination of this case to ensure that other people from Casamance, That they can be found in the diaspora, know about this story.
To know where the history of the Diatta family begins, you have to go back to the fifteenth century, when the Portuguese explorers arrived in Casamance, a province in southern Senegal and home in the Kasa kingdom, mostly populated by the ethnic group ‘Diola’. Before being devastated by the slave trade and colonial oppression, the ‘damas’ were organized in decentralized structures: the priest kings, in charge of the vast rice, acted as spiritual guides and performed a key function in the social cohesion of the region of the region .
In spite of being communities of great autonomy and resistance to external authorities, ‘damlas’ and Portuguese colonizers managed to live peacefully for three centuries, perhaps because the latter, they already came to understand the idiosyncrasy of this town, which converted to the province of Casamance in the vital shopping center for the exchange of food, cattle, ivory, leather, wax and gold.
However, after the war delivered between Portugal and France for the occupation of this territory, the signing of an agreement between the two countries gave entry to the French control of Casamance and the progressive departure of the Portuguese, who had remained in the Senegalese province for almost Four centuries.
The situation with the French radically changed Casamance’s day -to -day . In this situation, what the settlers tried was to resort to local bosses as intermediaries, but these were not allowed either.
Although in 1901 the French managed to strengthen their control in the region, the resistance of the damlas gave firmness evidence throughout the nineteenth and early twentie the same.
According to Michelle Diatta, it was thanks to the oral sources that the story of this king, his ancestor, was transmitted from generation to generation, until he reached our days. Although there are many dams who do not know the history of the king who defended Casamance of the French colony, even costing him life.
It has been these same sources that told how the first colonial orders, which consisted of the delivery of seven tons of rice (sacred element for the dams) destined to France, were replaced, by order of King Sihalebé, by seven tons of excrement of excrement cows, to manifest your disobedience.
This answer, according to Michelle Diatta, caused the anger of the French authorities, who went to look at his home, if knowing that he would not be, since he spent most of his time in the ‘sacred bosque’ ‘, but threatened With killing his whole family, if he didn’t deliver.
Thus he was captured, dying 20 days later, since, according to Dilas customs, the kings could not be seen or eating or drinking, something that he refused to make as a manifesto of rejection of French power. The fact of not having ingested food for almost three weeks aroused the curiosity of the French, who decided to study that body and for this they sent it to Museum of Man, in Paris, where he remained as part of the collection of colonial human remains.
The tragedy of collination
The fact that the body of Sihalabé Diatta has remained since 1904 in a Parisian museum, not only reflects the tragedy lived by the colonized African peoples, but also the lack of political will of the Republic of Senegal for the conservation of the history of heroic figures that faced colonial impositions.
And, after the interest that France recently expressed to return to Africa part of its heritage, the Diatta family sent a letter to the then president of Senegal, Macky Sall, requesting the repatriation of the remains of Sihalebé diatta, “For historical justice and cultural ”, but they have not obtained an answer.
While the Paris Museum states that it has no inconvenience to return the remains requested, according to Michelle, the implication of the Senegalese government is necessary and that it formally requests its French counterpart that Sihalebé diatta can return to Casamance.
It is in this process that, at the moment, Michelle and his family are supported, supported by the group Africa in Milan, Milan in Africafrom the University of Oviedo and led by Professor Montes.
It is about calling for unity and collective action, through obtaining the support of writers, journalists, politicians, researchers, artists, activists and any citizen who secounds the cause. And, joining various voices, from different platforms, says Professor Montes, it will be possible to generate a real and significant change in the restitution of memory and historical justice of African peoples.
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