La memoire enchainee

For the first time in France, the slave trade and slavery are making the headlines, being debated in the media, and rousing controversy. Two questions must be considered: why is the public debate so late? And why has it revealed such an extreme nature? Retracing the terms of this debate, Françoise Vergès suggests that the slowness which has characterized this realization can be analyzed as a blind spot in French thought. She revisits the conditions and the causes of the obliviousness about slavery, in order to imagine the conditions under which it might pass away, without yielding to those who wish to make a secure income out of the memory of slavery and human trafficking, or to those who wish to use it to justify populist-extremist tendencies. The debate shows that the majority of the descendants of slaves do not wish to remain in that slavery that was imposed by their ancestors. They refuse to be confined by the past, but are convinced that without a trial of their heritage, the past will remain passive.