The major figures in the history of the colonized are always those who led the national resistance against foreign invasion. Behanzin, Sundiata, Samory, and Abdel Kader are revived with particular fervor during the period preceding the actual struggle. This is proof that the people are preparing to march again, to break the lull introduced by colonialism and make History.
Marx in the Brumaire: "And just as
they seem to be occupied with revolutionizing themselves and things, creating
something that did not exist before, precisely in such epochs of revolutionary
crisis they anxiously conjure up the spirits of the past to their service,
borrowing from them names, battle slogans, and costumes in order to present
this new scene in world history in time-honored disguise and borrowed language."
