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Protesters prevented spectators at the Sorbonne University in Paris from performing an ancient Greek play portraying dark-skinned white actors. The Sorbonne has promised to reformulate "The Suppliants" in the same format – and it has the support of the government.
The Greek theater week is in full swing at the Sorbonne campus in Paris, as it has been every year since 1999. But, unlike previous editions of the festival, this year, anti-racist activists are offended by piece especially because many white actors have to darken. their faces to represent Egyptian characters.
While the actors were busy donning their Greek costumes and putting on makeup in the Sorbonne theater on Monday, March 25, some thirty students, accompanied by black rights activists, gathered at the university. ;outside.
"Several students contacted us saying that they were not happy that the play had white actors painting their faces black," says Ghyslain Verdeux, president of the Representative Council of Black Associations in France. "So we offered to support their event."
The demonstration became so ardent that the Sorbonne decided to cancel the show but not to cancel it. "Many colleagues and students have asked for a new performance of the play, and I will try to do it," says Alain Tallon, director of human sciences at the Sorbonne.
Black face protest
The Sorbonne issued a statement condemning the protest and accusing the protesters of "total misunderstanding".
The Minister of Culture, Frédérique Vidal, tweeted a joint statement with the Minister of Higher Education, Franck Reister, saying the event was "contrary to the academic values and principles of the French Republic".
Monday's confrontation is the latest in a series of protests in Europe aimed at preventing whites from painting their faces in black.
Black rights advocates have targeted traditional festivals in France, the Netherlands and Sweden. They claim that "blackfacing" ("blackfacing") is directly related to the legacy of the transatlantic slave trade.
Blackfacing is one of the traditions of the Dunkirk carnival in the northern port of France, where 44 ships carrying human cargo were moored during the slave trade.
"At the Dunkirk Carnival, people run everywhere with black faces, insulting blacks," says Verdeux. "The slave masters encouraged people to paint themselves black to celebrate the sale of slaves in Haiti."
Culture on the skin color
The piece in question, The begging, by Aeschylus, is above all a story about the right to marriage in ancient Greece, in which 50 well-born sisters flee the forced marriage of their Egyptian cousins.
The director of the play, Philippe Brunet, spoke to Facebook to explain that the color of the skin in ancient Greece had different connotations in relation to the idea of race appeared during and after the transatlantic slave trade. "The difference is ethno-geographic rather than racial," says Brunet in a statement posted on Facebook.
It is illegal to collect statistics on race in France, unlike many other countries in Europe. The ideal is that minorities badimilate and become French – which has led many human rights activists to blame the French government for whitewashing black identities.
At the Sorbonne, the pursuit of creative expression takes precedence over everything, including racial identity. "We can not accept this form of censorship from people with no moral or intellectual authority," says Tallon.
There is no doubt that the Sorbonne remains an intellectual authority in the French-speaking world, but this week's confrontation has once again propelled the racial debate in France.
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