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Kémi Séba

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Kémi Séba in 2007

Kémi Séba (French language version of Egyptian for "black star"),[1] born Stellio Gilles Robert Capo Chichi on December 9, 1981 is a Pan-Africanist[2] political leader , French-Beninese writer,[3] and geopolitical journalist, seen as a prominent figure of anticolonialist resistance in francophone Africa in the 21st century.[4][5]

Since April 2013, he has been a geopolitical analyst on several West African televisions[6] and has given lectures about Pan-Africanism in many African universities.[7] He is the initiator of the demonstrations against the CFA franc who took place in January 2017 in several French-speaking African countries.[8][9][10] In January 2018, he was elected as 2017 African Personality of the Year by Africanews,[11] for his fight against French neocolonialism and the CFA Franc in Africa.

Origin

Capo Chichi was born in Strasbourg to immigrant parents from Benin.[1][note 1] He joined the US-based Nation of Islam (NOI) as an eighteen-year-old, and later formulated his own ideology while visiting Egypt in his twenties.[12] As a result of this process, he took the nom de guerre Kémi Séba and became the spokesperson of the Parti Kémite (Kemite Party), which was founded in 2002 and inspired by Khalid Abdul Muhammad.[13][14]

Tribu KA

In December 2004, Capo Chichi founded the Parisian political group Tribu Ka, which promotes black identity and has been accused of racism against Jews.[15][16] The group said it followed the ideology of the American NOI leader, Louis Farrakhan.[17][18] They have also been described as proponents of a mix of antisemitic Kemetism and Guénonian Islam.[19] The group's name is an abbreviation for 'The Atenian Tribe of Kemet'.[14]

In a May 2006 demonstration, twenty or more Tribu Ka members marched along the Rue des Rosiers (in the Marais, a Jewish neighborhood) shouting antisemitic slogans and threatening pedestrians.[17][18][20] Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy sent a letter to Justice Minister Pascal Clément saying Tribu Ka could be indicted for racist incitement. SOS Racisme and the Union des étudiants juifs de France also called for Tribu Ka to be banned. Clément opened an investigation.[15] The Ministry of Interior dissolved Tribu Ka on July 26, 2006, but it reformed in Sarcelles under the name Génération Kémi Séba.[15][16][21] During the trial of Youssouf Fofana, the leader of the ethnic gang Les Barbares that murdered Ilan Halimi, Capo Chichi had sent an intimidating e-mail message to various Jewish associations.[14]

Imprisonment

Capo Chichi was arrested in September 2006 for making allegedly antisemitic posts on his website, and again in February 2007 after he called a public official "Zionist scum." After the initial court hearing in 2006, supporters chanted, "The judge is a Zionist, the client is a Zionist, the decision will be Zionist." In February 2007, a French court near Paris sentenced Capo Chichi, the self-described "militant defender of the dignity of French citizens," to five months imprisonment for criminal contempt of the law.[21][22] In April 2008, a Parisian court verdict determined Génération Kémi Séba was the reconstitution of the dissolved group Tribu Ka, and sentenced Capo Chichi to a one-year prison sentence with suspension.[23]

In June 2009, Brice Hortefeux, Minister of the Interior, ordered the dissolution of the group Jeunesse Kémi Séba, founded to replace Génération Kémi Séba.[24][25]

MDI

After his release from prison in July 2008, Capo Chichi announced that he had converted to Islam.[26] In March 2008, he became the secretary general of Mouvement des damnés de l'impérialisme (MDI, "Movement of Those Damned By Imperialism"). MDI retains close ties with the Shia paramilitary Lebanese-based group Hezbollah in their anti-Zionist campaigns.[27] In June 2009, MDI announced that Holocaust denier Serge Thion had joined the movement.[28]

New Black Panther Party

In April 2010, Malik Zulu Shabazz, leader of the US-based New Black Panther Party (NBPP), appointed Capo Chichi the party's representative in France and gave him the nom de guerre Kemiour Aarim Shabazz.[29] In July 2010, Capo Chichi left his position as the president of MDI but continued as the head of the francophone branch of NBPP.[30]

Struggle in Africa

In 2011, he left the NBPP and moved to Senegal, where he continued his political activism and became a lecturer in African universities and, from 2013, a political columnist in various African television channels. This earned him a certain popularity among the French-speaking African youth, who considered him as a defender of African sovereignty.

Originally close to the Nation of Islam, he eventually joined Voodoo in 2014, which he links to the work of the metaphysician René Guénon about the perennialism as he explains in his latest book Free Africa or death.

He is the initiator of the demonstrations against the CFA franc who took in several French-speaking African countries.[8] In January 2018 , he was elected as 2017 African Personality of the Year by Africanews,[11] for his fight against French neocolonialism and the CFA Franc in Africa.

In December 2019, while accusing France of being partly responsible for terrorism in the Sahel, Kémi Séba placed himself at the disposal of the regional armies, in order to fight against the jihadists. He therefore proposed to the presidents of the G5 Sahel the creation of a group of "Pan-African civilian volunteers".

On February 23, 2020, Séba returned to Senegal to attend the appeal for his trial for having burned a CFA franc note. He was arrested at Blaise-Diagne airport, detained for 30 hours and then deported to Belgium. The holding of the trial is then postponed.

In October 2020, Kémi Séba went to Côte d'Ivoire to request a postponement of the 2020 presidential election, following a third term of Alassane Ouattara.

Geopolitical connections

In March 2015, Kémi Séba was received by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to talk about the need to collaborate between countries of the Third World confronted with Western imperialism.[31]

In December 2017, he was invited to Moscow by the Russian nationalist intellectual Aleksandr Dugin to talk about the need to create a geopolitical alliance between the Pan-Africanist and Eurasian movements in order to join forces against hegemony of the West, and consolidate the political project of a multipolar world.[32]

Books

  • Supra-négritude, Fiat-Lux éditions 2013, ISBN 979-1091157018
  • Black Nihilism, 2014
  • Obscure Époque – fiction géopolitique, 2016[33]

Notes

  1. ^ Another source says that Capo Chichi's parents were from Côte d'Ivoire and Haiti. Reiss, "Laugh Riots", The New Yorker, 2007 (see below.)

References

  1. ^ a b «On me traite de nazi noir», Le Nouvel Observateur, October 30, 2008.
  2. ^ [1] Kemi Seba, de la Tribu Ka au Sénégal
  3. ^ [2] Kemi Seba, de la Tribu Ka au Sénégal
  4. ^ MacDougall, Clair. "A pan-African CFA activist is the face of rising anti-French sentiment in Francophone West Africa". Quartz Africa. Retrieved December 31, 2020.
  5. ^ "Africanews | Anti-CFA activist Kemi Seba is 2017 Africanews Personality of the Year". Africanews. Retrieved January 11, 2021.
  6. ^ Kemi Seba devient chroniqueur pour la chaîne Vox Africa
  7. ^ [3] Kemi Seba, de la Tribu Ka au Sénégal
  8. ^ a b Kemi Seba activiste panafricain, initiateur des manifestations anti CFA
  9. ^ «KEMI SEBA, INITIATEUR DU FRONT ANTI-CFA, A PROPOS DES CHEFS D’ETAT AFRICAINS OPPOSES AU MOUVEMENT : « Ce sont des gens que je compare à des esclaves », Le Pays
  10. ^ Jonas Dunkel et Marion Roussey, « Le franc CFA, "vestige du colonialisme" ? », arte.tv, 6 avril 2017.
  11. ^ a b Anti-CFA activist Kemi Seba is 2017 Africanews Personality of the Year
  12. ^ Andrew Hussey, "The Paris Intifada" Archived May 19, 2009, at the Wayback Machine, Granta, vol. 104, subscribers only
  13. ^ Stephen Smith and Géraldine Faes, Noir et Français, 2006
  14. ^ a b c "Kémi Séba, la Tribu KA et le kémitisme" Archived August 5, 2010, at the Wayback Machine, Le Racisme anti-blanc
  15. ^ a b c "Sarkozy visits Jewish neighborhood after threat from Black extremists". European Jewish Press. May 31, 2006. Archived from the original on August 29, 2008. Retrieved August 5, 2008.
  16. ^ a b "Leader of Black anti-Semitic group arrested in France". European Jewish Press. February 9, 2007. Archived from the original on September 23, 2008. Retrieved August 5, 2008.
  17. ^ a b Lichfield, John (May 31, 2006). "French youths fight police and attack mayor's house". The Independent. London. Retrieved May 24, 2010.
  18. ^ a b Helene Fouquet, "Riots in Paris Suburbs Spark Fear of Violent Wave", Bloomberg, May 30, 2006. Retrieved December 4, 2010
  19. ^ "Le Weltanschauung de la Tribu Ka, Stéphane François, Damien Guillame, and Emmanuel Kreis
  20. ^ Tom Reiss, Letter from Paris: "Laugh Riots: The French star who became a demagogue", The New Yorker, November 19, 2007. Retrieved December 4, 2010
  21. ^ a b French gang leader sentenced Jewish Telegraphic Agency
  22. ^ "Anti-Semitic black power leader in French court". European Jewish Press. September 19, 2006. Archived from the original on September 29, 2007. Retrieved August 5, 2008.
  23. ^ Tribu Ka: un an de prison avec sursis pour reconstitution de ligue dissoute Archived July 13, 2011, at the Wayback Machine
  24. ^ "Dissolution du groupuscule 'Jeunesse Kemi Seba'" Archived July 22, 2009, at the Wayback Machine
  25. ^ France – Dissolution of ""Jeunesse 'Kémi Séba" ("'Kémi Séba Youth"), The Coordinating Forum for Countering Anti-Semitism
  26. ^ Kémi Séba Musulman!!! Official website of Kémi Séba
  27. ^ Le MDI avec le Hezbollah contre le Sionism Archived January 8, 2009, at the Wayback Machine Official website of MDI
  28. ^ Serge Thion rejoint le MDI Archived February 19, 2010, at the Wayback Machine Official website of MDI
  29. ^ Kemi Seba nommé par le New Black Panther Party, basé à Washington, Ministre francophone Archived August 19, 2010, at the Wayback Machine Official website of MDI
  30. ^ Interview d’Hery Djehuty Sechat, nouveau Président du MDI Archived September 7, 2010, at the Wayback Machine Official website of MDI
  31. ^ "« Le panafricaniste KEMI SEBA reçu par l'ancien président iranien Mahmoud Ahmadinejad »". Archived from the original on January 28, 2019. Retrieved January 3, 2018.
  32. ^ "Russie : Kemi Seba reçu par Alexandre Douguine, l'idéologue de Vladimir Poutine". Archived from the original on January 1, 2018. Retrieved January 3, 2018.
  33. ^ http://www.streetpress.com/sujet/1459438373-kemi-seba-rockin-squat-livre-obscure-epoque
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