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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 (9 December 1981), is a Pan-Africanist political leader, activist , writer and geopolitical journalist, known for his opposition to French influence in Africa and imperialism.[2]

He initially gained prominence as the leader of the black power[3] , afrocentric , Black antisemitic group Ka tribe, which was dissolved by the French government in 2006.[4] He was then arrested and sentenced several times on related charges and continued antisemitic comments, being released from prison in 2008. After this, he converted to Islam and took on leadership positions in the anti-Zionist MDI and the US-based New Black Panther Party.[5][6]

In 2011 he moved to Senegal, and from 2013 onwards he became a geopolitical analyst on several West African televisions[7] and speaker on Pan-Africanism in African universities.[2] In 2015 he founded the NGO Urgences Panafricanistes and became a prominent figure in the opposition to the economic influence of France in African countries, seen as a neocolonial phenomenon.[8] He initiated the demonstrations against the CFA franc which took place in January 2017 in several French-speaking African countries.[9][10][11] Since August 2024 he serves as advisor to Abdourahamane Tchiani, the leader of the incumbent military junta in Niger.[8]

His figure is highly controversial, and while he has been recognized as a relevant figure in modern Pan-Africanism and opposition to French influence in Africa,[12][13] he has been repeatedly denounced for incitement to racial hatred, antisemitism and ties to pro-Russian networks and former Wagner Group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin.[14][15]

Origin

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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.[16] 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.[17][18]

Tribu KA

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In December 2004, Capo Chichi founded the Parisian political group Tribu Ka, which promotes black identity and has been accused of racism against Jews.[19][4] The group said it followed the ideology of the American NOI leader, Louis Farrakhan.[20][21] They have also been described as proponents of a mix of antisemitic Kemetism and Guénonian Islam.[22] The group's name is an abbreviation for 'The Atenian Tribe of Kemet'.[18]

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.[20][21][23] 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.[19] The Ministry of Interior dissolved Tribu Ka on 26 July 2006, but it reformed in Sarcelles under the name Génération Kémi Séba.[19][4][24] 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.[18]

Imprisonment

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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 Black people " to five months imprisonment for criminal contempt of the law.[24][25] 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.[26]

In June 2009, Brice Hortefeux, Minister of the Interior, ordered the dissolution of the group Jeunesse Kémi Séba, founded to replace Génération Kémi Séba.[27][28]

MDI

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After his release from prison in July 2008, Capo Chichi announced that he had converted to Islam.[29] 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.[30] In June 2009, MDI announced that Holocaust denier Serge Thion had joined the movement.[31] Inside the MDI, neo-nazi blogger Boris Le Lay was "in charge of external relations for the Europe zone".[32]

New Black Panther Party

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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.[33] In July 2010, Capo Chichi left his position as the president of MDI but continued as the head of the francophone branch of NBPP.[34]

Activity in Africa

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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 was the initiator of the demonstrations against the CFA franc who took in several French-speaking African countries.[9] In January 2018 , he was elected as 2017 African Personality of the Year by Africanews,[35] 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, 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 23 February 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 was 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.

In October 2021, three years after being turned away at Conakry airport, Kemi Seba was allowed to enter Guinean territory from where he met Mamady Doumbunya.

In February 2024, the French authorities initiated a procedure for loss of French nationality against Kemi Seba, Kemi Seba also holds Beninese nationality. French authorities accused Kemi Seba of spreading anti-French sentiment across West Africa.[36]

On July 9, 2024, By virtue of a decree published in the Official French Journal, Kemi Seba was stripped of his French nationality. Kémi Seba had earlier published a video online in which he burned a document that he claimed was his French passport.[37]

In August 2024, he announced via X that he had been granted a diplomatic passport by Nigerien authorities. He posted a picture of the purpoted diplomatic passport bio data page. His claims were not independently verified. [38]

Geopolitical connections

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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.[39]

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 to join forces against hegemony of the West, and consolidate the political project of a multipolar world.[40]

In March 2022, he was invited by the Executive Secretary of the Russia-Africa Forum: What's Next? On MGIMO base Igor Tkachenko gave a lecture on the future of Africa in the world economic system, supporting the position of Russian President Vladimir Putin on the Ukrainian crisis.

In 2022, he was received by the Chairman of the Transitional Government of Mali

On October 24–26, 2022, he arrived in Moscow again upon the invitation of Igor Tkachenko to participate in the Second Youth Forum "Russia-Africa: what's next?" On the basis of MGIMO of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russia. On the fields of which Kemi Ceba delivered his sensational "Moscow" speech and was received by representatives of the Russian Foreign Ministry and other authorities.

On March 12 2023, a televised intervention on the French Parlamentarian channel was cancelled due to accusations him being a asset for Russian propaganda. [41]

Séba has been financially supported by Russian oligarch and mercenary leader Yevgeny Prigozhin.[42][43][44]

On July 9, 2024, Séba was stripped of his French nationality. [45]

Books

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  • Supra-négritude, Fiat-Lux éditions 2013, ISBN 979-1091157018
  • Black Nihilism, 2014
  • Obscure Époque – fiction géopolitique, 2016[46]
  • Philosophie de la panafricanité fondamentale – Édition Fiat Lux, 2023 ISBN 9791091157391

Notes

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

References

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  1. ^ a b «On me traite de nazi noir», Le Nouvel Observateur, 30 October 2008.
  2. ^ a b "Kemi Seba, de la Tribu Ka au Sénégal – Jeune Afrique". JeuneAfrique.com (in French). Retrieved 8 October 2021.
  3. ^ "France bans anti-Semitic black power group". Expatica France. Retrieved 20 November 2024.
  4. ^ a b c "Leader of Black anti-Semitic group arrested in France". European Jewish Press. 9 February 2007. Archived from the original on 23 September 2008. Retrieved 5 August 2008.
  5. ^ Tribu Ka: un an de prison avec sursis pour reconstitution de ligue dissoute Archived 13 July 2011 at the Wayback Machine
  6. ^ Kemi Seba nommé par le New Black Panther Party, basé à Washington, Ministre francophone Archived 19 August 2010 at the Wayback Machine Official website of MDI
  7. ^ "Kemi Seba devient chroniqueur pour la chaîne Vox Africa". La Nouvelle Tribune (in French). 15 March 2017. Retrieved 8 October 2021.
  8. ^ a b "Controversial pan-African activist Kemi Seba detained in Paris". RFI. 16 October 2024. Retrieved 19 November 2024.
  9. ^ a b "L'invité Afrique du 09 01 2017". BBC News Afrique (in French). 9 January 2017. Retrieved 8 October 2021.
  10. ^ "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 »". Editions Le Pays (in French). 18 May 2017. Retrieved 8 October 2021.
  11. ^ Jonas Dunkel et Marion Roussey, « Le franc CFA, "vestige du colonialisme" ? », arte.tv, 6 avril 2017.
  12. ^ MacDougall, Clair (9 January 2020). "A pan-African CFA activist is the face of rising anti-French sentiment in Francophone West Africa". Quartz Africa. Retrieved 31 December 2020.
  13. ^ "Anti-CFA activist Kemi Seba is 2017 Africanews Personality of the Year". Africanews. 9 December 2019. Retrieved 11 January 2021.
  14. ^ "Controversial West African activist Kemi Seba detained in Paris". France24. 15 October 2024. Retrieved 19 November 2024.
  15. ^ "Une enquête révèle que Evgueni Prigojine a appuyé financièrement le militant panafricaniste Kémi Séba". 31 March 2023.
  16. ^ Andrew Hussey, "The Paris Intifada" Archived 19 May 2009 at the Wayback Machine, Granta, vol. 104, subscribers only
  17. ^ Stephen Smith and Géraldine Faes, Noir et Français, 2006
  18. ^ a b c "Kémi Séba, la Tribu KA et le kémitisme" Archived 5 August 2010 at the Wayback Machine, Le Racisme anti-blanc
  19. ^ a b c "Sarkozy visits Jewish neighborhood after threat from Black extremists". European Jewish Press. 31 May 2006. Archived from the original on 29 August 2008. Retrieved 5 August 2008.
  20. ^ a b Lichfield, John (31 May 2006). "French youths fight police and attack mayor's house". The Independent. London. Retrieved 24 May 2010.
  21. ^ a b Helene Fouquet, "Riots in Paris Suburbs Spark Fear of Violent Wave", Bloomberg, 30 May 2006. Retrieved 4 December 2010
  22. ^ "Le Weltanschauung de la Tribu Ka, Stéphane François, Damien Guillame, and Emmanuel Kreis
  23. ^ Tom Reiss, Letter from Paris: "Laugh Riots: The French star who became a demagogue", The New Yorker, 19 November 2007. Retrieved 4 December 2010
  24. ^ a b French gang leader sentenced Jewish Telegraphic Agency
  25. ^ "Anti-Semitic black power leader in French court". European Jewish Press. 19 September 2006. Archived from the original on 29 September 2007. Retrieved 5 August 2008.
  26. ^ Tribu Ka: un an de prison avec sursis pour reconstitution de ligue dissoute Archived 13 July 2011 at the Wayback Machine
  27. ^ "Dissolution du groupuscule 'Jeunesse Kemi Seba'" Archived 22 July 2009 at the Wayback Machine
  28. ^ France – Dissolution of ""Jeunesse 'Kémi Séba" ("'Kémi Séba Youth"), The Coordinating Forum for Countering Anti-Semitism
  29. ^ Kémi Séba Musulman!!! Official website of Kémi Séba
  30. ^ Le MDI avec le Hezbollah contre le Sionism Archived 8 January 2009 at the Wayback Machine Official website of MDI
  31. ^ Serge Thion rejoint le MDI Archived 19 February 2010 at the Wayback Machine Official website of MDI
  32. ^ Kemi Seba (Conspiracy watch)
  33. ^ Kemi Seba nommé par le New Black Panther Party, basé à Washington, Ministre francophone Archived 19 August 2010 at the Wayback Machine Official website of MDI
  34. ^ Interview d’Hery Djehuty Sechat, nouveau Président du MDI Archived 7 September 2010 at the Wayback Machine Official website of MDI
  35. ^ AfricaNews (3 January 2018). "Anti-CFA activist Kemi Seba is 2017 Africanews Personality of the Year". Africanews. Retrieved 8 October 2021.
  36. ^ "La France engage une procédure de déchéance de la nationalité française à l'encontre de Kemi Seba". Senego.com. 29 February 2024. Retrieved 29 February 2024.
  37. ^ "Kémi Seba, condamné plusieurs fois pour incitation à la haine raciale, déchu de la nationalité française". lemonde.fr. 9 July 2024. Retrieved 10 July 2024.
  38. ^ https://x.com/KemiSeba1/status/1820043201866064122?t=REv7O0QIpxH8qRKV9EWK7g&s=19. {{cite web}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
  39. ^ "'Le panafricaniste Kemi Seba reçu par l'ancien président iranien Mahmoud Ahmadinejad'". Archived from the original on 28 January 2019. Retrieved 3 January 2018.
  40. ^ "Russie : Kemi Seba reçu par Alexandre Douguine, l'idéologue de Vladimir Poutine". Archived from the original on 1 January 2018. Retrieved 3 January 2018.
  41. ^ "La Chaîne parlementaire déprogramme l'intervention de Kemi Seba, accusé d'être un relais de la propagande russe". Le Monde.fr. 13 March 2023. Retrieved 13 March 2023.
  42. ^ "Une enquête révèle que Evgueni Prigojine a appuyé financièrement le militant panafricaniste Kémi Séba". 31 March 2023.
  43. ^ https://www.theafricareport.com/296849/russia-how-yevgeny-prigozhin-funded-kemi-seba-to-serve-his-own-african-ambitions/ [bare URL]
  44. ^ "Yevgeniy Prigozhin's Africa-Wide Disinformation Campaign".
  45. ^ "L'Activiste suprémaciste noir Kemi Seba s'est vu retirer sa nationalité française". 10 July 2024.
  46. ^ "Rockin' Squat signe la préface du dernier livre de Kémi Seba".
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