top of page
The Black Pasionaria
My Country Africa
BY ANDRÉE BLOUIN
 
The story of the Black Pasionaria is that of Andrée Blouin, writer and activist from Central Africa—otherwise known as Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. The circumstances and turmoil of her personal life were as riveting as her political involvement in the entire African continent, for she was beautiful, rebellious, and painfully aware of the horrors of colonization and the desperate need for its dismantling. 
 
She was nicknamed Pasionaria after Spanish civil war heroine, Dolores Ibárruri, spearhead of 1935 Spanish resistance a phenomenal orator and founder of Women’s organization against war and fascism.
​
In the 1960s, the decolonization of Africa was carried out by brave and remarkable men. But too little is known about the women behind the scenes who made the revolution possible. Andrée Blouin wrote My Country Africa, a memoir which depicts the untold story of a trailblazer of revolution and feminism in a segregated colonial society.
2FE59EAD-E23A-455C-9355-0BFEBE479D3C_1_1
A story that embodies all the struggles of women, race and identity; of fighting against racist colonial domination; of the revolution for independence and the harsh reality that took over not only one of the richest countries on the planet but the entire African continent. It is the astonishing story of a woman who was born an outcast and lived to become one of the most daring African revolutionary of all times.
E8B3831D-4B60-4F8F-A63A-D50D7D3FC1A9_1_1
Attacked from all fronts for her boldness and charisma she was never afraid to own her femininity in a sexist world.
​
“Our enemies attack her all the time. Not for what she’s done, but simply because she is a woman, and she is there, in the thick of it,” Patrice Lumumba once said about her.
​
​
D9FE170B-2105-4CBD-B7BB-F5A92C6D73E8_edi
Andre%CC%81e_Blouin_smile_edited.jpg
                                                                          Andrée Blouin
                                                      Patrice Émery Lumumba 
9F58ECE4-3F43-4561-88A2-28E1C748CA34_1_1
                  Saint Joseph de Cluny school for mixed race children
 
A mixed-race child when they hardly existed and considered anathema in colonial Africa, Andrée Blouin was born in 1921 into the cruel contradictions of her times. Because her mother was a Banziri tribes-girl and her father a French businessman, she was placed in a Congo orphanage even if, despite all odds, her parent’s love lasted a lifetime. Once there, she was kept out of sight as “an embarrassing evidence of the commingling of races,” as is depicted in the book, where nuns would confine biracial children like her to religious penance for their sinful origins. As a child then as a young woman her life was harsh but it changed after marrying a broad-minded intellectual and mathematician Frenchman who gave her her famous name, and took her to post World War II France. 
AA725771-7BE2-4DD0-B343-AE55DEE0FA2D.jpe
Andrée Blouin, photographed by her husband in Paris
 
In Paris there was no apartheid but a genuine interest for Art Nègre, jazz and Joséphine Baker, with the effervescent diaspora of African and Caribbean intellectuals flocking to the Latin Quarter. There, she witnessed in awe the enthusiastic rehabilitation of black culture as an African civilization, backed by numerous intellectuals such as Jean-Paul Sartre and painters such as Pablo Picasso.
 
Previously unthinkable, the independence of African territories began to shape itself into reality, and Andrée was determined to return to her roots in order to add her voice to the struggle. Whilst African-Americans were only beginning the hard fight for civil rights, Andrée Blouin was already a pivotal figure fighting for freedom in Africa. She stood beside the late president Sékou Touré for Guinea’s liberation against the French, making it the first sub-Saharan African country to proclaim its independence in October 1958.
 
When the people of the Congo, led by the young and charismatic politician and independence commander Patrice Lumumba, asked for its freedom from Belgium, she became his chief of protocol and speech writer.
Andrée_Blouin_and_Guizenga_.png
Andrée Blouin with ASP Antoine Gizenga during the electoral campaign
 
With a few trucks and her dedicated team of militants, she heroically led Antoine Gisenga ASP (African Solidarity Party) along with Patrice Lumumba NCM (National Congolese Movement) electoral campaign convoy through the savannahs and jungles of Kasaï, Maniema, and Kivu, managing to bring thousands to the cause of which 45.000 were women, giving a landslide victory to Lumumba over the King of Belgium.
 
A formidable and charismatic orator, she took the lead of Mouvement Féminin pour la Solidarité Africaine (Female Movement for African Solidarity) and gave a voice to the thousands of subjugated African women of the Congo basin.
9D30003E-38BF-4341-AF62-CA13B82942A7_1_1
                Andrée Blouin talking to the crowds in a rally
 
She was nicknamed Congo’s “Madame de Stael” by UN Secretary General Dag Hammarskjöld, who was killed in 1961 when his plane was shot down above the jungles of Ndola, Rhodesia.
 
Champion of decolonization and human rights, Lumumba became the Che Guevara, the Malcom X, the messianic Martin Luther King of the black continent. But there were forces outside of Congo unwilling to let its vast natural resources remain under Lumumba’s control; the Cold War was still in full swing and the scramble for Africa’s wealth too real. On January 17, 1961, when he was only thirty-five years old, Lumumba was kidnapped, tortured, and killed. His body was dissolved in acid. His assassins have always presumed to have been the Belgians, the CIA, and MI6. International outrage led to worldwide riots.
​
3E1D65C4-BA2B-408E-93B8-576A1F88981E_1_1
    Andrée Blouin with the revolutionary Pierre Mulélé
 
Sentenced to death, Andrée Blouin fled the Congo. She was almost murdered twice by the opposition. Her husband and young son were thrown into jail, and her baby daughter and mother kept hostage by the military opposition. Regrouping in Switzerland with the help of loyal friends and activists, the Blouin family then took refuge in Algiers as did the African and International independence movements, from the South African ANC to the Black Panther Party, at the time, and then settled in Paris.
 
During the 70’s and 80’s Andrée Blouin ceaselessly continued to promote Pan-African ideology through her writings, and was the adviser of numerous African politician-activists and heads of state. She died in 1986 in Paris.
​​
-
​
My Country Africa was written by Andrée Blouin and adapted in English by fellow writer Jean MacKellar. The book was published as an academic book by Double Day then Praeger in the US in 1983, later endorsed by Jessica Mitford. Having been out of print for years, Andrée Blouin's daughter, Eve Blouin is determined to expose a side of history which has too often been overlooked. 
In recent news:
​
​Related to the feature-documentary "Soundtrack to a Coup d'Etat" (here) in which Andrée Blouin is featuring:
 
 
Useful links for own consideration:​
​
​
PanAfrican School Andrée Blouin in Kinshasa, DRC:
​
​
​
Andrée Blouin's Cultural Center in Kinshasa, DRC: 
​
​
bottom of page