International Journal of Language & Literature

Les Immigrés Africains Et La Vie Frauduleuse En Occident Dans Bleu-Blanc-Rouge D’Alain Mabanckou
Ifeoma Mabel Onyemelukwe

Abstract
Immigration, which has been in existence since time immemorial, has become a planetary evil. Millions of human beings – men, women, the old, the young, boys, girls and children – embark today on migratory adventure, which, many times, risk ending in catastrophic incidents. The radio, the television and the social media always broadcast the sad news of the cap siding of ramshackle ships transporting Africans across the Mediterranean Sea to the West and the enormous human losses resulting from such. Some end up becoming slaves, others go into prostitution while some others experience terrible and brutal death having become victims of human organ harvesting, a criminal act perpetrated by some gangsters. Innumerable persons make attempts to flee from their homeland orchestrated by the desire to find a better place. This massive exodus is provoked by incessant wars which ravage their countries, acts of terrorism and other forms of violence especially structural violence (poverty, famine and unemployment). African Literature has taken a new direction which Chevrier named migritude (Afrique(s)-sur-Seine). Migritude writers, humanist in nature, are concerned about the fate of immigrants especially their compatriots. One of them, Alain Mabanckou, a Congolese writer, in his debut novel Bleu-blanc-rouge (1999) (Blue-White-Red) gives an excellent picture of the fraudulent life of African immigrants in France. The objective of the present study is to examine this fraudulent life of African immigrants as depicted by Alain Mabanckou in Blue-White-Red. Our study makes use of some eco-critical concepts namely: monoculture of the mind, zoo criticism, slow violence and the environmentalism of the poor. It also has at its disposal the sociological and psychoanalytical methods. It is found that the major factor which predisposes African immigrants to fraudulent ways of living is discrimination which they face in the West. This strange world shuts them out. We discover also in this study that their fraudulent way of life has positive effects like partial integration of the immigrant in the host society as well as negative consequences such as paradoxical life, arrest by the police, imprisonment and expulsion. We come to the conclusion that although Mabanckou denounces openly the fraudulent way of life of African immigrants in the West, and specifically in France, this humanist criticises in a subtle manner the discrimination suffered by African immigrants in the French society given that they are compelled to device crooked ways that will enable them make it in life. Furthermore, Mabanckou denounces the thingification and marginalization of African immigrants by French authorities.

Full Text: PDF      DOI: 10.15640/ijll.v6n2a24