Each morning, Daybreak Africa looks at the latest developments on the continent, starting with headline news and providing in-depth interviews, reports from VOA correspondents, sports news as well as listener comments.

22:18 onwards, Jacques Enaudeau speaks to Voice of America's DayBreak program on Wednesday, August 6th 2014 on launch of The World War I in Africa project amidst the wars centennial commemoration.



DayBreak Africa: Voice of America

August 28th, 2014 :Jacques Enaudeau is a guest speaker on Radio France International Culture radio segment and speaks to Sarah Tisseyre about the World War I in Africa Project. Segment is in French. 

Radio France International: Invité Culture

The story of Africans’ involvement in the Great War is largely unheard of: the tens of thousands of African lives lost at home and abroad, defending the interests of foreign powers and the lives of complete strangers; the forced recruitment of African soldiers to fight Europe’s war, and of African workers to replace the labour force gone to the front; the battles between colonies pitting Africans against each other on their own turf; the reshaping of Africa’s borders and inner workings after the war under new rulers.

Europe’s 20th century started in 1914, and the yoke of colonialism steered Africa along for the ride. Migration trends were set, economies transformed, borders redefined. The task we’ve given ourselves is to dig this heritage out: not to commemorate its passing, but to restore its meaning.

In light of current zeitgeists — a morbid obsession with the past in Europe, an unfeigned disdain for anything but the future in Africa — we believe the Centenary to be a fertile common ground for investigating the present.

WWIAfrica

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