From the Dakar world festival (1966) to the Pan-African Festival in Algiers (1969): tensions and invisibilisation of cultural worlds in political arenas.

Abstract

This article reflects on the Dakar (1966) and Algiers (1969) festivals. There is a large body of literature on the impact of the two festivals, discussions between art, Blackness, Pan-Africanism, countless archives, newspaper materials, films, articles and books. Our proposal is to complement this, to read between the lines and consider the festivals as political arenas in a delimited space-time, almost total social facts. Our focus is on the nuances and criticisms written, highlighting, for example, voices from the diaspora, delving into internal tensions and raising questions that are not so recurrent, confronting the intentions of the Festivals with the demands of the populations of the two countries. Our attention focused on internal and external criticisms of the Dakar festival. We then questioned the Pan-African Festival in Algiers, which silenced identities present at the birth of the Algerian nation and kept alive its Saharan festival traditions. This is not a comparison between the festivals, but a study of their specificities in performances that have resulted in the invalidation of different cultures in the course of these world spectacles. The author and author seek to look at the historical processes of the two festivals, problematizing the political aspects of these arenas, showcases of African cultures on the move.