Eyadéma & Pompidou, 1972

Étienne Eyadéma & Pompidou — Togolese, likely produced in Gabon by SOTEGA, 1972

 

This is the second on a series I have found from 1971-72 trips of French President Pompidou to nine African leaders in February and March 1971, Tchad in January 1972, and then Upper Volta and Togo in December 1972.

The huge stylized tree–in this case a palm, in other national variations it was different–frames the portraits of the leaders. Coffee or kola beans create a pattern for heraldic state seals of France and Togo, and the city seals of Lome and Paris. A scroll reads “Franco-Togolese Friendship”, as palm fronds and tropical plants parade along the bottom. Overall it is slightly simpler and clearly a variation of the Gabonese textile form the same visit. Examples from Niger and Upper Volta also seem similar, while those from Senegal and Cote d’Ivoire are more distinct.  Both these last two nations had huge textile printing industries, more than capable of producing giant runs of printed cloth that was needed for these spectacles.  A Tchadian example from the same trips in my collection is quite different.  While the Ivorian, Senegalese, Voltaic, Togolese, Beninois, and Gabonese examples all feature twined cameo portraits, the Tchadian made textiles for the same visit feature full body portraits and distinct designs. I have only seen the Gabon, Togo, and Benin examples designed around the distinctive tree motif, though others like the Tchadian also use the repeating pattern of twinned city and national crests along the selvage.

This textile can be seen on newsreels from the time worn by crowds and organized welcomers. One French report shows women and men forming a greeting line for Pompidou at Lomé–Tokoin International Airport all wearing clothing made from this fabric.

Even the slogan can bee seen from news photos, hung in banners across Lomé’s boulevards, as Eyadéma and Pompidou carry out ceremonies celebrating France’s long history in Togo. Whatever the Togolese population thought of their former imperial overlords–or of their current military dictatorship–thousands flooded the streets.

Pompidou had made a whirlwind 10 day trip to Senegal, Cote d’Ivoire, Dahomey, Niger, Cameroon, and Gabon in early 1971. It

had been the first visit by a French head of state to Africa since independence movements finally dissolved the French empire there in 1960. In December 1972, he returned, visiting Upper Volta and Togo. The purpose was clearly to reassure both sides that nothing–including defense agreements and subsidies–would fundamentally change with the passing of De Gaulle. Similar textiles appear at al the stops of these visits, featuring Pompidou beside portraits of Albert-Bernard Bongo, Hamani Diori, Félix Houphouët-Boigny, Sangoulé Lamizana or Léopold Sedar Senghor.

While the Ivorian, Senegalese, and Cameroonian textiles were all unique–no doubt designed and printed by the then powerful textile firms of each nation–those for Upper Volta, Togo, Dahomey and Niger all appear to be variations on the Gabonese design, and were all likely designed and printed by SOTEGA.

Vast crowds were gathered to welcome the French leader, both a testament to strong cultural ties to the old ruler, as well as the tight, stifling ties that still bound their economies, their currency, their trade, their government bureaucracies (then still containing many French “contractors”) and militaries. It was in fact the CFA Franc, once the common currency for the ‘Colonies françaises d’Afrique’, a French Franc pegged currency managed by the French state, that was the one sour note of this visit to Togo.  Eyadéma pushed publicly on the CFA to French Franc valuation, since 1959 devalued from 2 F equalling 1 CFA F to .02 F for 1 CFA F. Pompidou pushed back testily, arguing this was a discussion for all African CFA nations. By 1973, Mauritania, Comoros, and Madagascar left the CFA system, and although that exodus stopped as the early 70s global move to floating currencies stabilized exchange values in trade, it is a system still regretted, even reviled, by many in west and central African nations today.

While the late seventies saw a series of accords that upended preferential trade deals with France in exchange for cash crops and raw minerals, this era was still one remembered by many, in Togo and elsewhere, for a feeling of popular hope and relative prosperity. Only with the punishing debt crises and forced liberalization of the 1980s would this era be looked back on with nostalgia, a nostalgia that may seem strange now.

The raw material export economies created under colonialism had failed to fund a tax base capable of supporting a European model state and services, and authoritarianism and army coups had often been the answer to economic conflict, in Togo as elsewhere. French funds stopped gaps and French troops–and the infamous Françafrique system of French Presidents–kept the policies crucial to Paris within acceptable bounds. It is both these–a 1970s era of hope, prosperity, and of tight neo-colonial reins–which these travels by Pompidou recall. It marks perhaps the high water mark of the classic French neo-coloniual system, deemed crucial by de Gaulle and steered by the notorious spy-chief Jacques Foccart, while met on the other side by magnific autocrats like Félix Houphouët-Boigny and Omar Bongo or severe military dictators like Eyadéma.

President Eyadéma took the first name “Gnassingbé” in 1974, and this textile dates from before that. A dictatorial leader, he came to power in a 1967 coup, after previously leading a 1963 coup and placing politician Nicolas Grunitzky in power, then deposing him in turn. It is alleged Eyadéma, a French army veteran and colonel in the new Togolese military, personally murdered Togo’s first President Sylvanus Olympio in the course of his first coup. Eyadéma can be seen as representative of the most brutal elements of French neo-colonial rule. After his death in 2005, his son Faure Gnassingbé took power, where he remains today.