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Editorial

Salim Lamrani
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Éditorial [fr]

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1This issue brings together six interviews with figures from diverse backgrounds – France, Vietnam, Réunion, and the Chagos Islands – who share a common thread: each, in their own way, has resisted domination and injustice. All have denounced and fought – sometimes with weapons in hand – against Nazi occupation, everyday and institutional racism, colonial oppression, and expulsion from their homeland. The quest for emancipation, nourished by the refusal of autocracy, the revolt against inequality, and the rejection of all racial hierarchies, runs through each dialogue.

2In the first interview, Léon Landini, a French Resistance fighter born into a family of Italian political refugees who fled Mussolini’s regime, was shaped from an early age by his elders’ struggles against oppression. When the Second World War broke out and Marshal Pétain’s collaborationist France betrayed the nation by laying down its arms, the entire Landini family joined the only camp they had ever belonged to: that of resistance to enslavement. On the eve of his hundredth birthday, a few months before his passing on September 21, 2025, Léon Landini shares his glorious memories and reminds younger generations that the verb to resist must always be conjugated in the present tense.

3In the second interview, Réunionese artist Danyèl Waro, raised in a modest farming family, grew up at a time when the neocolonial policy imposed by Paris was suffocating the language and culture of Réunion. As a teenager, he discovered maloya, a traditional musical form rooted in the ritual heritage of enslaved people’s descendants. A staunch antimilitarist, he refused to don the uniform or perform compulsory military service. His defiance earned him nearly two years in prison in Rennes, where he wrote his first deeply committed texts behind bars. Upon his return to Réunion, he devoted himself entirely to his artistic calling. Throughout these conversations, Danyèl Waro denounces the social injustices and colonial legacy that have afflicted the island for decades, and speaks of his lifelong commitment to defending Réunionese identity.

4In the third interview, Chagossian refugee Olivier Bancoult, deported from his native land at the age of four, recounts his people’s struggle for the right to return. Because of the Chagos Islands’ strategic position in the heart of the Indian Ocean, the United States decided in 1966 to establish a military base on Diego Garcia. To this end, with the agreement of the British government, all Chagossians – who had lived on these islands since the eighteenth century – were arbitrarily deported to Mauritius and the Seychelles between 1966 and 1973, with no possibility of return to this day. For more than half a century, the Chagossian people have waged a relentless struggle against colonial injustice.

5In the fourth interview, Vietnamese-born scholar Ho Hai Quang, who fled his homeland because of the Indochina War initiated under General de Gaulle, discusses his people’s efforts to raise global awareness of the devastating consequences of the U.S. military’s massive use of Agent Orange. Even today, nearly half a century after the end of the war, this powerful defoliant continues to claim millions of victims in Vietnam. Throughout these exchanges, Ho Hai Quang retraces Vietnam’s history – its colonization and its people’s struggle for freedom – particularly against French colonialism and U.S. imperialism.

6In the fifth interview, political philosophy researcher Bruno Guigue traces the history of China. He revisits the country’s situation before the Maoist Revolution of 1949 and discusses the path of Mao Zedong and the founding of the Chinese Communist Party. He explains in detail the conquest of power and the major stages of the revolutionary process. He also outlines the distinctive features of Chinese socialism, noting that the state retains control over the three principal sources of capital. Guigue further highlights the fight against extreme poverty, while emphasizing the persistence of inequalities mitigated by a highly protective social security system.

7In the sixth and final interview, Didier Roustan, an emblematic figure of sports journalism, recounts the story of his life. He speaks of his encounters with some of the greatest legends of football, the founding of the world’s first union for professional footballers alongside Diego Maradona and Éric Cantona, and of his association Foot Citoyens. A lover of the beautiful game and nostalgic for the days of socially engaged footballers, Didier Roustan – who passed away in 2024 – bequeaths to future generations his experience, his human values, and a noble, demanding conception of journalism.

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Référence électronique

Salim Lamrani, « Editorial »Études caribéennes [En ligne], 15 | Novembre 2025, mis en ligne le , consulté le 14 novembre 2025. URL : http://journals.openedition.org/etudescaribeennes/37902 ; DOI : https://doi.org/10.4000/1536t

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Salim Lamrani

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