By Guy Everard Mbarga

Translation : Armelle Mfegue

To express the differences that divide anglophones and francophones in Canada, we have the habit of using the expression "two solitudes". The Afro-descendants of Latin American of African slaves’ descendants whose official languages are Portuguese and Spanish mainly represent an even greater solitude to be found within the Black World.

The specialized websites that address historical themes or topics related to Afrodescendants of Latin America are either scarce or too specialized and anchored on folklore, which is principally published in Spanish or Portuguese. The unavailability or extreme scarcity of everyday matters (of) such afrodescendants in other languages, such as French, constitutes a barrier, a wall that prevents reconnection, sharing, and exchange. The language is a barrier that prevents access to the daily reality or the history of the other. And this is particularly true for the African francophone or afrodescendant vis-à-vis the Latin American Afrodescendant, of which we are specifically talking about here.

Latin American Afrodescendants speak mostly Portuguese and Spanish and can not communicate automatically with the majority of Africans for example (or French or English speaking Caribbean) who speak mainly English and French. We can easily substantiate this by analyzing and comparing the official languages in the two continents and the proportion of people who speak them. 

The languages of settlers and European slavers have not only been the vehicle used to make us ingurgitate a culture that is not ours, they are also, in our days, the origin of the solitudes of afrodescendants, that is; this linguistic isolation, political and cultural partitioning- more or less important-that characterizes every community of the African Diaspora, and particularly that of Iberian America. This is also the case in Africa where the realities of Francophones are far from preoccupying the Anglophones. This partitioning, boosted by differences in language, has an impact not only in terms of access of one to the information about the other, but also from the viewpoint of the exchange or the social, touristic, political, economic, cultural, and educational connexion, to name a few.


Initiatives are therefore to be implemented on both sides (by Africans and their Diaspora) to enable African descendants and Africans to broaden their horizons in terms of references like themselves, which would be a source of pride, and models. This is only possible if we open the linguistic padlock that makes them invisible, non-existent for others.

The role of communicators, journalists, translators, linguists here is paramount. They are the ones who can create this interest at the grassroots level (and not only experts). It is in this sense that the initiative of the blog of blacks in Latin America was born two years ago. It is through the translation of Spanish and Portuguese articles to French that we provide varied historical information and news, mainly (but not exclusively) to French-speaking Afrodescendants, about Latin American afrodescendants. Time has helped realize that a great interest exists, from the general public and also from many intellectuals. However, this initiative will continue to grow, and is just one grain of sand among millions of others.


The collaboration, beginning with Caoba, an online magazine, falls within this perspective. Each of us, African, afrodescendant of the Diaspora who embrace the same ideal shared within the Black World, has his share to be done.