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Cowboys and Communists:Cultural Diplomacy, Decolonization and the Cold War in French West Africa Louisa Rice On July 4th 1950, the United States Consulate General in Dakar, the capital of French West Africa [AOF-Afrique Occidentale Française], opened a small library to great fanfare.1 American representatives, weary of the "slightly suspicious French," ensured that both US and French flags adorned the building's new sign. Inside, French administrators and high-ranking officials —not one of whom was African—surveyed displays on American music and theater, presidential portraits and a section on "our common interests" featuring the successes of the Marshall Plan. The event was declared a triumph, save for one troubling incident: both nation’s flags were ripped from the building during the night “apparently by aroused members of the RDA [the Rassemblement Democratique Africaine—a prominent West African nationalist party with communist affiliations].” Jane Ellis, the US Public Affairs Officer, explained, "It was for this possible eventuality that the window displays were purposefully kept general and cultural, with no inducements to incite opposition from RDA factions, or undue attention from natives. It is also for this type of incident that we have steel shutters covering our display windows at night."2 Ellis' description of the steps taken to prevent provocation reveals both the intentions and the failings of US public diplomacy in this French territory during the early 1950s. "Natives" were not the target audience of such efforts; indeed, their attention was consciously avoided; and "general and cultural" displays were believed to be quite capable of seducing the French but void of a kind of political legibility that might inspire African or French opposition. The proclamations of both the US Consul General—Perry N. Jester—and the French High Commissioner in AOF—Paul Béchard—reinforced American-French cooperation in the territory, with Jester particularly keen to emphasize the lack of infringement on the French way of life there: "We do not seek to impose any patterns of culture or thought upon any inhabitants of these territories."3 In this context, the act of tearing down both flags was symbolic not only of the gathering pace of African nationalism but also of the way French and American authorities seriously underestimated "native" ability to respond to or appropriate "Western" cultural and political forms. Indeed, both countries mobilized specific ideas about national culture in formulating policy during the last years of colonial rule in AOF. This article examines the various terrains of these cultural clashes in the territory, clashes which were explicitly linked to racialized understandings of local populations and to Cold War politics. In French West Africa, the dangers of communist infiltration were seemingly less pronounced than elsewhere in the French Union (as the French Empire was renamed in 1946). As the audience targeted by the new USIE library suggested, the American fear at the beginning of the 1950s was that France, not West Africa, would fall to communism. As Richard Kuisel writes, beginning in the late 1940s the US State department launched a "cultural offensive" to fight the Cold War on French soil. Here, a tradition of anti-Americanism combined with the relative popularity of communist politics made France "a country where the strategic and political stakes were extremely high."4 Conversely, because French West Africa appeared distanced from immediate threats, clashes between French officials and American diplomats in the territory drew upon deeper cultural concerns and convictions: the "universalism" of French culture, global Americanization and the "backwardness" of the indigenous population. From the French perspective, American officials in Dakar had a very shallow understanding of their brand of colonial rule, a problem compounded by the unofficial signs of American superficiality, particularly the endless stream of Hollywood movies and "les cowboys" who filled the cinema screens. American diplomats—perfectly aware of their "cowboy" image among the French—tread carefully, but nevertheless sought to extend cultural influence in the region in an attempt to curtail possible communist politics, gain the respect of the increasingly anti-American French, and create conditions for a sustained American presence in the region. Set against the backdrop of Cold War divisions, the interactions of the two Western powers illuminate post-war insecurities...
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