I. Maquisards. In this first part, I will consider the role of the maquisard in what Frederick Cooper refers to as the narrative of “triumphant nationalism.” How does this narrative of “macho defiance” work and where does it stand today? In addition to Cooper’s work on interdisciplinary innovations in the field of African historiography, I will look at the roots of this discourse in the works of Frantz Fanon. After outlining these discursive parameters, I will locate traces of what has become in effect a “master narrative” in contemporary accounts of decolonization such as the one Kristin Ross and others offer. I will conclude this section by contrasting ideologies of liberation and historical events in terms similar to those proposed by Clifford Geertz, Anthony Appiah and Benita Parry. The point here will be to bring up for reconsideration what really happened to those maquisards so often referred to in theory.

II. Martyrs. This section will compare the status of the anti-colonial maquisard with that of the martyr, who figures as the hero of a different and, at times, opposing narrative: the narrative of decolonization-as-dispossession. The fates of grassroots leaders killed by colonial agents in attempts to supplant popular anti-colonial movements are often overlooked in “post-colonial” accounts of contemporary Africa these days. The list of names of those lostPatrice Lumumba, Simon Kimbangu, André Matswa, Ruben Um Nyobé, Edouard Ouandié, Walter Rodneyunder these circumstances is really too long. In this part, I will suggest that there may be a missing element in current paradigms where loss and dispossession are not given adequate consideration.

III. Madmen. In this last part, I will reflect on African writers’ reactions to this recent history focusing on accounts by Mongo Beti’s La France contre l’Afrique, Sony Labou Tansi’s Le Commencement des douleurs, Wole Soyinka’s The Open Sore of a Continent and Ngugi wa Thiongo’s Penpoints, Gunpoints and Dreams. These pillars of contemporary African literature have either been driven “mad” by the current state of affairs or portrayed characters who have gone crazy, unable to adapt to the outrageous situation of injustice in many parts of Africa these days. The point here will be to consider how have things been going in Africa over the last thirty years from their points of view and to conclude by asking what categories are available these days for thinking about decolonization in Africa.