The éCéfamed poet and activist from Martinique Aimé Césaire [en] would have been 100 years old on June 26, 2013. Césaire's birthday is an opportunity to pay tribute to the champion of the anti-colonial African identity Négritude movement: a movement that is currently being shaped by a more globalized world where people come together across borders and continents, all the while attempting to protect and foster their own cultural identities. It is as if his vision of the world back in the 1930's along with those who fought for respect for cultural differences has become yet again a tangible reality 80 years later. Today, almost every country in the world fights a battle against racism with relative success. Still, injustices remain, the verdict in the trial for the death of Trayvon Martin can attest to this [en]. Trayvon Martin on wikipedia CC-BY-3.0 Today, human dignity is attacked in more subtle ways, such as economic hardship and profiling, highlighting the need to revisit the work of activists in the past to fight human oppression. With respect to the fight of activists, writer, French resistance member and Occupy inspiration Stéphane Hessel's successful call for outrage came to fruition to a certain extent with the Arab revolts and the protests in Brazil and in Europe. Here is a retrospective on the life of Aimé Césaire by Yao Assogba, a sociology professor at the University of Quebec : Né à la Martinique le 26 juin 1913, Aimé Césaire, poète et homme politique, est mort en sa terre natale, le 16 avril 2008, à l’âge vénérable de 94 ans. La poésie de Césaire est un grand cri de révolte contre la domination coloniale. Son œuvre, à la fois littéraire et sociologique, est une arme de combat contre la « chosification » des peuples noirs par la colonisation européenne. C’est un phare pour la décolonisation de l’Afrique et la réhabilitation des cultures négro-africaines. Pour bien apprécier l’influence déterminante qu’Aimé Césaire, chantre du mouvement de la « négritude », a eue sur la décolonisation et la renaissance de l’Afrique et des Antilles après la Deuxième Guerre mondiale, il faut se replacer dans la situation coloniale de l’époque. Born in Martinique on the 26 of June, 1913, Aimé Césaire, poet and politician died in his birthplace on the 16 of April 2008 at 94 years old. Césaire's poetry is a great cry of revolt against colonial domination. His work, both literary and sociological is a weapon of warfare against the reification of black peoples by European colonization. It is a siren call for the decolonization of Africa and the rehabilitation of black African cultures. To truly appreciate the important influence that Aimé Césaire, champion of the “negritude” movement had on decolonization, and the renaissance of Africa and the West Indies after the Second World War, one must put oneself in the mindset of the colonial times. Noel Kodia added on the panafrican news website Le Pangolin Afrik : Après avoir découvert les lettres en Martinique au lycée de Fort de France et à Louis-le-Grand à Paris, il fonde avec Léopold Sédar Senghor et Léon-Gontran Damas en 1939 “L’Etudiant noir” qui se présente comme une suite logique d’une autre revue de l’époque intitulée “Légitime défense”. A la même année apparaît son “Cahier d’un retour au pays natal” comme pour annoncer son retour au bercail dans une langue volcanique et pleine d’agressivité et qui va s’approfondir avec une colère légitime dans “Discours sur le colonialisme”. Le texte met en relief l’itinéraire du poète nègre devant son destin de colonisé dont la thématique sera le nerf directeur de l’emblématique “Discours sur le colonialisme”. Dans ce cri de douleur, il ne se voit pas fils de certains royaumes africains comme le Dahomey et le Ghana. After discovering literature in Martinique at the Lycée de Fort de France and at Louis-le-Grand in Paris, he founded, along with Léopold Sédar Senghor and Léon-Gontran Damas in 1939 “L’Etudiant noir” [The Black Student] that positioned itself as a follow up to another journal of the time, “Légitime défense” [Self-Defense]. In the same year “Cahier d’un retour au pays natal” [Notes on a return to the motherland] appeared, as if to announce a return to the cradle with an explosive and aggressive language that eventually came to a crescendo in “Discours sur le colonialisme” [Discourse on Colonialism]. The text throws into relief the journey of the black poet, facing his fate as a colonized person. The raw nerve of the iconic “Discours sur le colonialisme”. In this crying out of pain, he doesn't see himself as the son of certain African kingdoms such as Dahome and Ghana.