Cote d'Ivoire: Patriotism, ethnonationalism and other African modes of self-writing

One of the key elements in the political-military struggle thathas wracked Côte d’Ivoire since 2002 has been the‘young patriots’ — youthful supporters ofPresident Laurent Gbagbo who claim to be struggling for thecountry’s ‘second independence’ from the formercolonial power, France. Many of them conceive of their strugglenot just as a political one but as a search for social affirmation.This article examines the politics of Ivorian ‘patriotic’youth in the light of Achille Mbembe’s influential ideason African modes of self-representation.