Daily Gabonese textile

 

  See Tropenmuseum/Paul Faber catalog from 2010 "Long Live the President" plate 34. My example purchased from France, bought in Paris in unknown circumstances in 1970s. It is about three of what would have been originally sold as six yards of fabric. It was produced by Societe Industrielle Textile du Gabon (SOTEGA), founded in Libreville in 1969 to locally print and dye Chinese made cotton fabric [1] A small mark above the bottom selvage reads SOTEGA. The 1971 trip of French President Pompidou to Africa included a February visit to Gabon and a March visit to Senegal. It some ways it was the high water mark of Francafrique, with the notorious "Mr. Africa" Jacques Foccart organizing meetings on both sides, and demonstrating the continuity of the Neocolonial relationship following Pompidou's ascension to President in 1969 and Bongo's in 1967. Gabon, under Bongo in particular, is the very poster child for French neocolonialism, with the Gabonese elites entire pe...