Aftermath News

Freemasonry is often to be found close to the centres of power

Icicemac.com | Apr 25, 2008

A European import, freemasonry is remarkably widespread in both French and English-speaking Africa, as it is in Latin America and the United States. Freemasonry is often to be found close to the centres of power. Simon Bolivar and President Roosevelt were both masons; and in Gabon, President Omar Bongo is their eminence grise. African freemasons often seek to act as mediators in the frequent crises accompanying the current democratisation of the continent.

By Claude Wauthier

In Congo-Brazzaville, the former president, Denis Sassou Nguesso, and his successor, Pascal Lissouba, are both freemasons, although they belong to different chapters of the order. Mr Lissouba is an initiate of the Grand Orient of France while Mr Sassou Nguesso belongs to a Senegalese lodge affiliated to the French Grand National Lodge. After the recent clashes of armed militia in the capital, French and African freemasons of the Grand Lodge of France, the United Grand Lodge of Côte d’Ivoire and the Grand Orients and United Lodges of Cameroon joined forces in an attempt to restore peace, though their efforts have not so far met with success (1). This is, nevertheless, a revealing instance of the freemasons’ influence in French-speaking Africa.

The Grand Orient established its first lodge at Saint-Louis in Senegal in 1781 and, as a consequence, the names of a number of distinguished freemasons are to be found in the history of French colonial rule. First came two proponents of the abolition of slavery: the Abbé Grégoire at the time of the French Revolution, followed by Victor Schoelcher, a junior minister for the navy under the Second Republic, who was instrumental in obtaining the final abolition of slavery in 1848 after its restoration by Napoleon I (2). Then, Algeria’s Emir Abdel Kader was admitted to the Grand Orient in 1864 as a mark of gratitude for his protection of the Damascus Christians during the 1860 massacres, when he was in exile in Syria.

The great French empire builder, Jules Ferry, was a also freemason and so was the colonial governor, Félix Eboué, a Black from French Guiana, who rallied Chad to the Free French cause in 1940, leading the whole of French Equatorial Africa and Cameroon to support General de Gaulle at a time when the Vichy Government was introducing laws against masons and Jews.

There were a good many freemasons (or members of the “brotherhood of light” as it is sometimes known) in the French colonial administration. After the second world war, most of them campaigned for independence for the French overseas territories in Africa and more and more Africans joined the lodges. After 1960, the great year for independence, freemasonry continued to spread, acquiring an African identity and loosing its ties with the French chapters. National chapters were established in a number of French-speaking African countries but they retained fairly close links with the French chapters, sometimes even reflecting the divisions between them.

Freemasonry is known for being multifarious, divided even, and perhaps more so in France than elsewhere (3). The clearest division is between the Grand Orient and the other lodges. Unlike the other rites, the Grand Orient does not invoke the “Great Architect of the Universe”, that is to say God, in its constitution and its members do not swear on the Bible. The Grand Lodge of France and the French Grand National Lodge both recognise the “Great Architect”, but the lattter is the only one to be recognised by the United Lodge of England, the parent chapter of the order worldwide.

French freemasons continue to take an interest in Africa. Under the Fifth Republic, at least two freemasons were in charge of the ministry for cooperation, the Socialist Christian Nucci of the Grand Orient and the Gaullist Jacques Godfrain of the Grand Lodge of France (4). Guy Penne, adviser on African affairs to François Mitterrand during his term as president between 1981-86, is a member of the Grand Orient. And Ambassador Fernand Wibaux, President Chirac’s personal adviser on African affairs (along with the late Jacques Foccart), is an initiate of that chapter.

Generally speaking, the national chapters in French-speaking African countries are the fruit of a merger between the lodges of the Grand Orient and the Grand Lodge of France, established before independence. This is true of the Grand Equatorial Rite of Gabon, the Grand Orients and United Lodges of Cameroon, and the Grand Orients and Associated Lodges of Congo and Benin. In Gabon, however, in addition to the Grand Equatorial Rite of Gabon, there is also a Grand National Lodge affiliated to the French Grand National Lodge. In Côte d’Ivoire, there are a number of different chapters, including the Grand United Lodge and the Grand Eburnie, which are close to the Grand Lodge of France and the Grand Orient respectively. In Togo, there are lodges affiliated to the Grand Orient and the Grand Lodge of France.

In Senegal, the lodges of the Grand Orient and the Grand Lodge of France have also kept their affiliations, but the French Grand National Lodge is also represented. The freemasons of Togo and Senegal have not established a national chapter, apparently because they are afraid it might be infiltrated by the regime and used for its own ends, as has sometimes happened in other countries.

However that may be, most of the chapters that are linked to a greater or lesser degree with the Grand Orient and the Grand Lodge of France participate in the REHFRAMs (African and Madagascan humanist and fraternal meetings) which have been held in an African capital every year since 1992 and to which those French lodges are invited. There were 400 delegates at the meeting at Libreville in Gabon in 1996 and 600 at Cotonou in Benin in 1997, including representatives from several countries in Europe.

The African lodges affiliated to the French Grand National Lodge, which is on its own in this respect, do not take part in these meetings. The Lodge has increased its membership in Black Africa in recent years and its progress, as the only French chapter recognised by the Grand United Lodge of England and by freemasonry in America, is a source of annoyance to the other French lodges where it is regarded by some members as a covert means of extending Anglo-American influence in Africa - an imputation that is hotly denied.

None of the lodges in former British colonies are invited to the REHFRAMs (they too are divided into chapters linked with the Grand United Lodges of England, Scotland and Ireland respectively). This is the case, for example, in Nigeria, Zimbabwe, Kenya and Uganda. On the other hand, the Grand Orient of Zaire, an emanation of the Grand Orient of Belgium, does take part in these humanist and fraternal meetings between lodges in French-speaking Africa.

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