Talk:Rassemblement Démocratique Africain

COTF notes

So how should we go about laying this one out? Any suggestions? --Dvyost 01:52, 8 October 2005 (UTC)

Redirect?

I think that searching for Rassemblement Démocratique Africaine Should redirect here. Anyone else? Omgitsmonica (talk) 19:20, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Does now: Rassemblement Démocratique Africaine. T L Miles (talk) 00:35, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Expansion

This is about the most important subject in the traditional histories of Francophone decolonization in West Africa. Unfortunately it is still little more than a stub. A reworking of some elements of Félix_Houphouët-Boigny#Foundation_of_the_RDA_and_Communist_alliance might be a good start, but summaries of the various sections could also be gleaned from other articles. I'm not belly aching: I know people are busy with their own efforts to improve Wikipedia, but I thought I might point this out in case someone familiar with the history needs a topic. T L Miles (talk) 20:43, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

Requested move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the proposal was moved to Rassemblement Démocratique Africain. --BDD (talk) 21:43, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

African Democratic Rally → Rassemblement démocratique africain – There is no clear and standard English translation for the RDA party. "African Democratic Assembly" and "African Democratic Rally" are both regularly used. There are many sources that just use the French. For most valuable usage which does not translate the name, see: Encyclopedia of Africa, Oxford Encyclopedia of African Thought. With usage split in English sources, and some prominent examples that do not translate, it is reasonable for the Wikipedia article to not translate it. Thanks for the input. --Relisted. EdJohnston (talk) 01:41, 3 September 2013 (UTC) AbstractIllusions (talk) 01:51, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

• Support Rassemblement Démocratique Africain with caps - those two academic sources clearly show serious sources don't attempt to invent an English name, but they also show that English doesn't accept the new (1980s?) French capitalization rules. English is more CAPS-heavy than French and this is unlikely to change for formal names of institutions. Caps here aren't an eyesore like Ai Se Eu Te Pego (shudder). In ictu oculi (talk) 03:42, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

• I do prefer the caps version. AbstractIllusions (talk) 13:07, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

• Oppose - the translation of 'Rassemblement' as 'Rally' is pretty much standard for French party names. I don't see why this would be untranslatable. --Soman (talk) 04:51, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

• Thanks for the point. Just to clarify, my contention is not that it is untranslatable or even difficult to translate, but that it is best not to translate because of multiple good English translations. "Rally" is of course the quick translation (used by the BBC for instance), but it is also only one of many translations. Both Patrick Manning and John Fage (two of the best French West Africa historians) translate RDA as "Assembly" rather than "Rally", as does OECD (PDF) and the US State Department (at times). The UN Secretary General appears to use "African Democratic Party" as the translation; see here. So we got a few different translations--and some prominent English sources that simply don't translate (original post above). So the question is whether we can translate effectively, not whether there is an available translation. AbstractIllusions (talk) 13:07, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

• Comment I'm wary to take sides here due to not having right now underhand my books on Francophone Africa; that said, I'll leave my 2 cents: 1) when in doubt, I believe we should always prefer English, since while some of us may be relatively at ease with French for most readers it'll be clear like Arab; 2) Using my memory (not too reliable), all my books investing the topic that translated RDA (if they did) used "Rally", as Soman noted.Aldux (talk) 16:45, 2 September 2013 (UTC)

• Thanks for the input, Aldux. I think I'm certainly willing to be convinced of the first point (I probably agree with it in principle, although wonder how much title matters rather than just having good redirects, ala medical disease pages). I wanted to test your second point, so I looked at the top 10 preview-able hits on Google Books (vsss) for search term (RDA West Africa). Schmidt- no translate, Thompson and Adloff (1958)- No translate, Chafer-no translate, Thompson and Adloff (1960)- No translate, Crowder- No translate (snippet view of first usage), McKenna- translate as Rally, Okoth- no translate, Hanretta- no translate, Coleman and Rosberg- no translate, Mann- no translate. Either way, I'm confused on the issue too, the more heads we can get thinking on it, the happier I am (regardless of outcome). AbstractIllusions (talk) 01:56, 3 September 2013 (UTC)

I think I've been unclear: I didn't want to deny that scholarly works often left RDA untranslated (when I added "if they do" I was meaning that), just that "rally" is indeed in the books I read the standard, at least for as much I remember. For this I'm all in all rather neutral on the issue.Aldux (talk) 00:19, 4 September 2013 (UTC)

Fair enough, sorry for the misunderstanding. If it helps: JSTOR articles that translate the RDA- 8 as "African Democratic Rally" and 5 as "African Democratic Assembly." I do agree that "African Democratic Rally" should stay the English translation, if we stick with an English translation (although personally I prefer Assembly--but Rally makes parallel acronym, so I guess that's good). I guess I just do not see that there is a clear English proper name and that the French is preferable. Thanks again for the input. AbstractIllusions (talk) 23:53, 5 September 2013 (UTC)

A quick look at news reports from the time shows this preference: 1. Translation as 'Rally' (NY Times, Washington Post, Boston Globe, BBC) about 75% of total press coverage, 2. No translation, about 15% of total press coverage. 3. Other translations, remainder. The usage in popular encyclopedia (original move proposal) and by scholarly/government sources (second post by me) are much less unified. However, press coverage does dramatically use "Rally". Hope that helps us figure out this tricky one. AbstractIllusions (talk) 14:11, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

• Support. More accurate. Better recognizable to anyone connected (not that the translation is not recognizable, but original French name is immediately known). Prefer to not translate well known and recognizable proper names. Prefer the capitalized version, better in keeping with it being a proper name. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 03:33, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Evaluation

I am evaluating this article because I am interested in exploring the role that communism/Marxism played in African anti-colonial struggles. This article matters because it explains the history of the political party (RDA) that influenced the independence of West and Equatorial African countries from French imperialism/colonialism. My preliminary impression of this article is that it is both biased against African independence and biased towards the leaders of the RDA, whose class interests (at times) aligned with the aims of French imperialism. At times, some of the statements in the article were false/misleading.

The introductory sentence of the article does succinctly and fairly describe the meaning of the RDA. Although the lead section does a good job at summarizing the contents of the rest of the article, it does not provide a description for each section of the article, such as the "Chaos in the Ivory Coast: 1949" section. All of the information in the lead is included in the article at later points. If the lead section is supposed to provide brief descriptions of the later sections of the article, I would say that the lead is overly detailed. It dedicates time to some sections of the article, but it would likely be more effective if it dedicated one-two sentences on each section of the article, which will decrease its length while increasing its breadth.

The article's content is relevant to the subject of the RDA; however, it fails to include the significance of the role of the French Communist Party (PCF), the largest French trade federation (Confédération Générale du Travail, or CGT), and the dynamics between the populace and the elites of colonial French West/Equatorial Africa. The citations contain some articles from the 21st century, but the rest are from the 20th, so I do not think the content is up-to-date. Another noticeable point of missing content is the fact that Ahmed Sékou Touré was one of the founders of the Guinean RDA, yet it is implied that he joined years after its founding. Another example of missing content is the fact that the PCF didn't randomly lose power in France, rather the United States refused to include France (and any European nation) in the Marshall Plan if communist parties were in their ruling governments. This is a notable point because the article undermines the significance of the relationship between the PCF and the interterritorial RDA, especially as it related to developing pro-independence stances. This leads the reader to potentially interpret the actions of the PCF as subversive and anti-democratic. I personally feel like this article has anti-communist undertones, leading information relating to communism in the article to be immediately dismissed without significant reasoning. I feel like this represents an equity gap.

The article is biased towards elites in the colonies and anti-communism. It is also biased towards French imperialism. The claims that Félix Houphouët-Boigny was a progressive leader, who guided the RDA towards independence, is extremely biased towards anti-communism; it is also biased towards a belief that French colonies did not deserve (or would not benefit) immediate independence, which justifies imperialism/colonialism. The role of the Guinean RDA, especially trade unionists and activists in the non-urban regions, in causing the eventual independence of formerly French West/Equatorial African colonies is underrepresented. I feel like some of the minority viewpoints are described as if they were majority viewpoints, such as the demand for immediate independence in the region, because it aligns with a ruling-class perspective of history. The article subtly persuades the reader to believe in a delayed, anti-communist independence (trajectory of the RDA).

The majority of the sources seem to be from reliable secondary sources, such as academic presses. The sources are far from thorough. They mainly represent perspectives from the 20th century, and there are less than 15. 15 seems like a lot, but the RDA is fairly thoroughly researched. About half of the sources are not current. It seems like only one of the authors originate from the described region. 3 other authors are African, and the rest/majority are not. They are more recent peer-reviewed articles that would make this article more accurate, such as:

I think the article is easy to read. At first glance, I did not notice grammatical errors. I think that the section titles are broken down into accurate, major points of the RDA history; however, I think the substance within them is lacking.

The article does not contain a lot of media, but of the included media, I believe that it enhances the reading. The captions on the images are fine. It seems like the majority (or all) of the images abide by Wikipedia's Copyright policies. The layout is appealing, but I think the article could use more images.

The most recent discussion on the Talk Page (2013) was about whether the article the RDA should be referred to as the African Democratic Rally (direct English translation) or the Rassemblement Démocratique Africain (original French name). The article is rated as Start Class. It is a part of the following WikiProjects: WikiProject Africa (WikiProject Burkina Faso, WikiProject Chad, WikiProject Ivory Coast, WikiProject Guinea, WikiProject Niger, and WikiProject Senegal) and WikiProject Politics. We have not talked about Africa in class yet, but we have discussed communism at length. This article's discussion of communism (or lack thereof) is very dismissive (covertly negative), where we discuss its' impacts, critiques and acclamations.

Overall, I think this article could benefit from more information about the structure and impact of the RDA in each territory (where it had membership). I also think this article could benefit from using a class analysis when describing the impacts (or lack thereof) of the work of the RDA. It's strengths are its details on the electoral relevance of the group. The article is underdeveloped.Kel5142 (talk) 03:42, 12 October 2022 (UTC)

References