This episode of the Anthems podcast explores the national anthem of Cote d'Ivoire, known as "La Bageunaise," which reflects the country's rich history and cultural identity. Patrick delves into the significance of cacao in the Ivorian economy, as the country produces a substantial portion of the world's cacao beans. The discussion touches on colonial history, including the French influence on the region and the eventual path to independence in 1960. Listeners will learn about the anthem's creators, Pierre Marie Cody and Pierre Michel Pingo, and how their contributions were recognized only decades later. The episode also highlights the patriotic and unifying themes present in the anthem's lyrics, celebrating the spirit of the Ivorian people and their commitment to their nation.

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2. https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/countries/cote-divoire/ 
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6. https://www.nytimes.com/1960/07/12/archives/4-african-states-attain-freedom-france-gives-independence-to-ivory.html 
7. https://fr.allafrica.com/stories/200302180100.html 
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13. https://bantuchocolate.com/our-journey/history-of-cacao-from-south-america-to-west-africa/ 
14. https://books.google.com/books?id=JO3n-ui4VvEC&pg=PA210#v=onepage&q&f=false 
15. https://archive.wikiwix.com/cache/index2.php?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.apanews.net%2Fnews%2Ffr%2Farticle.php%3Fid%3D817716#federation=archive.wikiwix.com&tab=url 
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18. https://archive.wikiwix.com/cache/index2.php?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.lebanco.net%2Fbanconet%2Fbco19785.htm#federation=archive.wikiwix.com&tab=url 
19. https://gcatholic.org/dioceses/diocese/dalo0.htm 
20. https://www.catholic-hierarchy.org/bishop/bcotypm.html 
21. Michel Assoumou Nsi, The Catholic Church in Gabon: from the missionary enterprise to the establishment of a local church 1844-1982 , Saint-Denis, Connaissances et Savoirs, coll.  “University Press for African Studies / Human and Social Sciences”,2017, 515  pp. , p.  236
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Hello and welcome to the Anthems podcast. I'm Patrick and I'm here to tell you the story of a song that helps to tell the story of a nation.

Today we are heading back to Africa, and this is a mighty leap of 11,500 miles, or 18,507 km. There are two things about this distance that in combination, I find to be incredible.

One is that it's only 90% of the length of the Great Wall of China, and two is that 90% of the length of the Great Wall of China is 46% of the planet's circumference. I had no idea the Great Wall of China was so deserving of the name. It's fun.

Even if you've never heard of this country, you've almost certainly partaken of its main export. And I'm not talking about oil, despite so much of the world's oil coming out of Africa. Nope.

I'm talking about chocolate, or rather, the raw material for it, cacao beans.

It's not really that much of a diversion, but we'll get there. I just finished a book called Dictator the Men who stole Africa by Paul Kenyon, and while I have some criticisms of the book, nothing's perfect.

I mostly enjoyed reading it. It certainly got me thinking about Cote d'Ivoire, but even that isn't what got me here.

I asked my wife for a suggestion, and she mentioned this country, and I was surprised that, coincidentally, it was the next section of the book I was reading. Or at least that's what I remember happening. At any rate, it has given me an excuse to tell you about La Bajeunaise or the song of Abidjan.

In my reading for this episode, I learned that Cote d'Ivoire has had many names.

It's been referred to as the Cote de quince, the coast of teeth for its past ivory trade, Cote de coquat, after the name the Dutch gave the local people.

It was the coast of five or six stripes after a particular cotton fabric from the region, and honestly, my favorite, the cote du vent, or the windward coast after the perennial offshore winds. Sometime in the 19th century, it settled into Cote d'Ivoire, and as I write this, I don't actually know why?

And I suspect we will not address that in this story, but I'm also wrong, like all the time, so maybe we will all the coats make me think of me in my twenties a bit. I was once called the man of many coats because I had like 20 coats.

I wore them at really specific times because I like purpose driven stuff that has a niche use, and it might offer some insight into my drive to do a podcast about national anthems.

But more to the point, we'll talk about the reason behind all the coats sometime after two minutes of the anthem, and you recover from a surprisingly smooth segway.

Well, I definitely like the song, and I know I'm veering away from official versions of the anthems, but we are a work in progress at this podcast, and I may end up back there sometimes. For now, though, we got to hear Ajoe, an artist out of Paris, and she does a nice job with La Baggiones.

It feels very like an anthem, to be plain about it. I mean, this version, at least, it's on my playlist.

You might have noticed that this anthem is in french, and it is also the anthem of an african country. So we will in fact be hearing more about colonialism and possibly identifying another nexus point, although I'm rethinking that term altogether.

And someday we'll have that longer discussion about meta stuff like that. But not today. Moving on as I must we do need to know where in the world we are.

I guess that for show purposes it's not really strictly necessary, but geographies provides a certain context to things for me, and I'm hoping it does for you guys too.

Assuming we all know what Africa looks like and where the continent is now envision, it's got that sort of lobe looking area up in the northwestern corner of it, and if you go about a thousand miles along the equator west from the coast and then head north roughly 360 miles, you'll reach the coast of Cote d'Ivoire. So it's an equatorial tropical place that's bordered by Liberia and Guinea to the west, Mali and Burkina Faso to the north, and Ghana to the east.

The country is approximately square shaped and covers 322,463 sq. Mi, or 124,000 thousand, 500 km², making it the 68th largest country in the world and just a little bit bigger than New Mexico. That's a us state.

The biggest cash crop, and indeed the largest part of the economy, is cacao, given that chocolate is so central to the modern development of Cote d'Ivoire. My geography term for the episode is actually a botanical term that I thought was interesting. It's called cauliflory.

It refers to plants and that flower or fruit directly from the trunk of the plant, like a cacao tree. And they don't grow new growth or shoots. It has nothing to do with cauliflower, apparently, because why would science name stuff like that?

The term comes from latin words colis and flor, which respectively means stem and flower.

What I find more interesting, and certainly more frustrating once you get to know more about it, is that the cacao tree is not native to western Africa.

How it got there involves, as you might have guessed from past episodes and the french language national anthem, colonial meddling in the affairs of native people. But funnily enough, it has nothing to do with the French and also isn't actually where I'm going to jump into the timeline.

So put a pin there because we will get back to chocolate. I'm just going to pick up the tale.

It further meant that Cote d'Ivoire was largely spared of the effects of the slave trade, but not entirely, if I'm being honest about cacao farming, even today. It also meant that the first french settlement in the area did not occur until mid 17th century in modern day Senegal.

And that's like a thousand miles away from Cote d'Ivoire, because Africa is actually really, really big.

And we're gonna take the long way there. I mean, it's not that long. I just want to detour a little bit to talk about how the cacao tree ended up across the ocean.

The short answer, obviously, is us, like people. I mean, humans move plants around the world all the time and just completely fail to consider the long term implications.

Most of the time here, though, those were mostly economical and cultural consequences that I'm sure have led to large ecological consequences, because of all the farming in pre colonial spanish America, cacao was made into beverages, some alcoholic, some not, as well as being made into chocolate.

They flourished in the equatorial climate and from there spread into the rest of western Africa, including Cote d'Ivoire. And we will hear a bit more about chocolate a bit later on.

In the first half of the 18th century, Cote d'Ivoire was invaded by a couple of groups of akan people. When I say first half, this is over the course of like 60 years or so, but we're thumbnailing a bunch of the history here.

I'm not sure if we're going to hear more about that as my episodes trek across the continent, but we won't hear for sure.

I just wanted to mention it because it moved the story along and prompted a french admiral to make treaties with local kings and place the region under a protectorate. This was the proverbial foot in the door for the French, but at first things happened slowly.

Over time, they were able to develop permanent trading posts through almost certainly exploitive treaties and agreements. Sources described them as frustrating for all parties involved due to limited trade and constant misunderstandings.

I got the railed for a long time reading about this war for something that was barely a year long. It had some serious consequences for Europe that we might hear about again over there.

And that is what happened at the conference where England, France, and Germany got together and just sort of rationalized taking that part of Africa away from the people that live there.

They assumed the superiority of the french culture to all of the other cultures. What assimilation meant was that where the French went is where France went. So they tried to crowbar Paris into the african rainforest.

There's some actually pretty cool looking cities and places in Cote d'Ivoire that resulted from this. And association meant if you worked really hard, then you could almost be treated like a person by being nearly french.

There were completely different social and justice systems for people who are citizens and people who are subjects.

In other words, at this point in the timeline, the three people involved in the anthem's creation are alive. So now I can talk about them. The earliest born of the three will be the last man to get mentioned, and that won't happen for a little bit yet.

I say pretty sure because one source is very sure that a minister named Joaquim Boney was the writer, but put a pin in that. You might hazard a guess that Pierre Marie was not a guy with a lot of a historical footprint, because that is, in fact, the case.

The sources are clear, though, that he wrote the anthem, and here we come to a startlingly abrupt end to his part. I've fairly quickly gotten to the point where I'm not going to be surprised until we get to know a ton of stuff about the writers and composers.

Did we get to hear more about the person born most recently and immediately counter my expectations? We do actually get to know a bit more about Pierre Michel Pingo, not buckets more, but more than about the writer.

He was raised Catholic and steered on an early pathway to the seminary during his primary and secondary studies at a minor seminary, and then was put into a six year program of philosophy and theology. By 28 he was an ordained priest and worked at several parishes and went on to find a couple of schools.

Sometime that year a conference was held to collect and sort out all of the scholarship regarding the history and authorship of labagines. What they ended up verifying was that the anthem was, like many others, chosen by competition.

I did try to find it, though, because it is something that we should know for a story about how the song came about. My guess? Likely it has something to do with Matthieu making a modification or two to the lyrics before it was written into the constitution.

As always, if someone knows more like somebody from Cote d'Ivoire, please share with me I can amend this.

There was no great revolutionary movement or independence movement in coats of war, but there was chocolate in World War Two. I told you I'd get back to Cacao because Felix Fei li got his start as a very successful farmer of cacao.

So now I'm going to tell you about the song itself. Musically speaking, labagine is a composition in b flat major and it is typically played in four four time as a moderate march.

So like 96 beats per minute, we get an uplifting and actually pretty patriotic melody. It's typically begun with a flourish and soars off long intervals and contours that seek to evoke pride and unity.

It is strongly possible that it achieves this feeling of being an anthem quality tune by using the french anthem La Marseillaise as a fairly direct model. You have not heard that here yet, but it's a good story and I'll get there.

We will run into the french anthem in their formal colonial interests again, though they had a pretty heavy footprint where they went in Africa. And that song is actually very good. Moving on to the lyrics, lyrically, we have a five verse song with a refrain after each of the verses.

And while most official events play the short version that you heard, or something close to that anyway, and it's the only version that I've actually been able to find that isn't a pretty terrible recording. I don't want to play a terrible recording for you folks.

We have two alternating refrains and in the song we get verse one refrain one, verse two, refrain two, verse three, refrain three, four, two, verse five and refrain one. A final time I will read the refrains the first time they come up only and read through the anthem in English.

But as previously noted, this anthem is sung and written in French. And now onto the song itself. I think just reading right through and then talking about it as a whole is what's going to work for labagines. Hello.

O land of hope, country of hospitality, your legions with valour have raised your dignity. Your sons, dear Ivory coast proud artisans of your greatness, all gathered together and for your glory, all will build you in happiness.

Proud avorians, the country calls us. If we have in peace brought back freedom, our duty will be a model of the hope promised to humanity by forging.

United in new faith, the homeland of true fraternity. To you, noble ivory Coast, o great country of good people, we bring in victory the homage of our ardent hearts in the friendship of brother peoples.

God guides us towards the ideal, submissive to the cherished motto, union, discipline, work for your greatness, rich and noble homeland, we will march forward, full of love and full of faith, with united hearts during our lives. We will work in honor for the just right with the United hearts during our lives.

At your calls, we will all be present to your traveling companions at the dawn of this fallen day, so that doubt no longer reigns, but faith, fraternity, to all our elite battalions in the grave today lying, o entire people, say again, love, honor, loyalty. Then the first refrain, and may your flag unite us, may your love strengthen us, and for you alone we want to live, and for you to fight and die.

And for you, proud and noble youth, from all known horizons, always follow this wisdom from our elders who are no more. And then the second refrain.

To us who are inspired by hope in your bright future, always restore the assurance to lead us as happy people, and we will go through the world sowing your name and your benefits. Proclaim on all the airwaves that peace reigns on your soil. And then the first refrain.

It's a song that was again written by a man that knew the assignment and could actually write well.

It opens with a praise for the country and the people's sacrifice, explicitly acknowledging the contribution that they make to the greatness of the nation. After the first refrain. But I'll get to that in a moment, we get another praise for the people verse that acknowledges great achievements.

Then the anthem advises good relations with other nations through divine guidance and national unity. That tracks for an anthem written by a couple of priests in a country that is 42.5% Muslim and 39.8% Christian. So a very religious place.

Then we get to the first instance of the second refrain, and it is a directly patriotic verse that follows. The first half is on message and we get an allusion to faith and brotherhood with allied nations.

Then we get the second instance of the first refrain, followed by the fourth verse, and it's very anthem esque. We get the symbol of the flag, the country loving its people, and an exclamation that the people will live and possibly die for the country.

The song reminds people in Cote d'Ivoire to follow this advice because it's from the people that came before them. Again, we get the second chorus and then the final verse.

It is a verse filled with the right kind of optimism and hope, the sort of stuff I like in an anthem.

It ought to look forward for the nation and assure the people of happiness and marching through the world proclaiming their peacefully obtained prosperity. Then the song ends with a final repeat of the first refrain. The refrains do what they ought to do.

For me, that is a combination of moving things along and tying the verses together. The first refrain calls the avorian people to take pride in their national identity and be ready to be of service.

They are reminded of the actually fairly remarkable and peaceful transition to independence that they enjoyed. It's well written to emphasize the importance of unity and cooperation in a stable nation.

The second chorus is a not quite over the top patriotic verse that does its best to evoke a deep commitment to the country for its people. Overall, it's a very anthem kind of a song. I think there is a bit of non specific religion stuff, but not a ton of it this time.

But we do get the overt patriotism that you would expect from a song that celebrates the nation. It's almost jingoistic, actually. The Baggiennese manages that with ease, and it does it in an astonishingly non specific way.

That said, it all kind of works, and I like the song quite a bit and it's got a universality and a not quite ear warm tune. The overarching themes of patriotism, unity of the people, and the bond between the citizens and the country make it do what it's supposed to do.

I understand why it won the competition and it was chosen as the anthem. Of Cote d'Ivoire. So now we get to hear the credits. Another time.

The writing, recording and production for the show are done by me and I wrote and played the theme music. The music was used with my permission. Unless otherwise noted, the anthems I play are public domain or some other equivalently free to play stuff.

This time I am noting that I did receive specific permission from the singer to use her song. So a special thanks to ajeway. That is according to her YouTube channel a D J O I E.

They are an artist, singer and writer out of France and they got a great voice.

My sources and the specific items I mentioned in the show are contained in the show notes, and the most direct way to get to those show notes is@anthemspodcast.com you can find me on Facebook and WhatsApp as the Anthems podcast, but you should follow me on Facebook.

I know it's social media for old people, but TikTok seems like a lot of work for a monthly show and they're probably gonna ban it in my country anyway, so it seems like I have missed the train to cool town there.

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but even if you just keep listening every now and again, thank you so much cause that matters to me more than anything else and I hope you enjoyed the show. I'll be back.