Name Stellio Chichi | Role Political leader | |
 | ||
Similar People Alain Soral, Dieudonne, Laurent Louis, Medine, Tariq Ramadan Profiles | ||
K mi s ba invit sp cial
Kémi Séba (French language version of Egyptian for "black star"), born Stellio Gilles Robert Capo Chichi on December 9, 1981, is a Black French writer, activist and Pan-Africanist political leader. Jeune Afrique referred to him as "the French Farrakhan", linking him to the leader of the Nation of Islam in the United States (US). Since April 2013, he is a geopolitical analyst in the West African talk show Le grand rendez-vous and gives lectures about Pan-Africanism in many African universities.
Contents
- K mi s ba invit sp cial
- Caf philo ha ti avec k mi s ba
- Origin
- Tribu KA
- Imprisonment
- MDI
- New Black Panther Party
- Connection with Dieudonn
- Books
- References
Caf philo ha ti avec k mi s ba
Origin
Capo Chichi was born in Strasbourg to immigrant parents from Benin. He joined the US-based Nation of Islam (NOI) as an eighteen-year-old, and later formulated his own ideology while visiting Egypt in his twenties. As a result of this process, he took the nom de guerre Kémi Séba and became the spokesperson of the fringe Parti Kémite (Kemite Party), which was founded in 2002 and inspired by Khalid Abdul Muhammad.
Tribu KA
In December 2004, Capo Chichi founded the Parisian political group Tribu KA, which promotes black identity and has been accused of racism against Jews. The group said it followed the ideology of the American NOI leader, Louis Farrakhan. They have also been described as proponents of a mix of antisemitic Kemetism and Guénonian Islam. The group's name is an abbreviation for 'The Atenian Tribe of Kemet'.
In a May 2006 demonstration, 20 or more Tribu Ka members marched along the Rue des Rosiers (in the Marais, a Jewish neighborhood) shouting antisemitic slogans and threatening pedestrians. Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy sent a letter to Justice Minister Pascal Clément saying Tribu Ka could be indicted for racist incitement; SOS Racisme and the Union des étudiants juifs de France also called for Tribu Ka to be banned; and Clément opened an investigation. The Ministry of Interior dissolved Tribu Ka on July 26, 2006, but it reformed in Sarcelles under the name Génération Kémi Séba. During the trial of Youssouf Fofana, the leader of the ethnic gang Les Barbares that murdered Ilan Halimi, Capo Chichi had sent an intimidating e-mail message to various Jewish associations.
Imprisonment
Capo Chichi was arrested in September 2006 for allegedly antisemitic posts on his website, and again in February 2007 after he called a public official "Zionist scum." After the initial court hearing in 2006, supporters chanted, "The judge is a Zionist, the client is a Zionist, the decision will be Zionist." In February 2007, a French court near Paris sentenced Capo Chichi, the self-described "militant defender of the dignity of French citizens," to five months imprisonment for criminal contempt of the law. In April 2008, a Parisian court verdict determined Génération Kémi Séba was the reconstitution of the dissolved group Tribu Ka, and sentenced Capo Chichi to a one-year prison sentence with suspension.
In June 2009, Brice Hortefeux, Minister of the Interior, ordered the dissolution of the group Jeunesse Kémi Séba, founded to replace Génération Kémi Séba.
MDI
After his release from prison in July 2008, Capo Chichi announced that he had converted to Islam. In March 2009, he became the secretary general of Mouvement des damnés de l'impérialisme (MDI, "Movement of Those Damned By Imperialism"). MDI retains close ties with the Shia paramilitary Lebanese-based group Hezbollah in their anti-Zionist campaigns. In June 2009, MDI announced that Holocaust denier Serge Thion had joined the movement.
New Black Panther Party
In April 2010, Malik Zulu Shabazz, leader of the US-based New Black Panther Party (NBPP), appointed Capo Chichi the party's representative in France and gave him the nom de guerre Kemiour Aarim Shabazz. In July 2010, Capo Chichi left his position as the president of MDI but continued as the head of the francophone branch of NBPP.
By 2011, Capo Chichi left France and settled in Senegal. In March 2011, it was announced that Capo Chichi was named the spokesman for Amadou Lamine Faye, the minister-counsellor in charge of Pan-Africanism under president Abdoulaye Wade. However, such nomination was later refuted.
Connection with Dieudonné
Dieudonné M'bala M'bala, commonly known as Dieudonné, has become a controversial French comedian. For six years, he satirized numerous groups with his childhood Jewish friend and stage partner Elie Semoun. Since 2002, Dieudonné has often been accused of anti-Semitism and has appeared to move to the right politically, appearing with Jean-Marie Le Pen of the French National Front, for instance. In 2006 Dieudonné allowed Kemi Séba to use his Theatre La Main d'Or, to hold meetings in which he "reportedly praised Hitler's ideas on race." Dieudonné's office issued a statement noting his ideological distance from Séba, but he later that year allowed Séba to stage a show (titled Sarkophobia) in his theater.