Chiquet Mawet

Chiquet Mawet (born Michelle Beaujean on January 23, 1937 in Verviers – July 4, 2000 in Liège) was a playwright, storyteller, poet, social activist and professor of ethics. Part of the generation, between Stalingrad 1942 and May 1968. At 20, Beaujean was fascinated by the hope of self-management socialism (Titism) in Yugoslavia. At 30, she is one of the pioneers of the anti-nuclear movement in Belgium. At 50, she flirted with anarchists.

Writing work

Poster for The Pope and the Whore. A playwright, in addition to his texts and articles3, Mawet was the author of numerous plays4 including La Pomme des hommes5, Le prince-serpent6, Le Pape et la whore7, Caïus et Umbrella, Nuinottenakt.

1990: Piratons Perrault. Funny and incisive recovery of the illustrious Contes de ma mère l'Oye by Charles Perrault. The ogre, Bluebeard, Cinderella, Snow White, Le Petit Poucet, Le Chat botté… all of these characters have lived in everyone's memory. Chiquet Mawet made a point of redistributing the roles conceived three centuries earlier by the famous French writer during the atomic era. And, updated in this way, these characters can reveal unimaginable and scandalous secrets8.

1994: The Pope and the Whore. Argument: God sends Pope Julius, assisted by his secretary Francis, to a new Mary, better suited to our valley of tears. Maria, a Moscow mother who occasionally works as a prostitute, is the victim of this modern annunciation which will take place at a time when all the social and political orientations which are currently being put in place in the world will converge towards final chaos. 9. There is a first version of this text entitled Maria or The Pope and the Whore. In 1989, she was a founding member of the association Silence, les Dunes! which brought together around ten artists from the Verviers region10.

Activism

On June 19, 1975, during a press conference in Brussels announcing the creation of a Common Anti-Nuclear Front (FAAN), Michèle Beaujean represented the APRI (Association for the Protection against Ionizing Radiation) 11.

On March 12, 1976, in Namur, during the constitutive general assembly of Friends of the Earth (Belgian section), she was elected member of the board of directors of the new association12.

A radical activist in the anti-nuclear movement, she coordinated the departures from Belgium for the demonstration of July 31, 1977 against Superphénix in Creys-Malville: A protester dies following violent clashes with the police.

It then distances itself from the political ecology which it perceives as a political recuperation of the "executives" of the anti-nuclear social movement.

At the end of the 1990s, she contributed to the creation of the Collectif Chômeur, Pas Chien! in the Liège region13.

Collectif Chômeur, Pas Chien! [The Unemployed, Not Dog, Collective!]

During an Unemployed, Pas Chien! Action. Birth of a revolt, affirmation of resistance. I am unemployed / I did not look for it / and no one has the right / to treat me / like a dog. / I have my dignity / to be human / and the right to live / and provide / my family decently. / I want to lead freely / my social, / cultural, / and loving / life like the others, / without being tracked by / relentless inspectors. / I refuse fatality. / That must change. This is the text of the appeal launched by Chômeur, pas chien!

Composed of unemployed people and various associations, the Collective proposes "to implement concrete actions to denounce discriminatory practices" that the new regulations (of the 1990s) install against the unemployed. For the Collective, deprived of employment, the individual is driven out of the democratic space and is confined to the status of sub-citizen14,15.

The demands of Collectif Chômeur, Pas Chien! are not pre-established according to a political program, they emerge from the experience of unemployed citizens and from a collective reflection that the association wishes to extend to the entire social body, workers and unemployed alike. Collectif Chômeur, Pas Chien! refuses material and moral penalization, linked to the criterion of employment. Every person, worker or not, has the right to a means of existence consistent with human dignity. For the Collective, wealth is no longer the fruit of human labor as much as that of modern technologies, automation and the financial games they allow, thus leading a growing number of people to no longer have a place in the system. production or even in services.

In 1998, Mawet gives a good account of the anti-political spirit of this period: “Except ideological autism, we can understand the motivations of those who strive to constitute a force of political opposition (…) However, it is difficult not to note that 'from the moment when individuals come together in an organization aiming for power - even a very small piece - they cease to be in phase with those they claim to represent and inevitably end up instrumentalizing them: in their head, voters, grassroots activists, union members are quickly reduced to fuel for their race ”16.

In 1999, a documentary film was shot avout the experience of the Collectif17.

Woman of commitments Libertarian Alternative: in the 1990s, columnist and polemicist, she regularly collaborated with the monthly Alternative Libertaire. She published dozens of texts there18. In 1997, she recalls her atypical career in the collective work Le Hasard et la necessity: how I became a libertarian19. Disappearance

After a long illness, at 62, she ended her life on July 4, 200020.

Theatrical works

The true story of Juliet and Romeo, creation at the Petit Théâtre de l'Opéra de Wallonie, in Liège, in spring 1988. Archives and museum of literature, French Community of Belgium21. Let's hack Perrault! or L'horrible fin du sapiens: outing to the 21st century forecourt, premiered in February 1990 at the Grand Théâtre de Verviers. Archives and Museum of Literature, French Community of Belgium 22. Caius and Umbrella, 1990. Archives and Museum of Literature, French Community of Belgium23, La Bellone Maison du Spectacle24. The apple of men, 1991. Archives and museum of literature, French Community of Belgium25, La Bellone Maison du Spectacle26. La Reine des Gorilles, 1991. Archives and Museum of Literature, French Community of Belgium27. The Pope and the Whore, 1994. Archives and Museum of Literature, French Community of Belgium28, La Bellone Maison du Spectacle29. Le prince-serpent, 1994. Archives and museum of literature, French Community of Belgium30, Directory of the spectacle31, Compagnie Mezza Luna32, Directory of the spectacle of the French Community of Belgium 2000-200133. Nuinottenakt, 1995. Archives and Museum of Literature, French Community of Belgium34. Contributions to collective works

Chance and Necessity: How I Became a Libertarian (1997). Neptune and Jehovah were on a boat, La Reid, Textra Publishing, 198735. International jousting, Trois-Rivières, Quebec, Press-Papier, 199136. Profession of Faith, Trois-Rivières [Quebec], Atelier Presse-Papier, 199637. Régis Balry, Liaison Antiprohibitionniste (Brussels), Drugs File, Alternative Libertaire Publishing (Brussels) & Le Monde Libertaire (Paris), 199638. Chance and necessity: how I became a libertarian, Éditions Alternative libertaire (Brussels) & Le Monde libertaire (Paris), 199719. The Soupière: like a hair on or in the soup (it depends), Trois-Rivières, Quebec, 1998 39. Solo, La Reid, Textra Publishing, 199840. Still life, still life, Trois-Rivières, Quebec, Atelier Press-Papier, 199941,42,43. Publications Mediatheque of the territories of memory, Chiquet Mawet, online notice [archive]. Reflections on the theater: letter to the unknown actor, Alternative libertaire, read online [archive]. Unemployed, not dog! Resist, organize!, Libertarian alternative, read online [archive]. Human nature: all left! On the nature of man who would obey, Media library of the territories of memory, read online [archive]. Correspondence, Center for Literary and Theatrical Research and Documentation of the Wallonia-Brussels Federation, read online [archive].

Bibliography

University work Nancy Delhalle44, The repertoire of contemporary dramatic authors: Belgian theater in the French language, Alternatives théâtrales no 55 (co-edition, Society of dramatic authors and composers (SACD), Promotion of letters, Archives and museum of literature, French Community of Belgium), 1997, p. 139-140, 21845. Nancy Delhalle, Authors in the ruins. Parcours arbitraire, Alternatives théâtrales no 56, Brussels, 1997, p. 36-39.