The Central African Empire (French: Empire centrafricain) was a short-lived, self-declared autocratic monarchy that replaced the Central African Republic and was, in turn, replaced by the restoration of the Republic. The empire was formed when Jean-Bédel Bokassa, president of the Republic, declared himself Emperor Bokassa I on 4 December 1976. Bokassa spent the equivalent of over 20 million United States dollars, a quarter of the country’s government annual income, on his coronation ceremony. The monarchy was abolished and the name “Central African Republic” was restored on 21 September 1979, when Bokassa was ousted with French support.
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“There has never been in history another such culture as the Western civilization M a culture which has practiced the belief that the physical and social environment of man is subject to rational manipulation and that history is subject to the will and action of man; whereas central to the traditional cultures of the rivals of Western civilization, those of Africa and Asia, is a belief that it is environment that dominates man.”
—Ishmael Reed (b. 1938)
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—H.L. (Henry Lewis)
“Keep our Empire undismembered
Guide our Forces by Thy Hand,
Gallant blacks from far Jamaica,
Honduras and Togoland;
Protect them Lord in all their fights,
And, even more, protect the whites.”
—Sir John Betjeman (1906–1984)