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Adieu Leopold Sédhar Senghor: Un Pére de Negritude
For Senghor, Negritude was "blackness." One did not have to be African to experience it. If Negritude was blackness without reference to culture, language, or geography, Senghor lived negritude in all its buoyancy. To some, Senghor lived and died a Frenchman.
Senghor so dominated the philosophy that our own Wole Soyinka once barked back at him with the words "a tiger does not speak about its tigeritude" As a high school student, I shared Soyinka's sentiments. I still do. For at his death, Senghor was as much the French man. The Black Frenchman died yesterday in France at the age of 95. The world has lost a poet and a statesman, though Senghor in his living years stated a preference to be remembered as a poet rather than a statesman.
As for the French, Senghor's beloved people, they have spoken through their leader, Jacque Chirac, who eulogized Senghor thus:
Poetry has lost one of its masters, Senegal a statesman, Africa a visionary and France a friend.
Did Chirac say "a friend?"
In the end, Senghor was to France a mere friend. But, come to think of it, so are Mandela, Bill Clinton, and Mazi Amanze. But, those men did not try so hard.
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Like many African leaders, Senghor started well but lost it along the way. But in a different direction from Amin or Mobutu. He was born in Senegal and began his literary and political life as a spokesman for black consciousness and died in a French village as a member of the Academie Francaise. No one is saying that he had no right to enjoy his retirement in peace but at least Nyerere and Mandela were engaged in the African scene as continental statesmen after their political retirement. But Senghor chose to retire to France and kept his distance from Africa until he died as if he was in exile from Senegal or Africa.
Personally, I still blame Senghor and Houphoet Boigny for their reinforcing the divisions among anglophone and francophone African countries which badly weakened the OAU. It was a sell ou to France in return for which France stationed troops in their countries to protect them from coupists. From 1960 to 1980 when Senghor was in power, the most senior civil servant in Senegal and the chief of internal security were white Frenchmen. There was an entire French army brigade plus a company of gendarmerie stationed in Dakar as well as another battalion based in Abidjan from where rescue missions to protect francophone African dictators were launched. During my visits to Abidjan and Dakar in the 1990s, I noticed that the French soldiers were highly visible on the streets. I saw French bakers, grocers and civil servants in those cities. It was not that Senegal did not have the manpower - Senegalese are the most highly educated francophones in Africa. It was that neither Senghor nor Diouf trusted their own people.
In fact, I recall seeing, during a visit to Dakar in 1997, beachfront retirement villages for French pensioners. My Senegalese hosts explained that because of relatively low cost of living in Senegal compared with France and the exchange rate between the French franc and the CFA franc, some French pensioners found it much cheaper to retire to Senegal than remain in France. And of course, there were those French soldiers and gendarmerie to evacuate them if the need arose.
Posts: 75 | From: Cambridge, MA | Registered: Dec 2001
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In light of the occupation of African countries by African ethnic military vandals wouldn't you consider it prescient for Senghor to insist on having the French army stay long after Senegalese independence?
Permit me to say that I am very much for Africa's and African's political and economic independence as opposed to their current dependency but we are also bound to agree with the evidence that African run militaries have been the bane of many African countries.
Senghor could charitably be described as more French than African and he probably saw himself as such but he worked hard to ensure stability and economic development in Senegal and did succeed, albeit, with French guidance, in consituting a political authority that peaceably transferred power even to the opposition. In that regard, I would place him in the same class as Nyerere because despite their contrainsts, they ensured a successful political class and attained some sembalance of stability in their respective countries. Compare their records with such famous African "nationalists" as Nkrumah, Azikiwe, Awolowo, Kenyatta and of course, Abacha and Idi Amin.
I no sabi say you sef dey speak French. Abeg make you no carry frenc language dey praise that yeye man from Senegal. Wetin be un pere negritude? Hahaha!
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