Senghor 'redefined' Africa

2006-10-12 13:44

Dakar - There are African leaders - many who have left legacies of corruption or brutal despotism. And then there's Senegal's Leopold Sedar Senghor, who helped redefine the continent with sensual, modernist verse.

Schoolchildren memorised the work of the late West African poet-president, who would have celebrated his 100th birthday on Monday, and modern leaders invoked his calls for continental unity even if they avoided his emphasis on race and "blackness".

Amadou Ly, a professor of African literature at Senegal's Cheikh Anta Diop University in Dakar, said: "He gave us the concepts to name our African culture. He permitted us to enter into the cultural conversation."

Senghor became Senegal's first president after the country gained independence from France in 1960.

He ruled with a quiet, methodical socialism that had fallen out of favour in current market-driven African politics, but many said his influence endured through his idea of a unifying black identity.

Senghor dies at age 95

In a 1945 poem that epitomised the concept Senghor called "negritude", he wrote: "Naked woman, black woman. Ripe fruit with firm flesh, dark raptures of black wine."

Ly said Senghor helped Africans embrace common themes such as respect for nature and pride in dark skin - ideas that might seem simplistic today, but that helped French-speaking Africa divorced itself from the West and joined a cultural debate that was starting at the same time in English-speaking Africa.

Now, five years after Senghor died at age 95, African politicians invoked his legacy, though now the effort was to set up cross-border economic partnerships and to work to strengthen the African Union.

Marcartan Humphreys, a professor at Columbia University in New York who studied political economy and rebellion in West Africa, said: "There's still a strong sense of African unity, but people are much less likely to use the kind of race language that Senghor was using."

And Senghor remained an icon - a key figure who helped Senegal gain independence, and the first postcolonial African leader to step down voluntarily, in 1980.

Ibrahima Thioub, head of the history department and a professor of contemporary African history at Cheikh Anta Diop, said: "There's big competition now between Senegal's political parties to claim Senghor. They all want to be identified with his image."

'We've forgotten Senghor'

Humphreys said that he was "a model for presidents on the continent showing that if you step down from power, that can lead to more respect rather than less respect".

But even in Senghor's native Senegal, some said they could no longer relate to the politics of their postcolonial president.

A 27-year-old Sadieubou Mbaye, who was collecting signatures in support of independent candidates in Senegal's upcoming presidential ballot, said: "We've forgotten him completely! We've gone past that." Mbaye said Senegal had outgrown Senghor's socialism and didn't need philosophical themes.

Mbaye, also a university student studying history, said: "If Africa is led by a poet or an economist, it's the same. They just need to have the confidence of the people."

Senghor was much more connected to France than many of today's West Africans and some said this made him harder to identify with.

Though Senghor was born in the coastal Senegalese town of Joal, he attended a French high school, married a French woman and spent much of his later years studying language in the land of Senegal's former colonial masters.

'I saw Senghor as a hero'

He was inducted in the renowned French Academy, a group whose 40 members pledged to act as custodians for the French language.

Oumar Sankhare, a Senghor scholar and president of Senegal's Friends and Disciples of Senghor, said: "He sings the 'Black Woman,' but he marries a French woman."

Sankhare said that he saw Senghor as a hero, but found his decision to make France his final home hard to understand.

Meanwhile, the West continued to hold Senghor up as a symbol of an African statesman who could embrace both African values and Western theories.

In recent visits to Dakar, French presidential hopefuls Nicolas Sarkozy and Segolene Royal both visited Senghor's grave. An American round-the-world reality show, The Amazing Race, made the same spot its contestants' first African destination.

And celebrations for Senghor's anniversary were occurring not just in his home country, but also across the world.

The Paris-based International Organisation of Francophonie, which Senghor helped found, had turned 2006 into a year of homage to Senghor. Since January, Senghor had been celebrated worldwide - from the French Caribbean island of Martinique to Canada.

In the United States, Harvard University was holding a symposium in late October on his poetry and the philosophy of negritude.

Yet, some scholars said Senghor's importance in moving the region forward peacefully might be overemphasised.

Solving modern problems

Ghanaian academic George Ayittey, a professor of economics at American University and the author of Africa Betrayed said: "Yes, Senegal is stable and has been stable because of Senghor."

Ayittey said that trying to model leaders on Senghor was like "the world is saying, 'Well we hope we can find a Nelson Mandela somewhere to take charge.' That's not going to happen".

Instead, Ayittey argued that countries should focus less on finding the perfect leader and more on institutions such as a free press, an independent judiciary and an independent banking system.

The new leaders Africans were electing to solve modern problems were less likely to talk of black identity or theories of language, and more likely to talk electricity grids and economic partnerships.

President Abdoulaye Wade was an economist before he stepped into politics. Liberia's Ellen Johnson Sirleaf studied economics in the US and then public administration at Harvard before returning to her native country to successfully run for president.

But for many, Senghor would continue to define West Africa's people, if not its politics.

Moussa Mbegnouga, 30, a graduate geography student, said: "In poetry, he did wonderful things. In junior high and then in high school, we all studied his poems.

"No doubt he marked us. It's he who established us."

- AP