Senghor: Senegal's poet president

2001-12-20 22:30

Matthew Tostevin

Paris - Leopold Sedar Senghor, who died in France on Thursday at the age of 95, was a poet and philosopher of international repute as well as one of Africa's outstanding statesmen.

Senegal's president for 20 years until 1980 and the first black man to be elected a member of the Academie Francaise, he was once described as the ideal philosopher-ruler envisaged by the ancient Greek philosopher Plato.

French President Jacques Chirac said Senghor was "one of the greatest contemporary humanist figures".

"Poetry has lost a master, Senegal a statesman, Africa a visionary and France a friend," he said.

Senghor devoted much of his life and work to expounding the idea of "negritude", the intellectual concept of "black is beautiful".

Without black Africans, civilisation would "lack the rhythm section of its orchestra, the bass voice of its choir", he said.

His philosophy was summed up when he said: "I wear European clothing and the Americans dance to jazz which derives from our African rhythms - civilisation in the 20th century is universal. No people can get along without others."

At a time when many of his fellow African presidents were dictators intent on ruling for life, Senghor stepped down voluntarily at the end of 1980, saying it was time to hand over to the next generation.

Nobel prize contender

Short, stocky and soft-spoken, Senghor wrote several volumes of poems and was twice strongly tipped for the Nobel prize for literature, although he never actually won the award.

Senghor was born in Senegal on October 9, 1906, but educated in France. He read French at the Sorbonne between World War One and World War Two, making friends with philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre, author Albert Camus and African nationalist writer Aime Cesaire.

When the Germans invaded France he fought with the resistance, was captured and sent to a concentration camp.

His political career began after World War II when he was elected as one of two deputies for Senegal to the French constituent assemblies of 1945 and 1946 and then as deputy to the French national assembly until 1958.

He used his position to persuade President Charles de Gaulle there could be full independence for the former territories of Africa.

Senghor joined other leaders in his homeland to form the Union Progressiste Senegalaise in 1958, which the next year won all 80 seats in the Republic of Senegal's first elections.

When, soon afterwards, Senegal joined neighbouring Sudan in the federation of Mali, Senghor was elected president of the federal assembly. But in 1960 Senegal withdrew and Senghor became the country's first president.

A shrewd politician, he managed to win the backing of the predominantly Muslim country's two large and influential Muslim brotherhood sects, although he himself was a Christian.

He was re-elected in 1968 and again 10 years later, when he trounced opposition leader Abdoulaye Wade, who finally was elected in 2000 by beating Senghor's successor Abdou Diouf.

After his exit from power, Senghor stayed strictly outside politics, concentrating on his first love, poetry.

He spent most of his time at the home village of his French wife in Normandy, returning only rarely to Senegal, where the youngest of his three sons died in an accident in 1982 - inspiring the sad poetic homage "Elegy to Philippe".

Unlike many statesmen, Senghor refused to write his memoirs. One month after stepping down from the presidency he said: "I prefer to dream than to hark back to the past, to turn my dreams into works of art".

- Reuters