Senegal pays its last respects
2001-12-28 18:37
Dakar - Senegal's poets, musicians and politicians alike have been among
a host of people paying their last respects to the founding father
of the nation, Leopold Sedar Senghor, before his state funeral on
Saturday.
Senghor's body was on Thursday laid in state at the National
Assembly in Dakar after being flown back from France, where the
politician and poet died on December 20, aged 95.
More than 500 poets, writers, actors, dancers and musicians held
a "poetic wake" at the Daniel Sorano National Theatre near the
parliament buildings in the evening, director Jean-Pierre Leurs
told AFP.
The three-hour tribute to Senghor took place before a packed
house, with many of the audience coming from the forecourt of
parliament, where they had gathered with lit candles.
Yande Codou Sene, an elderly woman who had organised Senghor's
political rallies and tours, got a standing ovation after she
performed her song-chant in homage to the veteran leader.
The three-hour ceremony, which was broadcast, also saw poetry,
memories and the dances of Senghor's Serere ethnic group mingled
with trumpet tunes, tam-tam drumming, classical music and African
music played on instruments such as the 21-string kora harp and the
single-stringed riti, a kind of violin.
Spontaneous poetic wake
Theatre folk "prepared this in two days", Leurs said.
"The artistic and literary community spontaneously came on board
for this poetic wake," he added. "But we're planning on paying
Senghor a tribute worthy of him in a month or two."
On Friday, it was the turn of political leaders past and present
to file past the coffin of the late Senghor, who was widely
regarded in the French-speaking world both as a man of letters and
one of Africa's elder statesmen.
His successor, Abdou Diouf, back in Senegal for the first time
since he was defeated in a presidential election in March 2000 by
Abdoulaye Wade, spent a long time in front of the coffin, an AFP
correspondent said.
Senghor was president of Senegal from independence from France
in 1960 until 1980. He announced that year that he was stepping
down and handed power to Diouf, his prime minister, who took office
on January 1, 1981, and went on to win a presidential election two
years later.
Diouf greeted two of his former prime ministers, Habib Thiam and
Mamadou Lamine Loum, but had few words for the press.
"I've already said what I had to say," he told journalists.
Critics have their say
On his arrival at Dakar airport on Thursday, the former president
simply said: "I am here for the burial of my predecessor. My trip
has no other purpose, there aren't two events, just one, sad and
painful, the funeral of my predecessor."
Since Senghor died at his home in Normandy, northern France,
some of the papers here have had very harsh words for Diouf, going
so far as to accuse him of "patricide" and undoing the legacy to
Senegal of the man to whom he "owed everything".
When he formed a new cabinet in 1983, Diouf was widely seen as
having purged top ranks of the governing Socialist Party of the
"old guard".
Senghor, who became the first African to become a member of the
Academie Francaise, guardian of the French language and culture,
and was heaped with other literary honours, is seen as a precursor
of the black consciousness movement.
His critics, however, have charged that his work was too
strongly impregnated by white cultural values. - Sapa-AFP
- SAPA