Senghor Cultural, Religious, and Political

Senghor

CULTURAL, RELIGIOUS, and POLITICAL INTERTWINEMENTS in LEOPOLD SENGHOR'S WORKS

CULTURAL, RELIGIOUS, and POLITICAL INTERTWINEMENTS in LEOPOLD SEDAR SENGHOR'S WORKS

This research study examines the cultural, religious and political intertwinements in Leopold Sedar Senghor's Works and how his experiential multi-cultural life experiences served to support his belief in cross-culturalism. Greatly influenced by his beginnings or his roots in Africa and his French education Senghor is not only known as one of the world's best poets but also was elected president of the country of Senegal during his lifetime. Senghor had a part in the Negritude movement but Senghor moved beyond Negritude into a much broader and expanded view of social, political and religious interaction and integration in society and culture. Senghor's earlier works were destroyed by the poet himself because he realized that his earlier poetry was superficial lacking depth. Senghor retired from as Senegal's president claiming that his poetry was that which was the most important part of his life.

CULTURAL, RELIGIOUS, and POLITICAL INTERTWINEMENTS in LEOPOLD SEDAR SENGHOR'S WORKS

Table of Contents

Part One

Introduction

Part Two

Literature Review

Part Three

Summary and Conclusion

CULTURAL, RELIGIOUS, and POLITICAL INTERTWINEMENTS in LEOPOLD SEDAR SENGHOR'S WORKS

PART I: INTRODUCTION

Leopold Sedar Senghor was the first president of the Republic of Senegal and also founder of the literature movement Negritude having a career distinguished as a poet, a scholar, a soldier and a statesman. (Page and Sonnenburg, 2003, paraphrased) Senghor was born on the 9th of August 1906 in Joal, which is a "coastal trade settlement in the Sin-Saloum region of Senegal." (Page and Sonnenburg, 2003) Senghor's early life was shaped "both by the Serer and Christian traditions of his family and by having grown up under French colonial rule." (Page and Sonnenburg, 2003)

Senghor was educated in Catholic schools with the intent to pursue a career as a priest however, while attending the seminary Senghor was "first confronted the contradictions inherent in the French policy of assimilation that claimed to uphold the equality of all yet assumed the superiority of European culture and civilization." (Page and Sonnenburg, 2003) Senghor was dismissed from the seminary for his protest against the racism of the fathers and completed his education at the Public Secondary school in Dakar and earned a scholarship to continue at the Lycee Louis le Grand in France." (Page and Sonnenburg, 2003, paraphrased)

Senghor earned a scholarship to continue at the Lycee Louis le Grand in France and it was there in the 1920s that Senghor discovered the writers of the Harlem Renaissance and met students who were radically swayed from the French Caribbean who voiced criticism against capitalism and appealed to an end of colonialism. Senghor was inspired by these group's cultural and political ideals and joined Aime Cesaire of Martinique and Leon Damas of French Guiana in founding the Negritude movement as an affirmation of African history and culture. This group published not only their own individual works in writing but also published L'etudiant noir (Black Student) as the principal journal of the Negritude movement. The test in France for its highest teaching degree was the aggregation and in 1935 Senghor was the first African to pass this test enabling him to teach Latin. Senghor became a French citizen through the process of naturalization and jaws drafted into the colonial infantry of the French military. Senghor fought in World War II and was captured by the Germans surviving as a prison for two years.

Senghor published his first volume of poetry in 1945 following the end of World War II and that volume was entitled "Chants d'ombre' meaning 'Shadow Songs'. Senghor enter politics as a candidate for the Senegalese Socialist Party and served two years as a deputy from Senegal in the French National Assembly. Senghor was involved very actively between 1956 and 1958 in the development of party politics and emerged as the leader of the Union Progressive Senegalaise which became known later as the Socialist Party.

In August 1960 following Senegal being declared a republic, Senghor was elected as its first president and held that position until his retirement in 1980. In 1984 Senghor was elected to the Academie Francaise "the most esteem cultural institution in France, for his contribution to the French language and literature." (Page and Sonnenburg, 2003)

CULTURAL, RELIGIOUS, and POLITICAL INTERTWINEMENTS in LEOPOLD SEDAR SENGHOR'S WORKS

PART 2

LITERATURE REVIEW

1. Negritude

Ojaide (2009) states of 'Negritude' as follows: "While there are several strands of Negritude, including Senghor's romantic presentation of pre-colonial Africa as an idyllic place, there is agreement that the literary movement of the 1940s and 50s raised black consciousness in Africa and the African Diaspora, especially in the Caribbean where Leon Damas and Aime Cesaire were also pioneer exponents of Negritude. While Francophone African intellectuals and writers used Negritude to react to European denigration of African culture, the Anglophone African writers affirmed their Africanity in their own way by showing the African personality as a human who has strengths and weaknesses." (Ojaide, 2009)

The work of Oguejiofor (2009) entitled: "Negritude as Hermeneutics: A Reinterpretation of Leopold Sedar Senghor's Philosophy" states that Senghor's world was "fashioned by the colonial distortion of the African psyche." (Oguejiofor, 2009) at the time that Senghor was born the largest part of Africa had been split up among various and diverse nations in Europe. The native home of Senghor, Senegal, had fallen under the "assimilationist policy of the French." (Oguejiofor, 2009) the early years of Senghor were spent in his "native African village, which enabled him to imbibe a measure of traditional African culture." (Oguejiofor, 2009) However, the largest part of his schooling was comprised of that in the French culture, language and tradition." (Oguejiofor, 2009)

2. Senghor's Hermeneutics

Oguejiofor states that Senghor is "one good example of Mugo Gatheru's 'child of two worlds'." (2009) While Senghor spent many years in France he still longed for his place of origin and was "haunted by his deep alienation." (Oguejiofor, 2009) the work of Thompson (2002) states as follows:

"It is commonly suggested that the "indirect" or nonassimilationist style of British colonial rule may have softened the reaction that produced Negritude in French-controlled areas. Protestant missionaries were more likely than Catholics to learn native languages and to translate the Bible into them. French administrators, as an outcome of the ideas of 1789, were more likely to make Africans French citizens, or at least to assert equality under the law. The concomitant assumption was that the citizens were becoming completely French without a backward glance at the culture that was being lost." (Thompson, 2002)

Oguejiofor writes that the "reference to specifically French colonialism is of pivotal importance in Senghor's hermeneutics. While the ideologies propping up colonial subjugation and the resentment they engendered in the African remained generally similar, it is not to be overlooked that the earliest apostles of negritude were all products of French assimilationist policy. While these assimiles were strident in their attachment to their pristine African past, their counterparts in the English-speaking colonies were generally less afraid of being Westernized." (Oguejiofor, 2009)

This effort however to erase the cultural heritage of those who were newly French resulted in Senghor and some Matiniquean students doing precisely the opposite "to assert their existence, to project their cultural sense of value and thus convince their masters that their culture had something to offer to humanity." (Oguejiofor, 2009) From the start Senghor made a great deal of the ability of his culture having something of value to offer in what was a "quest for denied recognition, even in seeking it, one unwittingly plays in the court of one's opponent and to such a great extent that Senghor had accepted assimilation by 1945 "as a matter of course." (Oguejiofor, 2009)

3. Senghor's View on Assimilation

Senghor was not against assimilation as such but advocated for the correct method of assimilation stating:

"There is no question of France's adopting African customs and institutions. Still, she must understand the spirit of Africa. And perhaps she will be able to benefit from this spirit when she comes to turn back again to the old French tradition. But for the colonies there is the problem of assimilating the spirit of French civilization. It must be an active and judicious assimilation, fertilizing the indigenous civilizations, bringing them out of their stagnation, re-creating them out of their decadence. It must be an assimilation that leaves room for association. Only on this condition can there be a common ideal and a common purpose in life, only on this condition can there be a French empire." (Oguejiofor, 2009)

Oguejiofor (2009) states that negritude was advocating for an assimilation in 1945 was one "that would better achieve the desire for a French empire. Negritude was an attempt to give the lie to the misconceptions of the European colonial agenda and to do this, Senghor argued that Africa had something to offer." (Oguejiofor, 2009)

Oguejiofor states that the philosophy of negritude "grew from this need. It is thus a reaction against colonial machinations." (2009) Oguejiofor states that there is no understanding "except if there is misunderstanding, a negativity that becomes the originative instance of hermeneutics…" (2009)

Oguejiofor writes that Senghor's concept of negritude is centered on the misunderstanding or misrepresentation of the African and his heritage, a situation that has since imposed enormous burden on all aspects of his life." (Oguejiofor, 2009) Oguejiofor states that negritude has been described "…as a philosophy of social action" and states additionally that in the view of Senghor "negritude was 'a weapon of defense and attack and inspiration." (2009) Specifically Senghor sates that negritude is the "sum total of the values of the civilization of the African world, it is not racialism, it is culture." (Oguejiofor, 2009)

Oguejiofor writes that negritude as a philosophy "has the advantage of 'recognizing the situatedness of our lived historicity as the proper object of reflection for African philosophic thought. (Salhi as cited by Oguejiofor, 2009) That recognition is held to entail "an awareness of the battered ego of the African under colonialism, as well as of the almost complete denigration of his tradition and cultural heritage." (Oguejiofor, 2009)

Senghor writes: "Africa's misfortune has been that our secret enemies, in defending their values, have made us despise our own." (cited in Oguejiofor, 2009) From this view negritude "…is not simply a reaction directed at an oppressor. It has a dual focus. It is an attempt to unearth the reality beneath a falsified image of African culture." (Oguejiofor, 2009) Furthermore, negritude is also an effort to "bolster the flattened ego of many Africans in order to counter the inferiority complex which years of slavery, colonialism, apartheid and underdevelopment have ingrained in their psyche." (Oguejiofor, 2009) Oguejiofor states that "for Julio Finn, negritude 'is nothing but a desire to be oneself." (2009)

In the view of Senghor and others who think as did Senghor negritude "requires a return to the source, to the land of birth, its values and civilization." (2009) Oguejiofor (2009) states that Senghor and "thinkers of his ilk, to do this requires a return to the source, to the land of birth, it values and civilization." During the years in which the concept of negritude was developed by Senghor there was also "an evolution bringing different nuances, elaborations, and interpretations." (Oguejiofor, 2009)

Negritude can be distinguished "according to different foci and emphases in particular writers at particular times." (Oguejiofor, 2009) Three strands of the movement is stated to be identified by Jacques Louis Hymans and as stated by Oguejiofor there are many negritudes:

(1) the aggressive negritude clamoring for recognition of the African values;

(2) the conciliatory negritude advocating cultural miscegenation or cross-breeding; and (3) an inventive negritude lending towards a new humanism. (Oguejiofor, 2009)

4. Three Primary Types of Negritude

These three primary types of negritudes have been present since 1931 according to Oguejiofor, however "to the period and the militant, one of these aspects has taken precedence over the other." Oguejiofor states that these three are inseparable "the conciliatory and the inventive are in the aggressive just as the inventive and the aggressive are in the conciliatory and the aggressive and the conciliatory in the inventive." (2009)

Oguejiofor states of these that "all are found in each and each is found in all." (2009) Oguejiofor writes of negritude, and states that there is "the impossibility of giving a definition to the philosophy of negritude, its basic inspiration and overflows to the philosophy of negritude, epistemology, its idea of society, and also into its universalism." (2009)

When attempting to define Negritude, according to Oguejiofor resulting is the '…impossibility of giving a definition to the philosophy of negritude, its basic inspiration and overflows to the philosophy of negritude, its basic inspiration overflows and into its metaphysics and epistemology, its idea of society, and also into its universalism." (2009)

The Quest Journal states in the work entitled: "The Roman Catholic Church, and the Hermeneutics of Race, as two Contexts for African Philosophy" states that when Africans as well as their descendents throughout the world first confronted racism in their writings and their political activism they did so as long-standing victims of racism who

"…sought to regain, and celebrate dignity and freedom. Understandably, the language of anti-racism was initially predicted on the central concept of race and went through a phase when the proud affirmation of African somatic traits had to put an end to Blacks' internalized self-negation imposed by Whites' racism. Du Bois, Cesaire, Senghor, and others of their generations, could still phrase both their indignation, and their affirmation of self-respect, in terms of race. For a long time, the discourse of race continued to appear as the most obvious way to articulate socio-economic inequality, exclusion, and the desire for emancipation." (Quest, 2005)

The Quest Journal goes on to state that the time when race could be:

"…naively invoked as if it were neutral, universal and self-evident category, has ended sometime during the second half of the 20th century. This shift in discourse was a consequence of the very success of the anti-colonial and anti-racial struggle, in Africa, as well as in American, Asian, and Oceanian former colonies, -- aided by the global human-rights movement extending over more than two centuries, and more recently (from the 1940s onward) by the rise of cultural relativism in the social sciences and philosophy. These developments have combined, from the 1930s onward, with the demolition of the 'scientific' racial edifice by scientists (geneticists, other human biologists, psychologists, anthropologists, political scientists), relegating racism to pseudo-scientific status ('man's most dangerous myth' -- Ashley Montague), and with the philosophical reflection on the dehumanizing implications of racism both in the colonial and in the Nazi context." (Quest, 2005)