----- Original Message -----
From: "Felix ossia" <[log in to unmask]>
To: "unima" <[log in to unmask]>; <[log in to unmask]>;
<[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Thursday, December 20, 2001 12:18 PM
Subject: Senegal's First President Dead at 95


> Senegal's First President Dead at 95
> By ALEXIS BIES
> Associated Press Writer
>
> December 20, 2001, 12:29 PM EST
>
> DAKAR, Senegal -- Leopold Sedar Senghor, Senegal's
> first president after independence and a skilled poet
> who dominated political life in his West African
> country for decades, died in France on Thursday. He
> was 95.
>
> Senghor had been living in Normandy in northwestern
> France for a number of years. The presidential
> spokesman in Senegal, Cherif Seye, announced Senghor's
> death but did not give the cause. He was known to have
> had heart problems.
>
> Senghor often told audiences outside his homeland that
> he'd prefer to be remembered as a poet rather than a
> statesman. But his small stature and mild, unassuming
> manner concealed an iron will.
>
> When he was elected president after Senegal's
> independence from France in 1960, he pledged to govern
> honestly and with justice, but added: "A country
> cannot be governed without prison walls."
>
> He decried what he saw as the arrogance displayed by
> younger leaders of some other African countries.
> Though his impassioned African nationalism emerged in
> all his poetry and his political action, he refused to
> reject the European culture brought to Africa by
> colonial powers.
>
> Senghor's poems were written both in French and his
> native Serere dialect. He frequently advocated a
> "cultural merger" and was a pillar of the Francophone
> movement to unite the world's wholly or partly
> French-speaking peoples.
>
> Some militant Africans regarded him as a
> neo-colonialist and a puppet of French interests. He
> shrugged off their attacks, pointing to Senegal's
> stability, progress and peace in a region wracked by
> coups and tribal conflict.
>
> Long before he became active in politics -- eventually
> becoming a member of the French parliament, a French
> government minister, and later president of Senegal,
> Senghor tried to awaken African consciousness and
> dispel feelings of inferiority.
>
> He coined the word "negritude" as a proud slogan of
> African cultural tradition, and conceived the first
> World Festival of Negro Arts in his capital, Dakar.
>
> Senghor was born in the coastal region of Joal, south
> of Dakar, on Oct. 9, 1906. His father, a prosperous
> trader, was a Serere, one of the smaller groups in the
> tribal patchwork of Senegal. His roots, without links
> to major groups competing for power, helped Senghor
> keep the peace after French colonial rule ended in
> 1959.
>
> A Roman Catholic in a mainly Muslim country, he
> studied in a convent school in Senegal and won a
> scholarship to the prestigious Louis-Le-Grand college
> in Paris. One of his classmates, Georges Pompidou, was
> to become president of France and a lifelong friend.
>
> Another was Claude Cahour, the daughter of a French
> country doctor whom Senghor introduced to Pompidou.
> She became the future French president's wife.
>
> Senghor's studies concentrated on classical languages
> and literature. He was professor of French in several
> French cities from 1935 to 1948.
>
> He took French citizenship during World War II, and
> joined the French army as a volunteer. However, he was
> taken prisoner and spent much of the war in a German
> prison camp where he wrote some of his most poignant
> poems.
>
> "Chants d'ombres" (Songs of Shadows), his first volume
> of poetry, was published in 1948. One early poem
> describes his desire to "rip down all the Banania
> posters from the walls of France." Banania was a brand
> of breakfast drink whose symbol was a laughing
> caricature of an African.
>
> While in France, he became involved with the French
> branch of the Socialist International. On his return
> to Africa, he formed his own Senegalese Democratic
> Bloc, the start of his attempt to create African
> social democracy.
>
> When the constitution of the French Fourth Republic
> was approved after the war, allowing for African
> representation in parliament, Senghor was elected
> deputy from Senegal. He served from 1946 until 1958.
>
> Senegal achieved independence from France in April
> 1960, and Senghor was elected later that year without
> opposition as his country's first president.
>
> After crushing an attempted coup by his prime
> minister, Mamadou Dia, in 1962, Senghor tolerated no
> overt challenge to his otherwise moderate, pro-Western
> policies.
>
> His political success was due largely to his strength
> in the countryside. His party gradually did away with
> or absorbed opposition parties and he easily won
> re-election without opposition in 1963, 1968 and 1973.
>
>
> Senghor was adroit at co-opting opposition members,
> but did not hesitate to sack or imprison stubborn
> opponents. His critics say the continuous presence of
> French troops in Senegal provided a valuable buffer.
>
> In 1967, a man said to have been linked with Dia tried
> to assassinate Senghor outside Dakar's main mosque.
> The gun failed to go off and the president escaped
> unhurt.
>
> In 1971, he led four African presidents in an abortive
> Mideast mediation effort. Under Arab pressure, he
> later cut ties with Israel, one of the last black
> African leaders to do so.
>
> Senghor's last years in power were clouded by a
> declining groundnut-based economy, pressure for
> political reform, and the irritant of a
> Libyan-financed militant Islamic movement.
>
> Senghor broke Senegal's relations with Libya in July
> 1980. Five months later, he resigned in favor of the
> successor he groomed, Abdou Diouf. He was the first
> African president to voluntarily surrender power.
>
> During his last years, Senghor spent more and more
> time at his second home in northwestern France.
>
> He divorced his first wife and later married a
> Frenchwoman, Colette Hubert. They had one son,
> Philippe.
> Copyright © 2001, The Associated Press
>
>
> __________________________________________________
> Do You Yahoo!?
> Check out Yahoo! Shopping and Yahoo! Auctions for all of
> your unique holiday gifts! Buy at http://shopping.yahoo.com
> or bid at http://auctions.yahoo.com
>

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, visit:

        http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/aam.html

AAM Website:  http://www.danenet.wicip.org/aam
----------------------------------------------------------------------------