*Democracy, human rights, and castes in Senegal.
 * 

* *Translated from the article by Penda MBOW

 Reflection on democracy, human rights and castes in Senegal doesn't 
necessarily belong in the agenda of this issue on contemporary forms of 
slavery, as caste-cleavage isn't founded on the principle of servility. But 
the necessity of building a democratic society where respect for human 
rights isn't simply a matter of rhetoric sufficiently justifies inserting 
this article in the debate opened by the *Journal des Africanistes. *A new 
citizenship demands scrutinizing African societies and eliminating barriers 
that hinder both individual and citizen fulfilment. The new definitions of 
human rights imply directly facing the fundamental issue of order and caste 
cleavages. Of course, for some Senegalese intellectuals, the problem of 
castes seems to be outdated, to be part of a backward struggle, especially 
when the continent is faced with all sorts of difficulties. According to 
them, there is no need to contribute to afro-pessimism, as if one could 
forget it is the duty of Africans themselves to look critically on their own 
societies. Daniel Etounga Manguelle, in a book with an evocative title (*Does 
Africa need cultural adjustment?)* mentions, among other impeding factors: 
excessive conviviality, rejection of any kind of open conflict and placement 
of the individual in the shadow of the community. In short, all 
characteristics of pre-industrial and pre-modern societies. And yet, 
analysing the situation in our countries by considering solely their 
material foundations and the evolution of their political classes would be 
singularly reducing the capacity of transformation of our societies.

With the development of *"L'Ecole des Annales"*, the *"Nouvelle Histoire" 
and *structural anthropology, African researchers have access to conceptual 
tools enabling them to distinguish with greater precision the current 
mutations in continent societies. Today it is possible to practise what 
Roger Bastide calls "clinical anthropology", which consists of applying an 
analysis to special cases, the condition of a social group or of a community 
undergoing a crisis, with a view to determine in each case the suitable 
socio-therapeutic treatment. The debate on castes in Senegal must define one 
of the aspects of the serious crisis of values this society is undergoing, 
as well as defining its current mutations. Indeed, the feeling both groups 
and individuals experience regarding their respective positions and the 
conditions that result in this feeling, are not immediately determined by 
the reality of their economic conditions, but by the image they have of it; 
an image, which is never reliable but always manipulated by a set of complex 
mental perceptions. 

Analysis of the caste-system enables understanding the long and complex 
process through which any change of society is achieved: studying 
mentalities is then of fundamental importance. This prospect requires every 
African or Africanist researcher to consider African societies in the 
long-term, while favouring the notion of structure, as it is defined by 
Fernand Braudel and applied by observers of the social phenomenon. What does 
one mean by structure? It primarily means an organization, a coherence of 
somewhat fixed relations between realities and social masses. This is 
precisely what historians speak about when they use terms such as 
"assembling" or "architecture" to characterise a reality that has 
disintegrated with time but which firmly continues. Certain long-standing 
structures become unwavering constituents for countless generations: they 
obstruct history, thus calling for its collapse. Others will crumble more 
quickly. But they are both supports and obstacles. Mentalities are thus also 
prisoners of time (Braudel 1969). Like Guy Bois ( 1989 : 17-18), we believe 
old societies die slowly. Even when dying, they hold out a long time, and 
their widely spread roots prevent new shoots from emerging. Today the social 
condition of caste people has changed but the caste-system has survived. Its 
survivors have a real impact on the collective conscience imposed by the 
Wolof, Balpula and Bambara systems and they are a hindrance to the arrival 
of real democracy, especially in regard to – particularly in the beginning - 
the individual's own self-awareness. 

Can a comprehensive study of the caste-system aid in understanding how deep 
transformations in Senegalese society have been? Impeding factors will no 
doubt be identified in the area of hierarchy reproduction mechanisms, a 
major phenomenon in social history. From precise examples we will evaluate 
the impact of the caste-system on beliefs and the strength of the 
ideological discourse underlying it. We will then attempt to clarify the 
concept of the caste-system with the aid of different works and studies. But 
let's look at first at the attitude of Senegalese society faced with this 
problem.

 * 

 Senegalese civil society in face of the caste-system.

* 

The emergence of civil society in Senegal is connected to the reinforcement 
of the democratic system, the complete multiparty system, and the triumph of 
cultural adjustment policies. But the main interest of the phenomenon lies 
primarily in the strong will of the Senegalese to be seen as citizens. In 
Senegal, the characteristics of civil society are both its dynamism and 
variety. This reflection on castes, therefore, can constitute a 
starting-point to looking at the relationship between civil society and 
intellectuals, who form a subgroup of it. The complexity of this 
relationship goes much further than our area of focus calls for. 
Nevertheless, the difficulty of debating this question in Senegal can be 
grasped from Madeleine Mukamabano's reaction: "when I wanted to make this 
programme, certain people said to me " but there is no point, it is not 
really a problem, it is something psychological that will be resolved, it 
has no impact whatsoever on people's lives. So today I don't even know if I 
was right to bring up the problem."(*cf* note 2). Such a reaction reveals 
the nature of civil society in our country and the lack of determination of 
Senegalese intellectuals to face their own society.

In fact, the organisations in Senegal which work on promoting human rights 
never carry out investigations to evaluate the impact of hierarchies of 
order and caste on the lives of individuals and their social relations, on 
their married lives and, subsequently, on their personal fulfilment. What is 
the meaning of the system of statutory hierarchy? The human rights 
organizations are not very motivated as far as this important question is 
concerned as, most of the time, their own concerns are defined according to 
those of Northern NGOs, who themselves don't always have good knowledge of 
African social realities. Regarding the problem of slavery in Mauritania, it 
was only after the Senegalo-Mauritanian crisis in 1989, with its train of 
human tragedies, that the debate was at last raised on an international 
level. Of course, the caste problem is not on the same level, but there is 
crucial education work that needs to be begun, notably to accelerate the 
process of the individual's emergence.

Instead, a good proportion of civil society deliberately maintains total 
vagueness in regard to the disappearance of order and caste hierarchies. Is 
it, as some think, a real logic of exclusion to keep whole areas of society 
out of all decisions ? Has the system established taboos so firmly fixed in 
the collective unconscious, that many people don't want to transgress them, 
because of the immanent unhappiness they are supposed to cause here and 
there ? 

The issue of castes reveals one of the weaknesses of Senegalese democracy, 
which is still far too formal. For a long time, men said caste people hardly 
ever tried to found or lead a political party, because the social origin of 
individuals always determines their relationship to power. Even in 
marxist-feminist parties, in which the large number of activists of caste 
origin has always been noted, these activists have almost never been 
leaders, in spite of their intellectual qualities. It was not until 1992 
that the former Minister of National Education, I.D.T. created the first 
party lead by a descendant of blacksmiths. Today there are many either at 
the head of a political party or aspiring to take over from the present 
leaders. O.N. is at the head of the "*Parti pour la Libération du 
Peuple"(PLS),* while I.S. is in a good position to take over from M. Wade at 
the *"Parti Démocratique Sénégalais"(PDS)*. Among the most important 
activists in so-called leftist parties, .P.G., M.T. and the *"Guissé de la 
Ligue Démocratique" *can also be mentioned*.*

In the 1990s, one notes a small presence of caste people soliciting elective 
mandates due to universal suffrage forty years after independence! If until 
now caste people have often held very important positions, including the 
position of Prime Minister- a nominal function- they are rarely to be found 
in elective functions. Thus, in Parliament, the elected caste people are 
usually elected on the national list and hardly ever on the "department" 
list, where the election is carried out locally. At this level, the 
candidates' individual qualities, political talent or social origin remain 
determinant. Obviously the paradox lies here, since social origin always 
overrides other criteria. According to Landing Savané, the leader of And-Jëf 
PADS, (a leftist party), his party was faced with the reality of castes 
being involved. One of his most committed activists who wished to be a 
candidate in the Fouta region told him that, as a "*griot*", he met strong 
opposition including within his own party from electors who considered he 
wasn't going to stand as a candidate. According to an enquiry in *"Le Nouvel 
Horizon"* the risk for a caste person of not being elected is still high In 
the "Fouta" or Wolof countries, it is not rare to see activists of some 
political party not allowed to speak at meetings, because, traditionally 
they were not entitled to speak in public gatherings. The PS (Socialist 
Party), which has been in power since independence, has contributed in 
perpetuating such political ostracism by leaning on traditionally important 
families. 

Now, with the "Refoundation" they are endeavouring to change this situation, 
to the extent that the man who leads the reforms, O.T.D, is said to be a 
caste person. But the man is so controversial within the area of public 
opinion, that one wonders if negative reactions surrounding him are really 
linked to his being a caste person or to more objective criteria: lack of 
political experience, or his privileged position in taking over from 
President Diouf, who passed on his prerogatives to him, not only in 
political matters but also in the administrative field, which, of course, 
arouses jealousy.

Whatever it may be, the caste problem can in no way be underestimated. This 
is what M.N. understood, in 1981, when the succession to Senghor went to 
Abdou Diouf instead of him. Although he denies it, many thought his caste 
origins put him at a disadvantage. From then on, he became closer to the 
TALL Families of Fouta (Toorobe) by creating family bonds with every marabou 
family in the country. But for a long time, people referred to the 
blacksmith origins of the "Niassenes" - powerful Kaolack marabout - to which 
his father belongs. He seems to happily ignore this aspect and recalls with 
pleasure, that his wife is a "descendant" of Blaise Diagne; the first 
Senegalese deputy in the Bourbon Palace during the first world war. 
(1914-1918).

He feels therefore strong enough, regarding his origins, to confront 
president Diouf in the February 2000 presidential election. Yet, 
genealogical questions, which many Senegalese hold important are often 
manipulated. For a long time a rumour circulated that M.N. wanted to build 
himself a new genealogy. "*L'autre Afrique*" takes this up by asserting that 
"M.N is distributing a letter in political circles sent from Kaolack, his 
native town, by an old woman who retraces his genealogy: if it is to be 
believed, M.N is a apparently a descendant of a family rich in prestigious 
ancestors." Aside from this statement, the debate brought up around the 
issue illustrates the considerable importance given to the social origins of 
individuals. In fact, everyone knows perfectly well that Keur Madiabel, the 
natal village of M.N., was founded and peopled by caste people, who had 
their own graveyard. If M.N. feels the need to close the chapter on his 
origins, it is simply because neither Senegalese civil society nor the 
so-called caste intellectuals, have done their work in awareness and 
education.

As far as we know, the first important public debate regarding the caste 
phenomenon, was organized in April 1992 by a group called ACTANCE, made up 
of intellectuals and artists and lead by Issa Sam (Joe Ouakam). All Dakar's 
intellectuals, artists and diplomatic representatives (from western 
countries) attended the debate. The only intellectuals of caste origin who 
dared to face the subject were the mathematics professor Sakhir Thiam and 
ourselves, being those that introduced the discussion. All the other 
supposedly caste intellectuals, many of who were present, carefully avoided 
saying anything, even to refute such and such idea with which they did not 
agree. One fact that was extremely revealing was that every time a 
participant spoke, they began by stating who they were: they did not want 
any ambiguity about themselves. For the first time in our lives, we were 
faced with the dilemma. : "Did we have the right to raise this debate?" as 
we were fiercely reprimanded by certain caste people: they reproached us for 
breaking a pact "for speaking publicly of ourselves when our strength had 
always been to be feared." 

How to understand the attitude of the elite, as a whole, in the face of this 
phenomenon ? Landing Savané probably best accounts for it : "Actually we 
started from the principle this phenomenon had to be totally ignored. We 
never mentioned it, but in reality, some of us fully supported it. (cf 
"L'autre Afrique"). And yet Landing Savané belongs to the May-68 generation, 
known for its revolutionary and generous ideas, nevertheless like their 
elders they carry on elucidating the debate. This is what accounts for the 
surprising reaction of one of the first lawyers of the Senegal-Bar, Maître 
Ogo Kane Diallo, also in l'Autre Afrique, where he declares : "Senghor had 
surrounded himself with caste-people because all the intellectuals loathed 
him as a French creature and nobody wanted to join him". This vision is not 
rare in Senegal. For some, Presidents Senghor and Diouf surrounded 
themselves with caste-people so as to have people indebted to them for their 
social rise. What place for competence, talent, rigour, honesty ? As a young 
counsellor near the Ministry of Culture in the 1980,
we had had to record Senghor's opinion regarding the problem (shortly before 
he left power): " I nominate caste-people to positions of responsibility 
because they are more intelligent than the average and I marry my nieces to 
well educated caste-people. 

Finally, as regards social stratification, civil society remains idealistic 
and generous. One of the symbols of this rising civil society at the end of 
the second millenium
allows us to measure how far we still have to go: one's caste origins are 
still brandished to exclude, humiliate or hurt. What does "being casted" 
mean ? The question is justified. 

Before turning to other aspects, let's close this chapter about the place of 
castes in administration. Sociologist Abdoulaye Bara Diop doesn't think the 
phenomenon can play a part in the sphere of modernity. To back up his 
theory, he leans on an enquiry which shows that blacksmiths are 
proportionally more numerous in the Senegal-administration than in other 
categories of the population. Even if it is true that the individual's 
social status intervenes neither in recruitment nor in nominations, there is 
no denying it is present in the relationships between colleagues. At the 
time of independence, the Foreign Office, then led by a caste-person, Mr 
Doudou Thiam, had chosen to be called 'the jewel-shop", a name that seemed 
stigmatising. Besides, many cases are found in administration of 
subordinates refusing to obey their boss, under the pretext that he is in no 
position to give them orders, being himself a jeweller or a cobbler or a 
wood-worker. DM admits to once losing the head of a service in the River 
Area : he chose to be sent somewhere else, as he could no longer stand the 
contemptuous reactions of the people around him.

And yet because civil society is being reinforced, because 
public-spiritedness needs to be rooted into the Senegalese people, 
interesting phenomena are appearing. El Hadj Mansour Mbaye, known until then 
to be the President of the Republic's griot and special counsellor, 
announces to general surprise : "I want to be either a member of Parliament
or a Senator, like other socialists, to take part in the development of 
Senegal. The time has now come when it is necessary to think about this." As 
the authorities now use the talent of griots to mobilize and instrumentalize 
the values they incarnate for its legitimisation, one now sees a shift in 
the labelling: they are no longer referred to as griots but as "traditional 
communicators". The phrase is both less connoted and more flattering. The 
authorities, by manipulating them differently, gives them the impression 
they are indispensable, which probably accounts for their sudden ambition. 
Moreover some values of those called caste-people prove precious in the 
modern world. Communication, a world whose control is practically in the 
hands of griots, is the strongest example of this. They excel at the press, 
above all the spoken press, but the written press too, and one of their best 
representatives is still Bara Diouf, former General Manager of the national 
daily (Dakar-Matin and Soleil) who boasts about being a griot. About this 
acquired awareness, a new phenomenon, let's remark that l'"Association des 
Boisseliers" (the Laobés do all the work that has to do with wood) have 
given themselves the aim to reforest the whole of Senegal. In spite of this 
will to go forward, what explains the persistence of castes and perpetuates 
the phenomenon ? 

 * 

A few considerations about the caste system

** 

The Geography of castes in western Africa

* 

In a thesis about the whole group of endogamic artisans and musicians 
–called castes- of western Africa (Sahelo-Sudanese area, border areas with 
Sahara and forest Africa), Tal Tamari comes back on to the spatial 
delimitation of castes. These groups, the most famous of which are 
associated with the work of iron, wood or leather, or else with music, are 
to be found in about ten ethnicities, in particular the Mandingues, 
Soninkés, Wolofs, Peuls, Toucouleurs, Songhay, Senoufos, Dogons, Touaregs, 
Moors. The repartition zones of the castes includes Mali, Mauritania, 
Senegal, Gambia, Guiinea, Guinea-Bissau, the north of Côte d'Ivoire, Burkina 
Faso, Niger, the East if Ghana, part of Algerian Sahara, a few spots in the 
North of Cameroon, Liberia and Sierra Leone (Tal Tamari 1988; 1997) . What 
can this stratification in castes be linked with ?

* 

Hypotheses about the origin of castes

* 

The work of Georges Dumézil (1956, 1958) about Indo-European societies has 
highlighted the situation of the caste-system : the shock of cultures seems 
to be one determining element of it all. In the example of India, one is 
facing the transformation of a society of order into a society of castes. 
Indeed by the end of the Vedic period the society of orders was divided into 
3 "colours" (Varna) : Brama -poet and priest- , Kishastra –warrior and 
chief- Vis – of common birth- . A fourth colour, inferior, composed of 
defeated Black people –Dasa, Sudra- meant to serve the Aryas (other orders) 
then came and made the situation more complicated. From this time the 
Brahmin-order offers every characteristic of a caste : a functional group 
occupying a precise place in a hierarchy, shut in on itself by heredity, 
endogamy and a very strict code of interdicts.

Before India, the same process had been noted in "casted" Egypt. According 
to Dumézil (1958 : 17) "Greeks, in the 5th century, thought they were 
discovering there the prototype, the origin of the oldest Athenian 
functional classes […]. Actually this structure only took form on the Nile 
after contact with Indo-Europeans, who, suddenly appearing in Asia minor and 
Syria in the middle of the second millennium before our era, also revealed 
to Egyptians horses and all their uses. It's only then that, to survive, the 
Pharaohs' old empire gave itself a new organisation, and notably, a 
permanent army, a military class.

CheikAnta Diop, in "L'Afrique noire précoloniale" questions Dumézil's thesis 
about the origin of castes in India. Relying on a text by Stratbon (who, 
himself relies on a more ancient author, Megasthènes) Cheik Anta Diop thinks 
that castes in India fit with a division of work, excluding any ethnic 
difference, and indeed a Dravidian can be a Brahmin. The criteria allowing 
to tell one from the other are either moral or material, not ethnical. In 
black Africa, particularly in western Sudan, it is possible to attest to an 
Egyptian origin of castes, a very old phenomenon. One can agree with Cheik 
Anta Diop when he says that work specialisation, which has brought 
hereditary transmission of jobs in the caste system, on either family or 
individual scale, started with clan-organisation. At the time of the great 
empires, and Ghana, the most ancient, probably dates back at least to the 
2nd century before Christ, detribalisation was already effective over the 
whole territory of the great empires.

In western Sudan, the origin of castes can be apprehended from the 
hypothesis developed by Yoro Dyao about the Noole caste, "the buffoons", 
biologically constituted, and which might have been born during the Jaa-Ogo 
emigration from Egypt. Researchers unanimously acknowledge that Jaa-Ogo 
master iron-metallurgy (Bocoum 1990). Captain Steff, in his "Histoire du 
Fouta Toro" puts forward a very interesting idea : "The Jaa-Ogo were very 
poor, owned little cattle and cultivated only the minimum to feed 
themselves. Their chief was Coumba Waly whose family had the prerogative of 
melting and selling iron. They went far away up the mountain to find the 
ore, which they melted in furnaces "

According to Cheik Moussa Camara : "The Jaa-Ogo not only sell the iron but 
they also govern Fouta" One can, then, question the origin of the debasement 
of the blacksmith's social position. How could he fall from the top of 
hierarchy to the position of an inferior caste-man ? Why such decline ? How 
has this loss of power, which perpetuates through history, been possible ? 

Military defeat seems to be the most plausible explanation: the Jaa-Ogo were 
defeated by the Soninkés of Ghana as Sumanguru Kanté, the last blacksmith 
king of Sosso, was beaten by Soundjata Kaïta in the famous battle of Kirina 
(1220-1235). The hypothesis of Abdoulaye Bathily (1989: 221) to explain the 
social decline of blacksmiths in upper Senegal is very stimulating: "the 
fall of the regime of Sumanguru was perhaps followed by a dispersal of 
blacksmiths in all countries. The massive circulation of iron in West Sudan, 
as much through the intensification of regional trade as through the access 
of an increasing number of peoples and groups of individuals to the 
techniques of metallurgy, lead to gradually break the traditional monopoly 
of a minority."

One can assert that even if the "social enlargement of the metallurgist 
profession had contributed to the decline of the blacksmith's social 
influence," the problem remains intact. Why, despite the increase in 
economic resources, has a caste consciousness involving fundamental changes 
not developed? African societies, up until recently, did not give major 
importance to material accumulation and disassociated the control of weapons 
from the access to power.

The centralising monarchy, created with Ghana, went further in the political 
domination of inferior castes. According to Abdoulaye Bara Diop (1981), it 
developed caste relations not in the sense of a socio-economic 
interdependence based on the division of labour, but in the sense of a 
dependence of inferior castes on superior ones. We will return to this 
fundamental idea, even if it contradicts the racial theory of caste 
formation developed by Abdoulaye Bara Diop, which is an attempt to root 
culture in biology: the so-called caste hierarchy is not based on the wealth 
of their members, not on their role in the mode of production, but on to 
their degree of purity or impurity. 

It is impossible, within the outline of this reflection, to go over the 
entirety of problems connected to the evolution of castes in our societies 
(all the historians have amply tried to do so). Let's remember16, however, 
that its structure had already taken shape in the XIXth century at the time 
of the colonial penetration and that two significant cleavages divided 
society. They were, on the one hand, the criterion of freedom and, on the 
other, hereditary professional specialisation (castes). The criterion of 
freedom opposes free men or *geer* (sing.gor) to slaves, *jaam*. Castes 
oppose the *ñeeño* – those who practise crafts, music, singing, praises – to 
all those who are not tied down by this kind of limitation, the *geer*, from 
which results the idea of social bipartition. When they analyse the caste 
system, researchers generally include among the *ñeeño *the *griots*, who 
have an ideological function, as well as a singing and praising role (*
sab-lekk*, "those who live by the word", *cf*. A.B.Diop). This 
classification lends itself to confusion. The term *ñeeño *actually connotes 
a more restricted sense; it is applied predominantly to craftspeople castes, 
who are often excluded from political power, whereas the *griot* is an 
indispensable element of the centralising monarchy. It remains that, 
generally, people within castes are "characterised" by endogamy and 
impurity.

Let's again refer to several of Tal Tamari's important conclusions regarding 
the relation between caste-people and slaves and the reproduction of 
caste-people. In certain regions, people within castes have increased in 
number through the integration of people who did not originally have caste 
status17. The most common process, at least, the most frequently admitted by 
those concerned, concerned children of a man within a caste status and his 
concubine of servile origin: the children accessed the father's status. 
Descendants of captives held by a caste family could, in certain cases, 
become eventually integrated into the master's family, conforming to the 
model that prevailed in the relations between noble families and their 
slaves. This case occurred regularly with blacksmiths. In other 
circumstances, nobles passed themselves off as people of castes in order to 
escape slavery. We know that people of castes could never be reduced to 
slavery (Tamari 1997). Moreover, in Senegal, it is easier to hide a servile 
origin than a caste origin.

Concerning the notion of impurity, one can assert that it is a theorised 
phenomenon, to say the least: the *geer* are superior by birth, they are of 
pure blood, of wolof, halpulaar origin, as far as one goes back in time; the 
*ñeeño *are biologically inferior, of a foreign origin. According to Yoro 
Dyao (*Cahiers*): "If it is said that the sweat of a blacksmith is 
ill-fated, it is because he remains between two bodies: iron and fire. One 
is hard, the other is hot. His work is tiresome and the sweat that results 
from it creates pain and unhappiness to he/she who touches it." In reality, 
the place occupied by ideology in the caste system is fundamental since such 
a system is not only a mechanism but also the mental representation that 
individuals within groups have of what the behaviour of other groups should 
be in regard to them. However, a question remains: through what processes 
did the internalisation and formation of values by the castes themselves 
occur for as long a time? We will come back to this by analysing the 
experience of castes from a matrimonial perspective, but let's first look at 
the explanation Cheick Anta Diop and Abdoulaye Bara Diop give.

Cheick Anta Diop (1987: 11) estimates that for "each caste: inconveniences 
and advantages, alienations and compensations balance each other out" and he 
adds: "the stability of the caste system is secured by the hereditary 
transmission of social functions that corresponds, to a certain extent, to a 
monopoly, disguised in religious interdiction, in order to eliminate 
competition" (*Ibid*: 17). What Cheick Anta Diop is saying is mostly 
relevant for a pre-capitalist society and it must be also acknowledged that 
the fact of being removed from areas of decision is not easily compensated 
for. As for Abdoulaye Bara Diop (1981: 73-90), he explains the situation by 
the domination of an agricultural economy, resulting in the dependence of 
artisans on peasants in a trade system controlled by the latter. One can not 
help holding several reservations. Peasants did not control trade at all, 
especially in a long-term perspective. Trans-Saharian trade had generated a 
class of merchants closer to Muslim scholars, while the peasants would be 
Islamised later: XVIIIth, XIXth century?

Moreover, the *ñeeño *were not forbidden to work in agriculture. They played 
not only the same role as the *geer badolo* (peasants) in an economy of 
subsistence, but they also had control over the tools of production. Why, 
then, did the *ñeeño *not follow the same evolution as the European 
bourgeoisie, which was in practically the same situation at the end of the 
middle ages?18 Perhaps because the communal movement initiated by the 
European bourgeoisie within corporations would be the spearhead of social 
and economic mutations in Europe between the XVIth and the XVIIIth century. 
In its beginnings, the communal movement's sole objective was for the 
bourgeois to be recognised by a three-party society made up of those that 
pray, those that fight and those that work the land. The *ñeeño *had no need 
whatsoever for this kind of recognition as they were born through 
detribalisation. Recognition has often been the objective of emancipation 
movements.

Lastly, in the clientilistic relations maintained by caste people and *geer*, 
the gift function must not be over-estimated. Only the *griot* was truly 
economically dependent, and as much on the *gor* as on the craftsperson. One 
can also presume that contempt, which is often emphasised, was reinforced by 
the monetisation of exchanges.

* 

Daily life, matrimonial status and castes
* 

Societies in crisis, such as current African societies, live in a 
paradoxical situation: money has become the sole real value, but the need to 
avert the crisis develops identity reflexes in the individual and the group. 
The exaltation of values specific to our traditions and to our culture often 
determines inter-individual relations. The reality of the caste phenomenon 
can therefore be grasped also through examples that reflect the everyday 
reality, primarily at the level of the lower social classes.

* 

Everyday life and caste
* 

To respond to an offence received by his daughter, an old jeweller from 
Dakar preferred to recognise his grandson rather than the father who is *
geer*. On the contrary, someone else pressured his daughter into choosing 
celibacy, forbidding her to marry the man of her life because he was a *
griot*. These sorts if incidents are not only limited to matrimonial 
aspects. Some ordinarily explain their misfortunes from having had such and 
such contact with a so-called caste person. A woman acknowledges having 
never had her hair plaited by a woman of blacksmith origin out of fear that 
it would lead her hair to fall out. If she touches the hand of a person of 
blacksmith origin, her own hand would be immediately covered with bumps. For 
S.L., a driver, it is enough for him to sit on the bed of a blacksmith for 
the same effects to occur. 

There are numerous such examples. Obviously impossible to prove, they rise 
from the worlds of fantasy and the imaginary. The existential reality of 
caste people deserves therefore more attention, even if one can observe a 
certain evolution in the everyday attitudes towards them. Each time that an 
individual is faced with difficulties he/she tends to accuse the other - the 
neighbour, the friend - and the caste people generally represent an easy 
target as ideological justification is deeply rooted in the collective 
memory. It is thus that the caste person is regularly accused of having the 
ability to change the fortune of another: they bring bad luck. The caste 
people may reach the height of success but they will always be reminded of 
their origins. What Sartre says in *Réflexions sur la question juive* (1954: 
108, 113) is relevant to caste people in our societies: "They (the Jew) may 
accumulate legal protections, wealth, honour but they are only more 
vulnerable and they know it (…) but at the same moment that they reach the 
height of legal society, another amorphous, diffused and omnipresent society 
is revealed to them in flashes that refuses them. They feel, in a very 
particular way, the vanity of honour and wealth, since the greatest success 
will never gain them access to this society that claims to be the real one: 
minister, they will always be a Jewish minister, both an excellency and an 
untouchable. However, they will not meet any particular resistance: but a 
sort of escape, an impalpable emptiness will hollow around them, creating in 
particular an invisible chemistry that devalues all that they touch." To 
various degrees, the caste people experience the same reality. Whatever 
their success may be, they will always be reminded of their caste origin; 
this origin is the cause for their false steps and they will be forgiven no 
failure. In lower class neighbourhoods where the caste people are often 
accused of witchcraft, it is believed that one must beware of their
*thiat*(their evil-purveyor words). One witnesses here an abusive and
completely
warped generalisation of the belief in the mystical powers of the 
blacksmith. The control of fire required magic faculties, the blacksmith was 
responsible for circumcision, he possessed healing abilities and practised 
incantations (*jat*) to tame iron. This fear of the caste people's words 
sets up relations between friends that are not founded on confidence; 
reasons to mistrust sleep in the unconscious of the individual and the 
weight of culture and education is omnipresent.

* 

Matrimonial relations and castes
* 

The caste system is particularly rigid in matrimonial relations. As Proust 
remarked at the time of the Dreyfus affaire: "When it comes to the Jewish 
question, the driver like the aristocrat have the same attitude" (Sartre 
1954: 36). The majority of intellectuals, men and women who hold an 
important position in the state apparatus share with the local housewife 
nearly all the same reflexes on marriage: caste barriers are crossed with 
difficulty. Matrimonial investigation is a preliminary that all marriage 
suitors must comply to: one must avoid, above all, mixing one's blood. The 
consequences of this situation are numerous but the most common remain 
premature divorce and a split from the family. In our societies the notion 
of a couple is uncommon: marriage is primarily a matter of families and not 
of individuals. Other consequences are abortions –problems of caste are not 
always the cause for this, but they can be the basis –, most of the cases of 
suicide and suicide attempts, infanticides and life traumas connected to 
unhappy love affairs19. Is the matrimonial question an individual affair 
then? Most of the time – no.

There is certainly no individual revolution, and yet it is the amount of 
individual awareness that will be the basis of a revolution in mentalities. 
Because caste people are the only ones on who endogamy is strictly imposed, 
they have the highest rate of polygamy and arranged marriages between close 
relatives, resulting sometimes in harmful consequences on the child's 
health. It is true, however, that caste people share these characteristics 
with the marabous. Are Islam, school and urbanisation factors of 
transformation?

The presence of Islam in West Africa is very deep-rooted as it goes back at 
least as far as the VIIIth century; but it was not until the slave-trade 
period and particularly that of the colonial invasion that Islam penetrated 
the lower classes. However, its presence did not fundamentally modify the 
caste system. On the contrary, the Islamic religion adapted itself perfectly 
to this system, replacing aristocratic officials with religious ones; in 
many aspects, the marabou house reminds one of the royal court. Of course, 
certain small cities of Senegal such as Bambey, Mekhé and even once 
Tivaouane had caste people as great imams, but this is altogether 
exceptional in a big city like Dakar. The results of a study carried out by 
Abdoulaye Bara Diop (1981: 94-95) are still relevant today: "In religious 
society, they (*sab-lekk*, the *griots*) fulfil certain secondary functions 
related to their hereditary specialisation as "people of the word". Muezzins 
in mosques specialise in religious songs in evenings organised by the 
believers.

The adaptation of Islam to the caste system contradicts its egalitarian 
principles (*cf*. Surat 49, *Al-Hujarat*, "Private apartments", verse 10). 
The first revolution in the history of Islam – that of the Abbasids (750) 
–precisely wanted to put an end to clientelistic relations between Arabs and 
non-Arabs (mawalis). Abdoulaye Bara Diop was certainly right to think that 
Islam, however important it may be, was not, through sole ideological force, 
able to radically change or curtail the caste system. However, the great 
marabous with the great majority of them being of a superior caste, did not 
initiate any action to assert the egalitarian principle.

Moreover, the supposed superiority of marabou origins remains to be 
clarified. In regards to this, traditions are completely contradictory even 
if research can determine the very modest origins of those that lead the 
marabou revolutions at the turn of the XVIIIth and XIXth centuries, Islam 
being the only alternative to aristocratic oppression. The problem arises, 
above all, from culture and, generally speaking, African culture is stilted. 
It is only able to grasp exterior contributions and adapt them. African 
cultures change little through contact with other civilisations, and there 
are objective reasons for this. For instance, the changes provided by school 
are not considerable. Attendance to a western school does not greatly 
disrupt mentalities. The same phenomenon is found all the way through to 
professional training. Let's take a large caste family where nine people 
were able to access tertiary education. Their specialisation is as 
following: three people in chemistry-physics, two in natural science, one in 
economics, one in pharmaceutics, one in general mechanics and one in 
literature. Is it only a coincidence? In any case, one finds a predominance 
of caste people in scientific fields of study, particularly experimental 
sciences, and this phenomenon may be explained by the existence of a 
pre-scientific mind in caste professions20. One also observes that youth 
unemployment affects less those that come from crafts castes: it is common 
to see these young people go to school the days there are lessons and, the 
other days, to find them in the workshop of the father, the uncle, etc. 
Another example is that of the *maîtrisards* of caste origin who formed an 
economic interest group to open a big modern jewellery shop. Or again, the 
case of a young person with a PhD in law (with a specialisation in 
international relations) who, unable to find a position corresponding to his 
diploma, lives off his trade as a jeweller. We think that a valorisation of 
craft castes after independence would have given a technological basis to 
Africa in the perspective of endogenous development.
* 

The attitude and perspectives of the caste people
* 

The attitude of the caste people can prove to be deceptive. There is firstly 
the caste people's self-consciousness, which manifests itself through 
certain excesses such as ostentation, the acceptance of gifts (contrary to a 
certain conception of human dignity). But there is also the solidarity of 
the caste social environment and the exaltation of sometimes very 
conservative values: sense of family, honour, etc. Max Weber's analysis on 
the relations between Protestantism and capitalism could be equally applied 
to caste people. By preventing energies from unravelling in all directions 
(the inferiority complex being a limiting factor), the system compels the 
caste people to dedicate themselves to work and, since the end of the Second 
World War, there has been a high number of caste people immigrating (Morice 
1982) towards the majority of the African capitals. They bring their skills 
(jewellery, tapestry, shoe-making, etc.) but they are also found in trade. 
Does the decline of the craft-industry due to the invasion of the internal 
market by foreign products explain the immigration of caste people? This 
hypothesis actually remains empirical. We are convinced, however, that a 
more in-depth study would reveal conclusive results, especially if one 
considers the proportion of migrants in relation to the number of caste 
people within global society. The economic success of the caste people is a 
significant feature of modern Senegal. By definition, caste people have 
always been present in productive sectors. Many are those that, at the time 
of independence, transformed their workshop into a small family company: 
woodwork, jewellery, shoe making, clothes manufacturing… Others such as "the 
caste people of Baol entered successfully into trade". (*L'Autre Afrique*) 

The caste people's second type of reaction is the acceptance of their 
"state", non-refusal, the proclamation of themselves such as they are. This 
attitude of the caste people can be criticised especially in a process of 
democracy construction. The fact of wilfully considering oneself as a caste 
person must only be a step in the course towards the abolishment of the 
system, a *sine qua non* condition to reach true democracy. Yet, one 
observes that certain caste people, primarily the *griots*, misuse their 
position in society. Under the pretext that they are considered inferior, 
they distort social relations, become involved in numerous intrigues, and 
spend their time begging, an occurrence that is becoming widespread. This 
situation contributes, among other factors, to the systemisation of begging 
and creates an ideal environment for corruption to set in: in a society 
where one is not repelled by begging, indulgence becomes commonplace and 
favours parasitism. In Senegal, many are those that live off the State and 
its citizens, thus reducing the number of active people while at the same 
time, annihilating their efforts. It is not solely the existence of caste 
people but the type of social relations created by the caste system that 
favours this situation.

The ultimate attitude is that of refusal. Certain caste people, taking 
advantage of a neutral name, simply refuse to take on their situation as 
caste people; others hope to escape their castes by entering into 
matrimonial relations outside of their own society. This may explain the 
high number of mixed marriages among the first intellectuals of caste 
origin. These marriages outside of caste are not always a bad thing, but 
they often put the children resulting from these unions in an awkward 
position: they are described as *geer benn tank* (having only one foot). One 
can gain a certain optimism following the example of the philosopher 
Souleymane Bachir Daigne21 who estimates that the matrimonial stronghold is 
in the process of falling. It is harder to follow him however when he 
asserts that "urbanisation made it possible for caste people to blend into 
the anonymousness of the city." The family name remains the caste people's 
identity card even if it is recognised that the emergence of a financial 
nobility in a society in crisis has demolished the foundations of ostracism. 


Let's say, by way of conclusion, that fighting in favour of caste 
suppression is a primary principle for human rights, as individual 
liberation remains the very condition of development. How can our economic 
backwardness be fought without supporting new ideas to discredit certain 
dogmas, prejudices, fanaticism, arbitrariness, parasitism, in short, all 
archaisms of a society that has become, in a certain way, too intelligent 
for its own structures? Responding to this question firstly implies 
proposing the eradication of, among other archaisms, the caste system. 
Society will progress faster the day the Senegalese become aware that 
practicing a profession has absolutely no relation to social decline.

  
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