B. Mongo-Mboussa: "Senghor does not separate poetry from politics"

Text by: Ariane Poissonnier Follow

From Joal (Senegal), where he was born in 1906, to Verson (France), where he died in 2001, Léopold Sédar Senghor marked the twentieth century with his literary and political talents. The literary critic Boniface Mongo-Mboussa returns to the duality of an exceptional man.

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RFI: How to characterize the literary work of Léopold Sédar Senghor?

Boniface Mongo-Mboussa : Senghor's work is an ode to Africa. This praise of the continent takes place both intellectually and poetically. From an intellectual point of view, it is the promotion of Negro art; poetically, it is the celebration of African women, landscapes and civilizations of the continent.

Senghor is an elegiac poet, a poet of memory. A man worked by the passage of time, divided between a harmonious past lost forever - the famous kingdom of childhood -, a violent, elusive present, and a hypothetical future, the outcome of which is fatally death. In all this, the poet wants to be Dyali (griot), with a very specific mission: to glorify his lineage, his friends, his dead, his country and his civilization.

Why does the Normalien passionate about literature get involved in politics?

Senghor always thought he fell into politics. We never believed it, at least not quite. And yet he did not lie when he said that. Politics caught up with him in the country in 1945, when he came to collect Serer oral poetry for writing a thesis.

Asked insistently by Lamine Gueye to be a candidate for the second college for the election to the post of deputy of the French Union to the Constituent Assembly, he ended up accepting the offer of Lamine Gueye and the SFIO Then, everything goes on . In 1956, he was appointed Secretary of State for the Presidency of the Council in the government of Edgar Faure. In 1959, he was elected president of the Assembly of the ephemeral federation of Mali. On September 5, 1960, he was elected President of Senegal for a 7-year term. He was re-elected in 1963, 1968, 1973 and 1978. On December 3, 1980, he resigned from his presidential office in favor of Abdou Diouf.

During these twenty years of presidency, did he remain a poet?

Senghor ruled his country as a teacher. That is to say with method and organizational spirit, two values ​​dearly acquired among the White Fathers and at Khâgne in Paris! His life throughout the year was thus organized: during the school season, he was president in Senegal; in summer, he is a poet in Normandy, in Verson, homeland of his second wife Colette Hubert. In his poetry, as I said, he celebrates African culture; in his policy, he gives primacy to culture over economics. Senghor does not separate poetry from politics. For him, " poetically interpreting the world " is not opposed to " changing " it politically. Hence this beautiful title, Poetry of Action, which he gives to his intellectual and political autobiography, published in 1980.

Are the values ​​defended in his work those applied in his policy?

In his poetry, he celebrates his native land, brotherhood, fidelity, memory, dignity, honor, bravery. In politics, he was very dignified. He advocates rooting while opening up to the world, to France. Hence the French-speaking world. We blamed him. It was to forget his sense of loyalty. He knew what he owed to France, to the White Fathers who educated him, to his masters at Louis-Le-Grand, to his classmate Pompidou, in Paris.

In the case which opposes him to Mamadou Dia, is he still faithful to these values?

At independence, Senghor still hesitated between political life and the career of professor, especially of poet. He doubts the solidity of the "republiquettes" resulting from the Balkanization of Africa. Mamadou Dia does not have these states of mind. He takes his office as President of the Council - which leads the action of the government - very seriously. It imposes a system of agricultural economy which catches the feudal marabouts, the Dakar Chamber of Commerce and the intermediaries, some of whom are members of the National Assembly.

Irritated, the latter accused him of authoritarianism - which is partly true - collected signatures for a motion of censure. Dia reared up, evacuated the Assembly and arrested four leading deputies. But the deputies meet at the home of Lamine Gueye, the president of the Assembly, and vote the censure motion. Dia is accused of having planned a coup - a constitutional coup. And he is doomed.

A conviction so severe that it still divides Senegalese society. What many Senegalese blame Senghor for is not so much the fact of having arrested Dia. The latter had impulsively violated the constitution. What they blame Senghor for is the severity with which he used this opportunity to get rid of Dia, who was beginning to overshadow him. In this conflict, Senghor acted with method, composure and cunning. He advanced masked behind the deputies; Dia, he, whole and straight, did not make lace. Hence its fall. Again, Senghor proved that he could be a poet and a politician.

But, in the end, was he rather a president or rather a poet?

Finally… A poet-president! Not one without the other. But if he had to choose, without hesitation, he would have chosen the poet. He was not fooled by the vanity of political glory. However, he carried out his two functions with rigor and dignity. In this, he denied the order of Plato, which prohibited the poet the right to rule the city.

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