The recurrence of Senghor’s reference to the Cahiers de doléances sent by the inhabitants of Saint-Louis to the Estates General of the French Revolution allows us to question the meaning of the symbol, which to tell the truth, is rather in the form of a myth. Indeed, the reference to Saint-Louis in the Senghorian text refers less to geography as indicated by Corypheus in the Elegy to Aynina Fall than to history, less to the scene of the individual than to the theater of the ‘Universal, less to concrete reality than to myth and the horizon of meaning that it reveals. Responding to a question on the Francophonie asked by Mohamed Aziza in La Poésie de l’action, Léopold Sédar Senghor declared: “On the eve of independence, in 1959, we were, I repeat, the oldest French colony, since the city of Saint-Louis in Senegal was founded in 1659. On the other hand, democratic life, European style, had begun in Senegal in the 18th century. first Senegalese commune dates from Louis XV On April 15, 1789, we sent our very humble grievances and remonstrances to the French people holding the States General. Saint-Louis, considered by Ousmane Socé as an “old French town”, the “center of good taste and elegance”, turns out to be, under the pen of Senghor, a profoundly mixed city because it is a place where two stories come together. , of two peoples, even if the meeting initially did not take place under the sign of conviviality. Saint-Louis thus becomes a place that de-territorializes itself to find its place in the Senegalese political imagination. What is at stake behind this reference? What is Senghor’s concern?
To think about Senghor’s reference to the Cahiers de doléances des inhabitants de Saint-Louis, to understand its meaning, is to first listen to the procedure used by Senghor and which we could therefore state as follows: “Play with history, thwarting history: the making of a memory”
Although there are numerous references to the Cahiers de doléances written by Senghor, very little is said about its content. These Notebooks are the work of those who designate themselves as Negroes and mixed race but all French or as the unfortunate inhabitants of Senegal, bowed under the unbearable yoke of the horrible despotism of a privileged company. This name is important because it expresses a social posture, indicating that it is a very specific social group, made up of Africans and mixed race people with very specific corporate interests in the economy of the colony that comes to be implemented. danger the privilege of the gum and slave trade in the Senegal basin granted to the Senegal Company by decree of the Council of 1784 and 1785. As one might suspect, these Grievances for more freedom are in fact nothing more than a slavery plea: what this social group is asking for is the possibility of continuing to carry out its activities in the slave trade. This extract from the Notebook leaves no doubt about their activities: “the black trade is where we generally have the most share, because we have boats and sailor slaves that we send as far as Galam to process blacks that we sell then to European merchants in Senegal with a slight profit. If it is a question of denial of rights, of injustice, of respect for freedom, it is paradoxically in relation to an activity which denies people their humanity, which reifies them in order to make them simple objects of transaction. As Mamadou Diouf indicates, “the inhabitants of Saint-Louis appropriate revolutionary rhetoric, speeches on natural law, the principles of reason, the inalienable rights of man, equality before justice, which “they oppose the special privileges of the Company of Senegal”.
Looking more closely at what is at stake in this story, we are entitled to wonder what the reasons could be that lead the theoretician of Negritude to appropriate it, or even to make it a reference for history. of his people? Did he forget “this long suffering of the Negroes which lasted three and a half centuries, with 20 million deported to the Americas” to which he alluded, responding to Césaire who received him in the West Indies in February 1976? Is it simply “hate-free” to use an expression used in the same conference, or should we look elsewhere? Should we turn to the side of Poeïsis, to the side of the Poet, master of language to whom the Lord has granted power of speech?
Beyond its inscription in a territoriality and a French particularity, 1789 marks a sequence of universal history which depicts freedom, affirms principles and values which authenticate a new human culture as well as the existence of natural rights because relating to the simple humanity of man.
This event is memorable because it reveals itself as a mode of insertion into the universal, to use Sartre’s expression. It is indeed the place where citizenship emerges, as reflected in the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen. The universal dimension of the event allows its deterritorialization and subsequently its appropriation, its erection into a myth if we understand the latter in the sense given to it by Mircéa Eliade, that is to say “that which provides models for human conduct and thereby confers meaning and value to existence. The event itself, through its evocation, simply becomes instituting. From there comes its ability to take charge of the challenge that imposes itself on Politics and which consists of producing, creating a memory for its people. It is a question, through trickery, of thwarting history by playing with it, for the sole purpose of creating the fundamental moment, the one which fixes the origin of a community which merges with the establishment place of its mode of political regulation: democracy and citizen participation. However, this procedure can only be operational under two conditions: the reification of the list of grievances into a myth and the concealment of its content. The Poet then comes to the aid of the Politician by creating, by tinkering with a memory for his community, by narrating this model which establishes and structures political legitimacy by defining being a citizen. The work of the Poet shows that the effectiveness and sense of Politics cannot do without ideology: “in fact, any ideological enterprise, like any civilization that has reached self-awareness, begins by seeking itself a legitimation and a permanent nourishment: a fertile soil in which to take root”.
1789 is a moment when a new modality of the social bond with this body emerges which reveals its existence to the world and outlines, in the very act of its birth, the gesture of freedom; the Nation, since that is what it is about, expresses the collective identity which is emerging by destroying the old separations and by offering the image of the gathered and sovereign people.
Let us listen once again to Senghor speaking to Mohamed Aziza who questions him about the difficulty of being, on African soil, realities such as the State, the Nation, the Region. His response is instructive for our purposes because from the outset it complies with a requirement of definition which allows us to understand unequivocally the meaning he assigns to the reference to the Cahiers de doléances. After the definition of the State, Senghor specifies what the Nation is: it is the common desire to live together but above all it is this moment when “citizens have overcome differences – notably differences of race, religion and caste This is why I say that the Senegalese Nation was born on April 15, 1789 when the representatives of the inhabitants of Senegal sent their very humble grievances and remonstrances to the French people holding the States. In these notebooks, once again, the Senegalese presented themselves as Negroes and French, without any discrimination between them. This means that they were already a nation.
Yet the same Senghor tells us in Liberté 2 “the State is the expression of the nation, it is above all the means of achieving the Nation”. Is this the word of a poet who does not care about the accuracy of facts so dear to the historian and who allows himself to play as he pleases with the chronological and logical relationship between the State and the Nation? The Poet plays with history, thwarts history because, ultimately, it is about creating another one for the new homo senegalensis as he liked to say. To create another story is to create a myth of origin, having a founding, instituting function.
For Senghor, it is a question of demonstrating that the participation of his people in universal history is a fact which attests to their capacity as citizens. Therefore, even if Senegalese democracy was for a moment an exception on African soil, it can in no way be understood as a cyclical fact, as an accident of history: it would then simply be something of natural that the long duration allows us to decipher. If we talk again today in Senegal about Nation, Republic, republican institutions, it is important to remember that the latter were forged by the sacrifice of men and women of good will, who lived, including in the suffering, so that certain principles do not fall into oblivion. Today it is about respecting this suffering and looking after the legacy.
Aminata DIAW-CISSE,
Professor of philosophy, director of information and cultural and sports activities
Cheikh Anta Diop University of Dakar
