Leopold Senghor NÉGRITUDE and African socialism

INTRODUCTION This work has contain four parts which are introduction that consist of meaning of the key terms, historical background of Leopold Senghor, Second part consists of main body which comprise of highlight and discussion of the key issues raised by Leopold Senghor in the concept of Negritude and African socialism, third part consist of recommendations and the last part contains conclusion. Meaning of the key terms Socialism Is a populist economic and political system in which the means of production operate under public political ownership sometimes called common ownership. The early famous socialist thinkers are Robert Owen, Henri De Saint Simon Karl Max and Vladimir Lenin. Socialism developed as an objection to liberal individualism and capitalism. According to Bernard Crick (1998) “Socialism is the system of society that stressed the social as against the selfish, the cooperative sociability as against the individual self-sufficiency and self-interest; Strict social control on the accumulation and use of private property”. According to Leopold Senghor (1948) “Socialism was democratic and humanistic and it shunned such slogan as dictatorship of proletariat”. Due to this situation people became free from capitalist which created classes among them. Where by proletariat were much exploited. So, socialism emerged as an alternative to capitalism. African socialism Is the social development guided by large public sector incorporating the African Identity and what it means to be Africa and accordance or the development of social classes within society. Which had many characteristics like equality of outcomes, absence of classes, based on brotherhood (Fenner, B.1963).Not only Leopold Senghor who valued African socialism but also other leaders in Africa portrayed African socialism in different ways for example Nyerere of Tanzania who came with “Ujamaa na kujitegemea” idea and Kwame Nkruma of Ghana with pan-Africanism . Negritude Refers to consciousness of and pride in the cultural and physical aspect of the African heritage. Or is the state or condition of being black, According to Oxford dictionaries:” Negritude is the affirmation or consciousness of the value of black or African culture and identity. Negritude refers to a cultural movement launched in 1930s Paris by French-speaking black graduate students from France's colonies in Africa and the Caribbean territories. The negritude ideal developed by the black intellectual which included Aime Cesaire, Leopold Sedar Senghor former President of Senegal and Leon Damas of French Guiana (Wilder, G. 2010).These black intellectuals converged around issues of race identity and black internationalist initiatives to combat French imperialism. They found solidarity in their common ideal of affirming pride in their shared black identity and African heritage, and reclaiming African self-determination, self–reliance, and self–respect. Biography of Leopold Sedar Senghor. Leopold Sedar Senghor was born on 1906 and died 2001. Sent to a French missionary school in 1913, entered a Catholic boarding school in 1914, he won many academic prizes, entered a Roman Catholic seminary in 1923; was only African in the graduating class of the French lycee Dakar, Senegal, 1928 enrolled in Lycee Luis-le-Grand, Paris, France, 1928, entered the Sorbonne campus of the University of Paris, 1931. He was a Senegalese poet who began writing poetry in 1930s, politician 1945, cultural theorist and essayist who for two decades served as the first president of Senegal on 1960 to 1980. Senghor was the first African elected as a member of the Academie francaise. Before independence, he founded the political party called the Senegalese Democratic Bloc. He is regarded by many as one of the most important African intellectuals of the 20th century, whereby he was among the founder of the concept of the negritude and African Socialism (Benot, Y. 1969) Leopold Senghor’s Key issues on Negritude Revolutionary Africa development Are those changes which were influenced to takes place during the presence of Senghor Leopold, many development took place in Africa like economic, political ,social and cultural but all that changes took place for aim of shift Africa from one level of life to the other level which is better to compare to the life they had before .Senghor with other intellectuals like Friedrich Hegel , Joseph de Gobineau with Marcus Garvey are the source of revolution of Africa development due to their effort of make aware the Africans by using his speeches but also by his poems he was publish the first poem in 1945 and the other one in 1948. So through his poems and the speeches Africans get the message on how to value their culture, race, love one another and unite all to become one thing for the benefits of people of Africa. Senghor stressed the creation of cooperative and credit unions in the rural areas and developed village level training program based on local leadership because the local leader are near to people they know exactly what the people need so as to attain easy the development and which ways to use, by using the in Teilhard de Chardin (Senghor, L. 1964) The birth of new African civilization Senghor argues against the assimilation policy introduced by the French in Senegal, as it was just to change the African from their originality of their culture to a new culture of France .Senghor use his education acquired from France to civilize blacks . Senghor argues that “instead of being assimilated by the French its better for the African themselves to assimilate the France”. Senghor and his fellow were all against racism and colonial injustice that plagued their world and their French education. They were emphasized in acceptances of the fact of “blackness” as the means by which the decolonization of the mind could be achieved. According to Cesaire , as among of the advocators of negritude western imperialism was responsible for the inferiority complex of blacks ,Senghor through his poetry and later first president of Senegal he advocated a modern incorporation of the expression and celebration of African customs and ideas. Senghor said that the French assimilation policy is a big problem as the blacks are assimilated into a culture that considered African culture to be barbaric and unworthy of being seen as civilized. An ideology for African unity According to Senghor negritude was an ideology aimed at unifying all people of African origin both Africans within Africa and Africans in Diaspora. Negritude was the active root of a Black identity in this inescapable and natural African essence. Negritude is a concept which holds that there is a shared culture and subjectivity and spiritual essence among members of the same racial group. Senghor viewed the negritude ideology as a vital instrument of awakening all Africans and raise their consciousness towards African unity. A Philosophy of Life Is the philosophy in the informal sense as a personal philosophy whose focus is resolving the existential questions about the human conditions (Fettler, T.1964). In philosophical life Senghor was ask different question like who am I, Who are we and What are we in the life of this white World and therefore, tend to commented that quit problem, and to French philosophers naturally understand such as question to be universal and the subject who says “I” stand for any human being (Casaire, A. 2005). In European philosophy is essentially static, objective, it is founded as separation on opposition on analysis and conflicts and contrast to African philosophy is based on unity balance of negotiation and appreciation of movement and rhythm. A critique to imperialism Senghor raised movement of negritude so as to remove imperialism in Senegal as where colonized or dominated in political, economic and socially by France. Imperialism aimed at controlling the people’s wealth, hat they produce, how they produce and how it was distributed. Their untimely, because non national intervention sought to reconstitute imperial France as a federal democracy that could save as framework for an alternative planetary order through which self determination could be exercised, civilization reconciliation could pursued and human self-realization might be possible (wilder, G .2010). Leopold Senghor’s Key issues on African Socialism Right of self determination Senghor believed that socialism enable the African people to have the right of self determination. This is due to the freedom they get through participation with other member and their leaders in the society, in discussing all their view about political, economic and cultural whereby through that situation the African people can determine their prosperity. The right of self determination enable African people to cooperate in various issues whereby there is always equality in the distribution of resources and hence the whole society can benefit thereafter can enable African to prosperity (Wilder, G. 2010). African culture According to Senghor culture is a double objective: to satisfy immediate physical needs, but above all to satisfy spiritual exigencies of life in society which essentially is nourished by art that leads man to commune with men, and all men with all forces of nature making him more free by allowing him to realize himself (Wilder, G. 2010).Senghor argues that African culture, art and religion express the very aim of Marxian socialism. He figured that black art as crucial medium of human, social, and cosmic reconciliation and transcendence through which Africans could revitalize Marxism and redeem socialism. Challenge the question of religions This was regarded as one of the most pervasive features of African life, Senghor insisted that Marx’s supposed nonbeliever was only a conditional rejection of actually existing Christianity which had been instrumentally to capitalism into an ideological justification. (Wilder, G. 2010).Therefore maintained African spiritualism directly embodied Marx’s ethical integral humanism. To criticize religion from the position of socialism, African religion, he explained, promoted socialist methods by combining will and act with vital energy and popular emotion. African Christianity and African Islam, explained, also promoted revolutionary socialist aims by challenging all kinds of dictatorships in order to restore human dignity. Thus taught party members we can fairly legitimately be socialists while remaining believers. Secular humanism Secular humanism is all about believing in the principles of inquiry, ethics based upon reason and commitment to science, democracy and freedom, also it is all about non-religious it incorporates the enlightenment principle of individualism, which celebrates emancipating the individual from traditional controls, increasing empowering each of us to set the terms of our own “No God will serve us” declared the humanist manifesto II of 1973 by Senghor , “We must serve ourselves” secular humanists seek to develop and improve their ethical principles by examining the results they yield in the lives of real man. Secular humanism emerged in Africa primarily through the efforts of the Senegalese intellectuals like Cheikh Anta Diop and Léopold Sédar Senghor. Diop advocated a strong historicist humanism that focused on the achievements of ancient Africans as the first Homo sapiens, arguing that they laid the groundwork for the cultural life of the species. Although secular, the familiar theme of ancestral value is echoed in his work. Senghor is best known as a co-founder, with the Martini can poet Aime Cesaire (b. 1913) of the negritude movement, which focused on the creative potential of black consciousness. (Edwin, H. 1995) African liberation Senghor hoped that a post-national socialist federation would secure self government for Africans without surrendering future membership in plural republic, an integrated Europe, and regional economy of which they were already an integral part. Senghor was against French rule ,he said that Africans should explode and redeem France by constituting it as a democratic socialist federal republic, and that the promises of colonial emancipation could only be realized if empires were remade into socio-political forms that were at once democratic and commensurate with a new epoch of planetary interference (Wilder, G. 2010).Through the Negritude Movement, Senghor brought awareness to many African countries in fighting against imperialism in Africa .Example Ghana under Nkrumah, Tanganyika under Nyerere and South Africa under Mandela all of them support Senghor to create African unity through maintaining African culture, and fight against racism. RECOMMENDATION African socialism was the movement which took attention of many African thinkers and leaders like Senghor, Kwame Nkrumah, Julius Nyerere, Nelson Mandela and many others who wanted to free themselves from colonial rule, exploitation of all kind and fight against racism for example Nyerere with Ujamaa idea, Kwame Nkrumah Pan-Africanism, Kamuzu Banda of Zambia with humanism but to Leopold Senghor African socialism targeted the idea of Negritude which aimed to liberate and unite Senegalese from French rule, liberation, civilization African unity but also to fight for independence of African people not only who are in African but also African Diaspora. The contribution of the negritude movement to Africa philosophy is immense as ideologies since African philosophy depends on negritude, to us negritude remain the most valuable literary, cultural and ideological movement. CONCLUSION Negritude remains the most important intellectual movement or idea produced in francophone Africa thought of the last century as it united in a revolutionary action seeking the liberation of the blacks from whites and colonial power, the recognition of the Negro-African culture and civilization. African socialism and negritude played an important role in the struggle for African independence as they protested against all forms of exploitation of Africa and the Caribbean by proudly affirming their African culture. REFERENCE Benot, Y. (1969), Ideologies des independences Africans, F.mama spero. Paris. Brockway, F. (1963), African socialism, The Bodley Head. Londan. California. Cesaire, A. (1949), Notebook of a Return to the Native Land.Trans.Clayton Eshleman and Annette Smith. Fettler,T.(1964), philosophy and philosophy of religion cleats: Sun Press. http://exploringafrica.matrix.msu.idu/module-twentythree-activity-four/ http://www.encyclopedia.com/ https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/negritude: 19/12/2016. Senghor Leopold S. (1964), Libertel: Negritude et Humanisme. Paris seuil. Senghor Léopold S. (1990), ceuvre poétique. Paris: Seuil. Wilder G. (2010), African socialism as political theology: Leopold Sedar Senghor’s Redemptive, vision of decolonization, Barcelona. William H. Crawford & Cail G. Et Al (1964), African socialism, Stanford University press.