THE SENGHORIAN PHILOSOPHICAL ROOTS OF SENEGALESE DEMOCRACY :
Philosophy and Poetry do dovetail in their tolerance for differences. While the perfume of philosophy is freedom of thought, the perfume of poetry is freedom of feelings. When the critical spirit of the rebel meets with the patriotic feeling of the patriot, true nationalism is born. These dialectics of critical thinking and rational feelings for one’s country found a holistic synthesis in the Negritude movement championed by Leopold SEDAR Senghor, who was the first President of Senegal. Why politics and everything, including football and culture, go senegalizement in this West African country is because the first head of state was a philosophical poet who put humanity before things. Senghor’s position that ‘I dance therefore I exist” while being antithetical to the Cartesian position of the white man that ” I think, therefore I am” shows politics as a dance of life and not a dance of death where the winner takes it all. The FayeSanko dialectics of power today in Senegal just prove Senghor right. The spirit of controversy seeking understanding between otherwise friends is not hatred but tolerance of differences. This is political maturity in the youth who question the reason for tyrannical and gerontocratic rule in Africa. It is the spirit of Negritude sage who warns that though one may occasionally bite another, the tongue and the heart are always together, like President Faye and Honourable Sonko. It is only in a philosophical mind that two contrary but not contradictory positions can be entertained without rancor at the same time. Only the Negritude idea of racial mixed up can tolerate and celebrate opposition in the spirit of FayeSanko play with power. While savouring the sweetness of the Senghorian recipe of power,,let us not forget the masters on whose shoulders he stood to see the future of Senegal. There was Socrates, and there was Plato. Plato had warned 5000 years ago in his book The Republic that UNTIL THE DAY THE KING BECOMES THE PHILOSOPHER OR THE PHILOSOPHER BECOMES THE KING, MANKIND WILL NEVER SEE THE LIGHT OF THE DAY. The Philosopher King Senghor ignited the light of philosophical and poetic tolerance for differences, and Senegal is still using that light to walk the world with its culture, its football and with its democracy. Let political buffoonery in other African countries not think that by suppressing ideas and by killing intellectuals and frustrating the teacher, they will work from dungeons to democracy. No. Seek ye first the Metaphysical base of your politics, and all the rest will go senghorian and senegalizement.
Bawe Louis Tarawo
