Senegal

THE republic of Senegal, lying at the extreme western tip of Africa, where the continent bulges out into the Atlantic and then curves in sharply toward the equator, is in many ways typical of the new West African nations. It is poor and it is ambitious, and it shares common problems with the multitude of new states which have sprung to life since 1959.

If the visitor steams into Dakar, Senegal’s modern capital, from the sea, his first sensation is surprise. A huge, sleek hotel looms up above the cliffs ten miles from the city. Farther on, apartment buildings dominate the plateau on which the new city is built. A short drive around Dakar confirms the initial impression. The banks have electric-eye doors; American cars speed through the streets; handsome villas dot the lovely corniche road along the sea; Parisian-style cafés line the main streets; and Time magazine is on sale.

In fact, Dakar looks like a very comfortable place to live. For most of the French and for the various embassy officials, for African politicians and for well-heeled visitors, it is. There are several tennis clubs, and there are sailing regattas. The stores stock Pernod, Scotch, American cigarettes, and fashionable clothes. The lovely sand beach at N’Gor is filled with laughing girls in bikinis. There are wonderful restaurants, comfortable movie houses, and horse shows occasionally on Sundays.

Few white people are interested in the squalor. They do not see the sprawling medina where the Dakarois live, the rows of tumbledown shacks, the sewage flowing in ditches along the street, and the carefully apportioned daily ration of rice. Nor are they concerned that the average Senegalese annual income is about $240. To the whites, both resident and transient, this means only that they can get a houseboy for less than two dollars a day and have a car washed for twenty cents.

Yet the animosity that one would expect on both sides of the color line is conspicuously absent. Few Africans resent the French who have remained in Dakar. To the Senegalese, the Frenchman has been here for a long time, and he continues to need houseboys and to have his car washed; and the African’s life is an entirely separate one. The Frenchman, on the other hand, resents the African only when the latter invades the former’s world, the world of offices and parties and dominance. The French find it hard to believe they are no longer masters here; to their minds, West Africa would collapse without French financial and technical assistance and direction. Consequently, the African’s efforts at self-government are ridiculed. Otherwise, the Frenchman prides himself on the way he gets along with the African, with the boy and the marketwoman and the fatou who does the washing.

The Africans are, indeed, likable. In Dakar the women of the predominant group, the Ouolof (pronounced wool-off), are coquettish and exotic. They clothe themselves in colorful robes and headdresses, wear gold jewelry, and carry themselves stiffly erect and proud. With their babies wrapped on their backs, they walk the streets as if they own them. They joke with white women at the markets, and they push flowers at the tourist. The Ouolof men are hard pressed to support their wives, and many men take several jobs to keep their several wives in robes and jewels. Thus, the women parade through the teeming streets and the men sweat through their jobs, and the boulevards swarm with life, both African and French.

At night, however, the center of the city is deserted, except for a few cafés and movie houses. The Africans troop back, on foot and in rickety cars rapides, to their medina, the maze of narrow streets and bidonvilles on the edges of the city. There, dinner is a bowl of rice, perhaps with some fish, and the nightly entertainment is the tam-tam, dancing to the infectious rhythm of the drums.

The student elite

Five miles from the center of the city is the University of Dakar, which was built by France, is financed by France, and is run by France. The professors, too, are French. The student body, with a few exceptions, is drawn from all over West Africa. The campus is modern, spread over several acres on the heights above the sea. In the dormitories, the elite of West Africa’s youth spend endless hours arguing politics, mainly attacking the incumbent government for its conservatism and alliance with France.

These students seem to be sharply aware that they are the cream of West Africa, and believe that they are guaranteed high positions in government or business because they are all that West Africa can look to, aside from the French. But they are not content to wait, to be thought of as future leaders. Africans, they say, can run everything now. They demand, however, French and American financial aid as the least that is owed to them to compensate for centuries of exploitation. They spend their government scholarship money on clothes and radios, since their tuition, lodging, and meals are provided free.

In a way, it is not difficult to understand their ambition. One need only look at the incumbent politicians to see the good life that these students aspire to. Deputies in the National Assembly ride through the streets in sleek, chauffeured sedans, and they live in the fashionable quarters of the city. They make more than $100 a week in government salary, and they have other income as well. Even in the interior, local African administrators live in comfortable, rambling houses, keep several servants, and enjoy the prestige of high status.

The patterns of power

Power patterns in Senegal are complex, and the sources of influence are many. Senegal is more than 85 percent Muslim, and on the local level real control lies in the hands of the marabout, the Muslim leader whose influence goes far beyond the religious sphere.

The marabout directs the practice of Islam in his area. He also collects the rents, directs the vote, enforces the taxes, and generally runs the society. The key to his power is his absolute hold over the minds of his people; the African Muslim believes he cannot get into heaven without the marabout’s intercession. The marabout’s influence, in this respect, is exerted in direct proportion to the amount of obedience he receives. Since he is rich and powerful, he must be courted by any aspiring African politician.

Political power in Senegal is centered in the hands of one party, the UPS (Union Progressiste Sénégalaise). There are other small parties, but they offer only token opposition. In his last Independence Day message, President Léopold Sédar Senghor expressed the hope that opposition politicians and students would join the UPS, since Senegal’s plans for development would be hampered by divisive efforts. Students at the university greeted the statement with jeers and insults.

Economic goals

The policies of the Senghor government are easy enough to follow. The one phrase constantly heard is “development.” To achieve his economic goals, Senghor practices a policy of close cooperation with the French and encouragement of new industrial investment. The first FourYear Plan, 1961-1965, outlines bold objectives in the area of industrial expansion, road building, agricultural development, and exploitation of natural resources. French assistance is heavily relied upon, but private capital is to provide 45 percent of the industrial growth. To lure this capital, the government has written an investment code promising substantial tax benefits and official encouragement to potential foreign investors.

Despite these ambitious goals, one gets the feeling that there are constant beginnings but few results. Commissions are set up, and pilot projects are established by the score. Yet there is little to attract foreign capital. Senegal is a one-crop country, the base of the economy being peanuts. Aside from this, there is a coastal fishing industry that remains primitive, one phosphate plant in the north, some rice cultivation in the south, and little else. The land is most unyielding and dry, and there are few mineral resources. The one real resource is cheap labor, but there are practically no skilled workers or technicians.

Effectively, economic power in Senegal remains in French hands. Octopus-like trading companies, French-owned, spread out from the capital cities and into the bush. They sell everything from real estate to ice cream, hardware to life insurance, and they carry on most of the important commerce in West Africa. Their hold is not as oligarchic as it was before independence, but it remains strong.

Outside the big cities, competition cannot get a foothold. Until recently these giant companies also bought the entire peanut crop, setting prices and wages according to their own intercompany agreements. The government has now established a cooperative which has in part taken over this buying and the processing which follows it, but the cooperative, though partly government-financed, is still largely owned by the French companies. French capital continues to predominate in almost every commercial enterprise.

This French economic hegemony is one side of a two-way street. Senegal, as a member of the French Community, grants France tariff and import privileges and subsidies which are unavailable to other countries; in return, France gives its excolony financial and technical assistance and buys the peanut crop at a price pegged above that of the world market. Thus, Senegal subsists and France retains its prestige as the mother country.

Where Africans have taken over administrative positions, the picture is often a discouraging one. The high-living elected delegates to the Assembly pay lip service to their public patriotism, but their main concern is their bank accounts. In the administration, corruption is the rule rather than the exception. Senegal is fortunate, however, in having honest and capable men in the top ministerial offices. In the lower official echelons, performance is often sloppy and graft is common. The government is working hard to train capable administrators, but progress is slow.

The new middle class

But Africanization of the civil service, as well as of office workers and clerks, is inevitable and is proceeding rapidly. African bureaucrats, businessmen, salesmen, bookkeepers, mechanics, and small shopkeepers are gradually replacing their French counterparts. They have been trained mainly by the Frenchmen they replaced, and they suffer from neither the arrogance of the university student nor the avarice of the high official. The growing influence of this African middle class can be seen in its expanding purchasing power, its higher standard of living, and in the new housing developments that are spreading on the outskirts of Dakar.

In the interior, old habits and ideas change slowly. Despite the growth of Islam, tribal traditions and superstitions continue to dominate the bush African’s existence. But life in the bush has been complicated since independence. For one thing, the authority of the local chiefs has been undermined by the presence of African government administrators. For another thing, the lure of lights and good clothes is attracting the young people to the city, leaving the villages largely to the old and the infirm. Moreover, when the newly sophisticated boys and young women return to their natal home, their dissatisfaction gives rise to frequent family and tribal disputes.

Improving the villages

The government is trying to bring a better world into the bush. Centres d’Animation Rural have been set up in several regions of the country. Here young men from the villages may come and live for ten days or two weeks. They are shown how to improve the looks of their villages and how to take various health precautions.

The graduates of the camp are expected to spread their newly acquired knowledge in their villages, but the government is finding it hard to lure the villagers away from their traditional methods.

Senegal is therefore a difficult and complicated place to understand. Perhaps the best evaluation is that offered by a Senegalese administrator in the Ministry of the Interior. When asked what he thought about his country’s chances for success and improvement, he answered cautiously: “We are black, we have strong friends, and we are ambitious. Isn’t that a good beginning?”