Cheikh Anta Diop - Political Activity

Political Activity

Diop had since his early days in Paris been politically active in the Rassemblement Democratique Africaine (RDA), an African nationalist organisation led by Félix Houphouët-Boigny. He was general secretary of the RDA students in Paris from 1950 to 1953. Under his leadership the first post-war pan-African student congress was held organized in 1951. Importantly it included not only francophone Africans, but English speaking ones as well. The RDA students continued to be highly active in politicizing the anti-colonial struggle and popularized the slogan "National independence from the Sahara to the Cape, and from the Indian Ocean to the Atlantic." The movement identified as a key task restoring the African national consciousness, warped by slavery and colonialism. Diop, inspired by the efforts of Aimé Césaire toward these ends, but not being a literary man himself, took up the call to rebuild the African personality from a strictly scientific, socio-historical perspective. He was keenly aware of the difficulties that such a scientific effort would entail and warned that "It was particularly necessary to avoid the pitfall of facility. It could seem to tempting to delude the masses engaged in a struggle for national independence by taking liberties with scientific truth, by unveiling a mythical, embellished past. Those who have followed us in our efforts for more than 20 years know now that this was not the case and that this fear remained unfounded." Diop was highly critical of "the most brilliant pseudo-revolutionary eloquence that ignores the need" for rebuilding the African national consciousness "which must be met of our people are to be reborn culturally and politically."

Diop believed that the political struggle for African independence would not succeed without acknowledging the civilizing role of the African, dating from ancient Egypt. He singled out the contradiction of "the African historian who evades the problem of Egypt".

In 1960, upon his return to Senegal, he continued what would be a lifelong political struggle. Diop would in the course of over 25 years found three political parties that formed the major opposition in Senegal. The first, "Le Bloc des Masses Senegalaises" (BMS), was formed in 1961. By 1962 Diop's party working on the ideas enumerated in Black Africa: the economic and cultural basis for a federated state became a serious threat to the regime of then President Leopold Senghor. Diop was subsequently arrested and thrown in jail where he nearly died. The party was shortly thereafter banned for opposing Senghor's efforts to consolidate power in his own hands.

Black Africa: the economic and cultural basis for a federated state is the book that best expresses Diop's political aims and objectives. In it he argues that only a united and federated African state will be able to overcome underdevelopment. This critical work constitutes a rational study of not only Africa's cultural, historic and geographic unity, but of Africa's potential for energy development and industrialization. Diop argues for the need to build a capable continental army, able to defend the continent and its people and proposes a plan for the development of Africa's raw materials and industrialization. All these factors combined, based on the formation of a federated and unified Africa, culturally and otherwise, are surmised to be the only way for Africa to become the power in the world that she should rightfully be.

After the B.M.S. was dissolved, Diop and other former members reconstituted themselves under a new party, the Front National Senegalais (FNS) in 1963. The party, though not officially recognized, continued strong political activity along the same lines as the BMS. Under significant political pressure president Senghor attempted to appease Diop by offering him and his supporters a certain numbers of government positions. Diop strongly refused to enter into any negotiations until two conditions were met. First, that all political prisoners be released, and, secondly, that discussions be opened on government ideas and programs, not on the distribution of government posts. In protest at the refusal of the Senghor administration to release political prisoners, Diop remained largely absent from the political scene from 1966 to 1975.