Why should it be a big deal if a French president gives a speech in Dakar? Lots of reasons. Rarely does anyone walk softly and carry a big stick in quite the same way that François Hollande did earlier this month. Hollande was walking softly—even talking softly—while in Dakar. Some five years after Nicolas Sarkozy’s […]
At the occasion of the recent publication of Senegalese philosopher Souleymane Bachir Diagne’s book ‘African Art as Philosophy: Senghor, Bergson and the Idea of Negritude’ (originally published in French in 2007) and listening to this interview where he speaks about his new book, ‘Bergson Postcolonial’, I intended to write a short post wondering why it […]
Stephen Smith, the former African editor of Le Monde, writes in the London Review of Books (a publication not known for its sober coverage of Africa) that “Francafrique”–the corrupt French-African alliance with its strongmen (like the life president of Congo Brazzaville, Denis Sassou Nguesso, writing shotgun with Nicolas Sarkozy in the picture above), arm sales […]
