Underground politics under Senghor
In the 1970s, young left-wing activists fought clandestinely for Senegal’s democratization under Senghor’s brutal regime.
9 Articles by:
Florian Bobin
Florian Bobin is a Dakar-based researcher in African history who studies liberation struggles and state violence in 1960s-1970s Senegal. He is the author of a forthcoming biography of revolutionary philosopher Omar Blondin Diop.
The inexpiable crime
The reaction to Nahel Merzouk’s murder by the French state showcases its tactic of depoliticizing the suburban uprising and diverting attention away from state violence.
If only these walls could talk
Street names are political weapons. They produce memories, attachment and intimacy—all while often sneakily distorting history.
Beware of martyrs
The Senegalese state’s quest to crush the opposition has caused massive unrest throughout the country. A regime that blows on the embers fans the flames.
The mark of the former colonizer
What explains this reluctance to discuss the permanence of symbols honoring slave traders and colonialists in the public spaces in both France and its former colonies?
Law and disorder
France’s history of violence policing left a legacy of law and disorder, targeting dissidents, in its former colonies.
Omar Blondin Diop’s revolution in Senegal
In 1973, Senegalese activist and artist Omar Blondin Diop died in a Senegalese prison. His life helps reveal what revolutionary politics look like in a neocolonial state.
Kutafuta mapinduzi Senegal
Maisha ya mwanaharakati na msanii wa Senegal Omar Blondin Diop yatasaidia kutoa mtazamo wa jinsi siasa za kiukombozi zilivyo katika ukoloni mamboleo.
The Senghor myth
Once you’ve exhausted all the Negritude quotes, you have to confront the fact that Leopold Sedar Senghor ran Senegal as a repressive, one-party state.