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Nearly 200 people are running to be the president of Senegal in the 2024 elections. What does this say about the state of Senegalese democracy? Financial Afrik takes a closer look.
DAKAR — Senegal faces an exceptional influx of candidates vying for the presidential office in the February 2024 elections.
With 190 people having obtained the necessary endorsements from the Directorate General of Elections, Senegalese citizens will have an abundance of choices.
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From former prime ministers to activists, trade unionists, social media influencers, and even figures like Anta Babacar Ngom from the Sedima Group, Senegal's "king of chicken," as well as singer Queen Biz — the political landscape of Senegal appears saturated with contenders. Each carries with them hopes, ambitions, pretensions, frustrations, and, it must be said, the advanced symptoms of the political landscape’s impoverishment.
This phenomenon raises questions: is it a remarkable demonstration of democracy, or is it a reflection of a fragmented political system with 336 parties burdened by personal ambitions and, consequently, little effectiveness?
Popular democracy
Some don’t bat an eyelid at this situation, believing instead that this fervor could symbolize an inclusive democracy where every citizen has the right to aspire to a national role, provided they meet the stipulated conditions. Thus, the pluralism of candidacies, although a logistical and administrative nightmare, can be interpreted as a reflection of the democratic vitality of Senegal, where freedom of speech prevails, and political competition is open.
Nonetheless, this leads to a profound reflection on the nature of the democratic system. Should it act as a separator that filters, selects and installs the best at the top? Or is it meant to be the domain of only the wealthy, celebrities, and government officials?
A strong democracy is one that listens to all voices but also channels the debates towards a common vision.
In any case, the country's traditional elitist democracy, long reserved for highly educated individuals, political veterans and insiders of the political arena, is being challenged. This long-standing political elite is being disrupted by a wave of diverse aspirants.
A popular democracy is emerging, a stage where many have the ability to apply. Should we rejoice in this? Or does the multiplicity of contenders risk diluting the relevance of political discourse? Can political projects distinguish themselves? Do they have enough airtime in this tumultuous sea of opinions and ambitions? In such a context, there is a danger that the clarity of the democratic debate may be muddled, and voters may become lost in a labyrinth of promises and visions.
Senegal's current President Macky Sall (seen here with French counterpart Emmanuel Macron) will not seek reelection in 2024
Ludovic MARIN / AFP
Senegalese democracy at a crossroads
In short, Senegalese democracy stands at a crossroads. Championing this array of candidates for the highest office could be seen as a celebration of the ultimate expression of participatory democracy.
It's about seeing in each candidacy the expression of diversity and the richness of opinions and visions for Senegal. On the other hand, complaining about it might signify a fear of diluting the very essence of democracy, where the clarity of choices is overshadowed by the multitude of voices.
Perhaps it's about finding a balance between elitism and populism, exclusivity and inclusion, in order to preserve the coherence and clarity of the democratic debate. A strong democracy is one that listens to all voices but also channels the debates towards the construction of a common vision.
Moreover, this profusion of candidates may be an opportunity to reconsider African democratic models, with the goal of achieving a system where every voice matters and where the democratic debate remains clear, coherent and constructive.
The death of Nahel, a 17-year-old killed by a police officer in Nanterre, France, and subsequent riots shocked the world. It's familiar territory for acclaimed film director Alice Diop, whose latest project, “Saint Omer,” was France’s nominee for the best foreign language film at the Oscars, examining what it means to be an immigrant, or the child of immigrants, in France.
PARIS — The RER B is a “blue line” of the Paris regional high-speed rail network. Anyone who has been to Paris has sat on this train on their way from Charles de Gaulle Airport to Châtelet-Les Halles, or, one stop further, to Notre Dame, near the center of the city. The train, known by some commuters as the Ligne Bleue, stretches for 80 kilometers, connecting the city’s Northern suburbs with its Southern surroundings.
The railway connects majority white neighborhoods full of single-family homes to the historical, tourist-heavy center, and to the immigrant communities of the Parisian banlieues. Every day, 1 million passengers use it to make their daily commute. Those who enter represent Paris in a nutshell, or even the whole of France. As the train makes its way from North to South, the color of its stations changes, but so does the landscape: faces, color, style, clothes and even sound.
Tourists from central Paris, intimidated by the historic city, take the train together, fatigue in their eyes, their postures slumped. They are surrounded by a mélange of parents with children, wide-eyed newlyweds staring at each other, laughing friends. On this journey through the French capital, fragments of Spanish sentences mix with German words, overlapping with conversations in Chinese. Half of the passengers eventually step off, spreading out between hotels and shopping malls. Their backpacks are slowly substituted by West African boubous and colorful headscarves. The faces grow more tired.
For these passengers, squeezing themselves through Paris at rush hour is not an adventure, but an everyday reality, necessary for their return home. Today, at least, the train is running properly. Yesterday, the delays — and the surrounding crowds— were unbearable. An accident on the train tracks caused traffic to stop entirely for an hour and a half.
Alice Diop knows the compartments of the RER B very well. The French film director grew up not far from the Aulnay-sous-Bois station. This is the infamous département 93, which is often described as one of the least safe in the entire country.
The media, both in France and worldwide, like to write about these immigrant neighborhoods that suits are afraid to enter. They have been examined by sociologists, and explored by documentarians. Most white residents of the area have moved out. Poverty and isolation have reproduced violence, but also over-policing and discrimination. Last year, the police reported over 5,000 crimes and offenses that took place here. These included break-ins, robberies, theft and drug deals. When Diop was nine years old, she saw the body of a man who had suffered an overdose in the stairwell of her building. Her family moved out a year later.
“We, from the suburbs of Paris”
Alice Diop’s parents came to France from Senegal. On March 16, 1966, her father disembarked from the famous ocean liner, known as the “Ancerville," in Marseille. He then took the train to Paris. The only thing he had in his pocket was a piece of paper with the address of an acquaintance who lived in the neighborhood of Belleville. When Diop’s father arrived in Paris, the man he knew wasn’t home. He had to wait all day for him to return, until he finally got back from work. This is how his new life began, in the country of a wealthy colonizer.
The now-older man recounts this story in his daughter’s documentary film “We, From the Suburbs of Paris," released in 2021. The film was a critical success, and Diop received the best film award at the “Encounters” contest at the Berlin International Film Festival. With the film, Diop wanted to answer the question: “Who are the contemporary French?" She found the film’s angle — and part of her answer— on the RER B.
"I wanted to protect people from disappearing."
Diop films slowly, and her long camera shots allow her audiences to make themselves at home in every scene. She likes the gleaming ribbons of the train tracks in the dark, the nighttime sounds of the city, the distant but present sounds of sirens, the screeches of braking trains, the car horns. This is what the streets that you are so afraid of look like. These are the stations, where you can supposedly easily lose your life — or at the very least, your purse — at nighttime. Look at them. And this is what a person, whose appearance makes you instinctively check for your wallet or your phone, looks like.
Let’s call him Moussa. He wakes up and opens the doors to his home, which for the time being, is a green van. He exits the car — it’ll be time to go to work soon. But before this, he stops for a quick coffee nearby. He needs to wake up and warm up. He sips his coffee alone, unsmiling. He doesn’t speak to anyone.
Moussa fixes cars at a suburban parking lot. Diving under the hoods, he is focused as he replaces cylinders, lubricates the machinery and brings hopeless cases back to life. After work, he removes his mechanics’ clothes and returns to his van. He turns on the engine in order to warm up, listens to some music and watches videos on social media with a friend.
“They stole my papers," he tells his mother over the phone. “I have to get new ones, but they told me that it will take eight months. After that, I will definitely go home. I cannot stay here.” When he left for France, his mother stayed in Mali, in the town of Kati, 15 kilometers away from the capital, Bamako.
Diop has filmed the Parisian banlieues for over 15 years. This wasn’t always obvious to her, but now she understands it well: she needs to save these communities from oblivion, to show people their meaning, to not leave them without a trace.
“When you grow up in France as an immigrant, you get the impression that your history does not have the right to be told — that it isn’t important," Diop says in an interview. “I think that that wound pushed me in the direction of film ... I wanted to protect people from disappearing."
In “We, From the Suburbs of Paris" — its English release simply titled "We" — Diop purposefully uses private recordings made by her own family. “When my mom was rushing to catch the first train to get to work, I was still fast asleep. She cleaned for a living. She died 25 years ag. Her name was Rokhaya," Diop says.
“I always knew there were some home videos in which she appears, but I never watched them before,” Diop says. “I was afraid of what I might see, but even more afraid of what I might not see." Her family has a long history of home videos, which began when Diop’s older sister bought a Hi-8 camera, where she filmed, in Diop’s own words, “the life of our family." But, in all of the tapes, Diop found just 18 minutes which included her mother.
In these home videos, we take a trip around Diop’s family home. The picture is not of the directorial caliber that she will eventually become known for. The images are shaky and out-of-focus; the blurry, random shots are those of a person who is holding a camera for the first time. Her mother appears in a small, narrow kitchen, with short hair and a long, traditional dress. She disappears from the frame to fix her hair. She wants to look good for the camera, even though she does not know that a few decades later, the whole world will see these scenes from her life.
Another memorialized moment comes on a tape recorded on the Dec. 25, 1995. It’s Christmas, the last holiday the family will spend with their mother. “At that point, she didn’t know it yet, but she was sick and she was going to die soon," Diop says.
"It's a pity that she appears on screen so rarely," Diop says. Even when she does appear, “She's just a silhouette in the corner of the frame, ready to disappear,” Diop adds. “I think about all the moments that have not been immortalized, preserved, that have passed without a trace. All that's gone and erased."
Trailer for We (2021) by Alice Diop.
How to become a star
What links a Senegalese family from the north of Paris with believers praying in a Catholic church? What links youth from the suburban community of Saint-Denis with bourgeois hunters in a nearby forest? They live just kilometers away from one another and speak the same language, but their lives don’t intersect in any meaningful way. The everyday world in which they grow up, the words they hear from childhood, the level and the type of attention they receive — all are entirely different.
Steve Tientcheu, the protagonist of Alice Diop’s 2011 film, “Danton’s Death” (La Mort De Danton), knows these differences well. He is one of the many commuters who takes a daily journey on the RER B, traveling from the Aulnay station where Diop grew up, to the prestigious theater school Le Cours Simon.
His presence can be intimidating — he’s a big guy with a perpetual frown etched onto his face. But on screen, he can play anything, from dramatic scenes to comedic ones. His screen presence is astonishing.
In the future, Tientcheu wants to become a star. “Hollywood is the place for me,” he says. “Hollywood, Cannes, Venice, Berlin, and Marrakech." His dream may seem difficult to achieve, but Steve is determined. He makes the journey from the suburbs into central Paris every day to study acting.
This is Paris? Yes, this is Paris. The city of love.
“I’d like to make you laugh," one of Steve’s classmates tells him in a bar. “Why would you say that?" he asks, without any enthusiasm. “Because you are sad," she says. He begins to get irritated: “That isn’t true; you’re mistaken. I am hardened, because life is hard. I don’t pretend not to be. But deep down, I am a nice person," he responds.
Steve doesn't make friends, doesn't socialize and can intimidate others. "I feel out of place at school. They don't like me. We're not alike. We don't live in the same world," he tells Alice Diop in the film, adding that, to his classmates, he is like an feral cat.
He gets angry when people tell him that he is intimidating, or that they are frightened of him. He hears this constantly, and it’s become tiring. He is also upset by the fact that his acting teacher has trouble assigning roles to him. The roles he does get are only those that have been originally written as Black, which can be few and far between, or stereotypical. Steve does not want his only roles to be those of enslaved Americans, or victims of European colonial history. He wanted to play French revolutionary leader Georges Danton, but his teacher did not agree to this casting, saying that Danton wasn’t Black. At the same time, he had no problem suggesting that the white actor's face be painted black to play Steve's partner in one of the scenes.
“There is no space for us! In movies, in the theater — there is no place for Black or Arab actors," he says. "We can be rappers or football players; we can take over our parents’ jobs, cleaning streets and everything, but we are not part of their canon," he continues. "A white actor can play a Black character, but a Black actor can never play a white character."
Tientcheu began his acting program in 2008. His career has progressed, and he has appeared in several films. Recently, he played the role of the mayor of the Montfermeil district in the award-winning company "Les Misérables" by Ladja Ly, a director who also grew up in Parisian suburbs. He knows the riots he talks about in "Les Miserables" from experience.
A nation divided
In her films, Alice Diop talks about two parallel worlds, separated by skin color. Her 2016 documentary On Call begins with a quote from the Portuguese poet Fernando Pessoa: "I've been told about people, about humanity, but I've never seen people, I've never seen humanity. I've seen individual people, amazingly different from each other, each separated from the next by an unhuman space."
On Call follows a group of individuals, united by their common struggle. The film is unnarrated, and follows visits to the medical clinic on the grounds of the Avicenne General Hospital in Bobigny, which receives immigrants.
The doctor shown in the film helps to assess their state of health, writes prescriptions and certificates, and stamps government documents. He helps the patients not only with their health, sometimes ruined by torture in their home country, and also helps them to navigate French bureaucracy.
What can be born from such loneliness? Only an unfillable void
Every day, people, mostly men, sit in front of him. They live almost in a state of trance from day to day, away from their families and homes. Resigned eyes, tired of life on the street, not understanding, look at the doctor, and thus at the camera set behind his back.
“For sleeping, it’s good?” a doctor asks his patient.
“No. Not good. Because…” the patient tries to explain.
“Ah, your eyes," the doctor says. He notices the man’s corneas are red with infection.
“Have you some news from your family in Bangladesh?” the doctor asks.
“No, because no money. One week, 3-5 minute. My mom, diabetes, no good. My father asthma. Also not good." Even in a foreign language, he manages to clarify the situation.
The doctor leaves the examination room and comes back with a prescription for an ointment to treat conjunctivitis — pink eye.
This is Paris? Yes, this is Paris. The city of love.
In 2016, Alice Diop showed the French public what love looks like. And for it, she received her first César award, the country’s equivalent of an Oscar.
“We sleep with simple girls," says one of the protagonists of her 2016 documentary, Vers la Tendresse (“Towards Tenderness). "Those who have it together, who don’t have problems, don’t interest me," he says, his voice devoid of emotion.
Diop’s idea was to ask young men from the banlieues about their feelings. What she heard was often difficult to hear. But from under the cascade of monologues and words of "real men" emerges a longing for feeling, touch, the film’s titular tenderness.
Francesca De Stefano Versace, Alice Diop, Santo Versace at the "Saint Omer" photocall in Rome.
Are we born with love built in? Or do we learn it? If we have no one to learn it from, where do we find it?
On Nov. 19, 2013, Fabienne Kabou, a French woman of Senegalese origin, laid her 15-month-old daughter, Adélaide, on the beach. She was arrested and sentenced to 20 years of prison for infanticide. All of France watched the case unfold. The case remains in the public consciousness to this day, since Kabou was recently released early from her sentence after nine years.
This case never left Diop's cosciousness, either. Ever since she saw the photo of the woman pushing the cart, captured by a Gare du Nord surveillance camera, Diop couldn't stop thinking about her. She was of a similar age, had a similar background and had a child of a similar age to her own.
Rarely have I seen stories that portray the complexity of a Black woman.
During the trial, it was revealed that Fabienne was extremely intelligent, but she believed that her Senegalese aunts had cursed her, causing her to kill her young daughter. The case took place in 2016, in Saint Omer, north-west of Lille. Diop herself attended the trial. She herself admits that she doesn’t know why she went, only that she had to. During the trial, Fabienne impressed everyone with her undoubted eloquence, and with the cold, mechanical, emotionless style in which she answered the judge’s questions.
It is from these very powerful experiences that Alice Diop's first feature film, Saint Omer, was born. In 2022, Diop’s court drama won the Grand Jury Prize at the Venice Film Festival and the César Award for Best Debut. The film was also France's candidate for the Oscar in the category best foreign language film, and thus Diop was the first Black woman in France to be given that opportunity.
Saint Omer is not an exact reconstruction of the trial that took place. For the film, Diop moved away from her signature documentary style to fiction, to give the film a universal meaning. Not one, but many. In the beginning of the film, the judge asks the accused Laurence Coly (based on Fabienne, and played by Guslagie Malanda), “Why did you kill your daughter?” In response, Laurence answers, “I don’t know, and I hope that this trial will help me to understand why."
Diop’s film does not judge her, nor does it make her into a victim. “She is a powerful Medea, not a poor, downtrodden immigrant," she said. “For me, justice is about giving her – and us – our complexity ... Rarely have I seen stories that portray the complexity of a Black woman. We are always smoothed out in the right way, closed in the eyes of those who have the right to make history for us."
Saint Omer is also a story about motherhood, and the great loneliness it can cause. “I was alone the whole time, along with my child," the accused Laurence Coly says in the film. "My partner didn’t even want to introduce me to his family. He hid me away.” The partner in Diop’s film is a much older, white, French man, and the audience is forced to reckon with the impacts of each of the power imbalances in their relationship. And although her words do not justify murder, they arouse understanding, feeling and pity. Combined with her cold demeanor, they are like icicles that fall into the viewer’s collar, and down through their chest.
What can be born from such loneliness? Only an unfillable void. As Diop explains, "From silence, the emptiness of exile, the emptiness of our mothers' lives, the nothingness of their tears, the nothingness of their violence, we tried to make our lives."
A retrospective of Alice Diop’s films will be playing at the 23rd International mBank New Horizons Film Festival in Wrocław.
The violence that erupted following the sentencing of opposition politician Ousmane Sonko to two years in prison left 16 people dead and 500 arrested. This reveals deep fractures in Senegalese democracy that has traces to France's colonial past.
-Analysis-
PARIS — For a long time, Senegal had the glowing image of one of Africa's rare democracies. The reality was more complicated than that, even in the days of the poet-president Léopold Sedar Senghor, who also had his dark side.
But for years, the country has been moving down what Senegalese intellectual Felwine Sarr describes as the "gentle slope of... the weakening and corrosion of the gains of Senegalese democracy."
This has been demonstrated once again over the last few days, with a wave of violence that has left 16 people dead, 500 arrested, the internet censored, and a tense situation with troubling consequences. The trigger? The sentencing last Thursday of opposition politician Ousmane Sonko to two years in prison, which could exclude him from the 2024 presidential elections.
Young people took to the streets when the verdict was announced, accusing the justice system of having become a political tool. Ousmane Sonko had been accused of rape but was convicted of "corruption of youth," a change that rendered the decision incomprehensible.
French targets
This is not the first crisis: in March 2021, Dakar had already experienced serious riots following the arrest of Sonko in the same rape case. The violence was directed against symbols of the French presence, such as Total gas stations and Auchan supermarkets.
These repeated targeting of French companies, unusual in Senegal in the past, illustrate a real sense of unease.
These repeated targeting of French companies, unusual in Senegal in the past, illustrate a real sense of unease. In 2012, civil society successfully mobilized against President Abdoulaye Wade's attempt to seek a constitutionally prohibited third term in office.
And now his successor, Macky Sall, who is completing his second term in office, is also seized by the irresistible call of a third term. He has left his intentions in doubt, fueling suspicion and excitement in this highly politicized country. Eliminating Ousmane Sonko from the race obviously reinforces the suspicion that he is trying to force his way in.
For the time being, the Senegalese are waiting to see what will happen to Sonko. The leader of his party, Patriotes africains du Sénégal pour le travail, l'éthique et la fraternité (PASTEF, “African Patriots of Senegal for Work, Ethics and Fraternity”) is under house arrest, under heavy police surveillance. If he is taken to prison, it could reignite the violence that had calmed down over the weekend.
But in the long term, it's Senegal's entire political system that's at stake. Young people, who make up nearly 60% of the population, will not accept a third term for Sall quietly, while their populist hero Sonko languishes in prison.
The question is also being put to Senegal's partners, first and foremost France. Paris is very cautious about commenting on events, knowing that the former colonizer is always suspected of pulling the strings, even when it's done nothing.
Senegal has become a test case around the decline of French influence.
France has no interest in seeing Senegal destabilized or in democratic regression, but any interference would be counterproductive. In West Africa, Senegal has become a test case around the decline of French influence.
Novelists from Africa have been receiving some of the most prestigious literary prizes. But there are still questions around who are the world’s literary gatekeepers and what role writers from the Global South can play, writes Mauritian poet and photographer Umar Timol.
-Analysis-
PORT LOUIS, MAURITIUS — In the arena of prestigious literary awards, 2021 was the year for Africa: Senegal's Mohamed Mbougar Sarr won France’s Goncourt Prize, the Tanzanian Abdulrazak Gurnah won the Nobel Prize in Literature and the South African Damon Galgut won the Booker Prize (for English-language novels). All are well-deserved recognitions for the continent, but is the success limited by the expectations of Western critics?
Mohamed Mbougar Sarr won France’s top literary prize for his novel La plus secrète mémoire des hommes (“The Most Secret Memory of Men”) and even he recognized how it expanded who could receive the Goncourt: “It is a strong signal [...], a way, also, to show that France is sometimes much larger and much nobler — in any case much more open — than what we can, what we want to reduce it to."
This prize rewards a novel of great quality, highlights the wonderful work of two small publishing houses (Philippe Rey and Jimsaan) and, above all, puts a peripheral novel on the world literary map. What more could anyone want?
Intellectual enslavement
A dose of critical distancing seems necessary, however. Enthusiasm must give way to a work of critical reflection. There are thus several issues that it can prove useful to explore. What does this triumph reveal about the relationships, structured by colonial history, between the dominant and the dominated? What is the cost of success when it depends on someone else who is in a position of power? What does it tell us about the condition of a writer coming from the Global South?
Who decides the value of the dominated
Behind literary recognition is the question of literary power, which is part of the structures of colonial domination. Thousands of men and women write around the world, in many languages and with diverse writing practices. But few achieve global recognition because the latter depends on the literary centers that decide on the legitimacy of their writing.
For the French language, Paris is at the heart of this practice of legitimization. The power of these centers emanates from colonial history, from a history of subjugating the other. It is multiform: economic, political, military and also symbolic. It may have diminished over time, but its hold remains. We cannot therefore dissociate these instances of legitimization from history and from a specific context.
One could thus wonder about the general enthusiasm, notably of an intelligentsia from the Global South, that glorifies this event without questioning the symbolic power of an institution like the Goncourt. For what is celebrated, in the end, if not the approval of the dominant, who decides the value of the dominated and grants the author the legitimacy they secretly dream of. It is, in certain aspects, a psychic and intellectual enslavement, a reflex of the ex-colonized, this perpetual good student who waits to be told that he is up to the task.
Tanzanian writer Abdulrazak Gurnah won the 2021 Nobel Prize in Literature
The success of the dominated writer has a price: to be accepted and recognized, they must write texts that meet the expectations of the dominant. Thus, the writing practice and the chosen genres and themes are not innocent. Writers create according to well-defined limits. A degree of subversion is authorized, but only if it’s agreed upon. They practice a form of otherness which is accepted, a form of subjected insubordination, so to say.
Condemned to perpetual exile
Mohamed Mbougar Sarr’s novel is, in my eyes, an eminently European novel, in its themes (in particular the deification of literature) and in its structures, following an existing thread in the project of Western modernity. In other words, it is a writing of the margins, which claims to be such, but which is paradoxically a writing of the center, built according to the logic of the center, elaborated to be recognized by the center. The tragedy of the artists from the Global South is that they are condemned to be in perpetual exile. Little or not understood by their own, without recognition, exiled in their own country, they wish to reach or have already reached recognition and artistic success in the Global North. But this is not without consequences.
Some, in a situation of psychic dependence in front of structures of domination, end up internalizing them. Others strategically choose to play the game, without necessarily disguising who they are. Exiled at home, exiled in the spheres of domination, the artists of the Global South wander in a true literary no man's land. True decolonization will undoubtedly begin when they can psychically free themselves from symbolic domination, when they can create for their own people, drawing on their roots. It’s when they manage not only to decentralize their artistic practice but to reinvent it, according to other paradigms. Thus, to be at the heart of this "most secret memory," one must be at the heart of oneself, at the heart of one's own history.
A top executive of the Miss Senegal beauty pageant dismissed accusations made by last year's winner that she'd been raped, igniting furious debate across the West African nation about the treatment of women and the retrograde attitudes across society.
DAKAR — As a defense mechanism, Amina Badiane could not have done worse. It was last Thursday, Nov. 18, when the chairwoman of the Miss Senegal organizing committee spoke with Dakarbuzz, a website based in the capital.
The interview was an opportunity to respond to the revelations of Ndèye Fatima Dione, Miss Senegal 2020, who had revealed publicly the violence she'd suffered during her time as the nation's No. 1 beauty queen. Her mother had also revealed that Dione's pregnancy was the consequence of rape, committed during a trip organized by the committee.
"Rape is between two people, isn't it? It's not just about one individual," Badiane told reporters. "If she was raped, she must file a complaint." The contest organizer added that during the pageant's sponsored travels, the conditions of entry into young women's bedrooms are subject to very strict instructions.
An apology for rape culture
"No one is allowed in, not even friends. The girls receive a very strict education," Badiane said. Then after asking confirmation of her words from another Miss Senegal contestant, added in the regional Wolof language, without anyone around her objecting: "Kougnou violer, yaw la nekh". This translates to "If she was raped, it's because she asked for it." After making the outrageous remark, Badiane chuckled, and added: "After all, she is an adult."
Does the outcry over Badiane's comments reflect a growing awareness of violence against women?
It quickly set social media alight across Senegal, where the hashtags #JusticeforFatima proliferated. A petition from the platform "Ladies Club Senegal," demanded "the immediate withdrawal of the operating license of this committee and its dissolution." Within three days, it had already accumulated more than 50,000 signatures, while calls spread for Badiane's resignation.
By Friday, the company CFAO Motors Senegal announced that it was ending its partnership with the committee and would take its vehicles back. "CFAO Motors Senegal strongly condemns the allegations made by the president of the Miss Senegal committee. Such comments go against our values," the company said in a statement. Since then, several activists have called for the committee's other sponsors to be held accountable, including the Ministries of Culture and Health.
Senegalese society tends to find excuses for men and to blame women for the violences they experience.
While Amina Badiane's comments are particularly appalling, the substance of her remarks is nonetheless shared by large portions of Senegalese society. We are far from the progress that some would like to believe has been made, forgetting how quick Senegalese society is to find excuses for men and to blame women.
"Such comments are made every day in Senegal," said Jerry Azilinon, administrator of the Doyna movement combatting violence against women. The activist says the attitude includes professionals who are supposed to take care of the victims, police forces as well as health services officers. "Most of them are untrained on these issues, tending to put blame on the victim and make ironic comments… which contributes to trivializing the violence and feeding rape culture."
Does the outcry over Badiane's comments reflect a growing awareness of violence against women? "I don't know if we can talk about improvement, but there has definitely been an increase in awareness over recent years. The debate on rape culture is shifting to the public sphere," says Azilinon. "If people making such remarks have to deal with consequences, they will think twice before they act." Changing people's mentalities is bound to take much longer.
Femicide is a major problem in the West African country. A French entrepreneur of Senegalese origin is hoping her invention — App-Elles — can help end it.
DAKAR — In the Place de la Nation, in the heart of Dakar, hundreds of Senegalese chant the words "doyna, doyna!" — "stop" in the local Wolof language. What the protestors want is an end to femicide and violence against women.
For many here, the murder of Bineta Camara, 23, in May, was the final straw. The young woman was strangled in the family house after refusing the sexual advances of a friend of her father. Since then, protesters have been demanding the criminalization of rape and more severe sentences for assault, sexual harassment, and forced marriages.
The desire for justice is one Diariata N'Diaye can relate to personally. The French entrepreneur of Senegalese origin recalls that when she was 15 years old, an attempt was made to force her into marriage. Today, at the age of 34, she is back in Senegal to launch a local version of her application, App-Elles, which was created in 2015 to help victims of violence.
"The idea is to centralize several features to respond to a situation of distress," she explains. "We don't always have the opportunity or the time to call the police during the attack."
Pressing the start button on your phone four times or unplugging your headset is enough to trigger the emergency system. A bracelet connected by Bluetooth can also serve as a discreet trigger. Pressing on it for four seconds prompts the application to record the sound and geolocation of the phone, sending this information to three trusted contacts who can follow the phone, talk to the victim, or call for help.
68% of Senegalese women did not dare to speak about the violence they were undergoing.
"App-Elles is not designed to stop the violence but to allow the victims to call for help quickly and discreetly," says its creator.
The software also offers a complete informative interface listing the assistance structures nearest to the victim: medical care, emergency shelter, specialized associations, psychological and legal support.
"It is vital to have a specific tool to help victims who often feel too alone," says N'Diaye. "Our goal is to unite and facilitate their efforts. It also brings attention to numerous associations working against violence. Around 2,500 organizations worldwide are already connected via the application, as well as emergency call centers in eight countries, including France, Algeria, and, most recently, Senegal.
"The challenge in West Africa is that you need a smartphone and good network coverage," she goes on to say.
In rural areas especially, that can be a real problem. Also, there aren't many assistance institutions in Senegal — just three as of this summer, when the application was launched there. And they're all in the capital.
The technical challenges aside, App-Elles is making real inroads in Dakar, where as Diariata N'Diaye explains, there's a "real demand for solutions' to the problem of violence against women. The entrepreneur is already in discussion with the city of Dakar and the Ministry of Woman, Family and Childhood to get their support.
In the meantime, App-Elles can boast about its international success. Available for free on iOS and Android platforms, it has been downloaded more than 10,000 times in four years and has 2,500 monthly active users. The app has also won several awards, including the innovation award at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.
Fully funded by philanthropy — donors include the French Ministry of Justice and Facebook's Fund for Online Citizenship — App-Elles prides itself on being a not-for-profit project and promises "not to collect the personal data of its users."
N'Diaye would like her invention to strengthen the fight against femicide and gender-based violence in Europe and Africa, starting with Senegal. In December 2018, Ndèye Saly Diop Dieng, the Senegalese Minister for Woman, Family and Childhood relations, said that 68% of Senegalese women did not dare to speak about the violence they were undergoing.
After earning fame and fortune in France, fighter Souleymane Mbaye made good on a promise to open a professional-level boxing club in Dakar.
DAKAR — The blows come fast and furious. The leather of the punching bag pops. The chains holding it in place grind and groan as Idrissa Gueye, 24, unleashes his fists — along with cries of exhaustion mixed with rage. "Go again, no time out!" yells Souleymane Mbaye, his coach.
Both men are dripping in sweat. It is the middle of the rainy season in Senegal, and the sultry, late-September air makes every move difficult.
This is exactly the kind of intensity Mbaye was looking for when he opened Keur of Champions boxing hall, in Dakar, in February 2018. The only facility of its kind, this "House of Champions' looks to forge the elite African boxers of tomorrow. But it's also about offering young people alternatives in life — "so that they can avoid taking the wrong steps," Mbaye says in reference to the many Senegalese who risk their lives trying to migrate illegally to Europe.
French with Senegalese origins, Souleymane Mbaye — Souly, as his friends call him — has an impressive resume. A three-time world champion, he has 20 years of boxing experience under his belt and a record of 42 victories (22 by knockout) in 49 fights.
Senegal adores boxing.
Two years ago, at age 40, Mbaye hung up his gloves, wrote a book (Le Sénégaulois), and was featured in the poster for Samuel Jouy's 2017 film Sparring with Mathieu Kassovitz. But after all that success, he also remembered a promise he'd made to a friend, Mbaye Jacque Dio, former mayor of the commune of Rufisque in the suburbs of Dakar. His pledge was to create a boxing gym in Senegal and professionalize a pool of previously untapped talent.
Focusing on fundamentals
Boxing has only ever had one Senegalese champion, Battling Siki, who shocked the world in 1922 by defeating Georges Carpentier in legendary fight in Montrouge. And except for the famous Mohammed Ali vs. George Foreman bout in Kinshasa, in 1974, there have never been any big fights in Africa.
Nevertheless, Senegal adores boxing. "It's the favorite sport, above all the others, even football," Souleymane Mbaye explains. And now, the country finally has the infrastructure to host and organize major events. The Dakar Arena has just been completed along with the new international airport.
In the training room, 15 boxers are at work in both rings from morning to night. "First, we make sure their basics are solid," says the coach. "Then they work the accessory stuff, the footwork, and after that each fighter can develop his particular technique. But if the fundamentals aren't there, we lose."
Three of these young fighters benefit from special treatment. Due to their high potential and sometimes disadvantaged origins, they are housed, fed and paid by the club. They also meet regularly with a physiotherapist and dietitian. "I want to have them at 100%, know what they eat and when they sleep," says Mbaye.
Idrissa Gueye (in the foreground) trains with peers in their club on Sept. 20, 2019, in Dakar — Photo: Matteo Maillard/Le Monde
His focus is on the Youth Olympic Games in Dakar in 2022. The coach wants to send four or five young fighters there to win "at least one medal," which would be a first for Senegalese boxers.
Of the three, Idrissa Gueye stands out most. He wavers near the ring, encourages his comrades by shouting, winnows, falls backwards when an action amazes or displeases him. He cannot help reacting like when he was a child, back when he preferred studying knockout videos at the cybercafe rather than play football with his friends.
The young man fought his first professional match on Oct. 12 in Paris against Georgian fighter Irakli Shariahshvili. He won in the fourth round by decision. "Boxing is my life! I don't do anything else," he says.
Team Souly
There are reasons why Mbaye presses him so much, and why the young boxer obeys his coach until exhaustion. Gueye wants to give everything to the man who "saved" him. A few years ago, after he was disqualified from the African Championship because of a 200-gram weight difference, the coach reached out to him on Facebook. "Keep your chin up champion! The first opponent is weight."
Gueye says the message gave him "the strength to believe" — right when he was ready to throw in the towl.
Since then, he's twice been runner-up to Africa's boxing champion. He's considered the best Senegalese boxer under 60 kg, and won the silver medal at the Africa Zone 2 Championship. And that was only eight months ago, when Gueye decided to join "team Souly."
Boxing is my life! I don't do anything else.
"He's a technical boxer, lanky and proud. He knows he can succeed," Mbaye explains. "If he wins his first fight, he may earn a contract in France, but will continue to train here. If we want them to stop thinking El Dorado is elsewhere, we must show them that we can shine at home."
To prepare for his first fight, Idrissa Gueye trained with the only woman on this men's team, Khadija Timera, 34, a brilliant French-Senegalese who divides her life between the ring and her investment consulting company, where she works as a lawyer.
After a childhood spent in Levallois-Perret, in the Paris suburbs, and after earning degree from the University of California, Berkeley in the United States, she went into boxing.
Boxing and women "don't really match," she admits. "In Levallois, 40-year-old boxers told me, "You're very cute, but here it's for the guys."" But Timera stuck with the sport regardless, training at the club Foch 50 on the Champs-Elysees, in Paris.
And now, after winning a handful of competitions and being named to Senegal's national team, she has finally earned the respect she deserves. "Stress management is essential," she says — in both business and the ring.
Her next big challenge will be the Tokyo Olympics in 2020. The qualifiers took place in Dakar, this past in February. In the interim, she is trying to meet coach Souly's fierce by necessary expectations. She also did a recent demonstration in the ring for France's minister of sports, Roxana Maracineanu, who visited Dakar last month and wants to collaborate with Senegal for the 2024 Olympic Games, in Paris.
For Souleymane Mbaye, the visit was an opportunity to show off the bridge he's already help build between the two countries. "I created this club with my own funds, not only for sport, but also to save lives," he says. "I wanted to provide goals, education and a framework to troubled young people who think there's nothing positive to keep in Africa. Now I'm hoping the French government to help us financially."
"It's in everybody's interest to help young Africans here," he adds. "If we brighten their future, they won't take the risk of migrating."
Not everyone will become champions, of course. Mbaye is the first to admit it. "But the boxers might then open up a gym in their own village, give others a purpose, a challenge. Like me, I was proud to fight for France. I would like them to be proud to represent Senegal."
PARIS — Political conflict and social movements around the world in 1968 made it a year for the history books. The 50th anniversary of several signature episodes are being marked throughout this year, from the Prague Spring and monthlong French student uprising of May "68, to the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy in the U.S. and black power salutes at the Mexico City Olympics.
But the upheaval that year spread beyond just a handful of internationally iconic events. Among the other notable moments and movements of 1968 are four chapters that may not have made it into your high school history textbook:
Senegal: Dakar's May "68 student movement
While revolution burned in the air of Paris, that May, the capital of Senegal had its own student uprising against the country's government.Le Monde reported earlier this month that 50 years ago, then Senegalese President Léopold S. Senghor blamed the events in France for encouraging students in Dakar to challenge the country's single party system and bans on a free press. After initially ordering a heavy-handed crackdown of the protests, Senghor eventually released arrested students, increased university scholarships and raised the minimum wage with an end also on its way to the single party system and bans on press freedom.
Léopold S. Senghor, Senegal's President from 1960 to 1980 — Photo: Roger Pic
Spain: Protests against Franco's regime
Spain was still under dictator Francisco Franco's regime in the spring of 1968 when student protests erupted to demand democracy, workers' rights and education reform. The University of Madrid was shut down for 38 days. The demonstrations also denounced police violence and the Franco regime's authorization to have a mass in honor of Adolf Hitler. It was a "youth rebellion," journalist Mercedes Cabrera wrote last month in the Spanish daily El País. A coming out moment for the "children of the victors and vanquished," as they were known, a new generation that was eager to bridge the deep divisions of the Civil War and bring an end to he dictatorship it had spawned.
Another lesser-known 1968 student protest were the so-called "Rodney riots' in Kingston, Jamaica in October. Dr. Walter Rodney, a Guyanese-born lecturer at the University of the West Indies (UWI) and committed socialist and Black Power activist, was banned by the Jamaican government from returning to his teaching position. The decision sparked student riots that ended with several people killed. Students started by closing down the UWI campus before heading to the prime minister's residence and, finally, to the parliament building. As the Jamaica Observer wrote earlier this year, the movement would eventually help inspire a black political and social consciousness movement across the Caribbean, which in 1970 led to the Black Power Revolution in Trinidad and Tobago.
On March 28, Edson Luís de Lima Souto, a high school student was shot and killed by Brazil's military police at a protest in Rio de Janeiro asking for cheaper meals at a restaurant for poor students. His killing, as well as the death of 28 other people a few days later during other riots, led to one of the first major protests against the military dictatorship in the country on June 26, gathering students as well as artists, intellectuals and politicians. As the Rio de Janeiro-based O Globorecently recalled,the demonstration — dubbed "The March of the One Hundred Thousand" — is still remembered today as one of the most important protests in Brazilian history.
On the coast of Senegal, fish stocks have fallen 80% in the past year alone. The women fish processors of the region have been hit hardest, with consequences across society.
SAINT-LOUIS — Fatou Binetou Sarr sits, arms crossed and lips pursed, looking on as fishermen bring in the day's catch. She's with a group of women, all wearing long, colorful dresses with matching headscarves and bright gold earrings. They're quick to point out that today they're not working — because there is not enough fish coming in off the boats.
"Why do you think we're dressed so nicely?" Sarr asks. On the days they work, she implies, they don't wear anything so fine.
All around them is a bustling scene. The Senegalese beach is full of people talking, children chasing each other and goats bleating. There are about a dozen colorful wooden boats, called pirogues, docked close to shore; some women stand waist-deep in the water, negotiating with the fishermen. They'll be selling fresh fish at the market later that afternoon. Men in waterproof gear carry buckets of fish on their heads up to refrigerated trucks waiting to hoard off the catch to various destinations.
But Sarr and the other women in her group have to wait. They are the town's fish processors who descale, boil, dry and salt the fish. The result, a stiff and brownish version of what was once a flailing fish, is used to spice up meals or provide an important backup when fresh fish is not available. Processed fish can keep for months and is five times cheaper than fresh, though with a lower nutritional value.
The processors aren't able to buy their share of fish until the evening, when it's less fresh and the price is cheaper — if there's enough left. Yet it's these women who are fighting hardest to save the life-blood of Saint-Louis. Through women's associations, they are demanding more investment from NGOs and the Senegalese government, and sharing funds to help each other buy the increasingly expensive fish.
17% of Senegal's population suffers from food insecurity.
Big catches are becoming increasingly rare in Saint-Louis. Stocks in this major fishing hub on the border of Senegal and Mauritania had been dwindling in the past 10 years, but 2017 was a disaster. Stocks collapsed by 82% in that year alone.
While it's not clear what caused the precipitous drop last year, a combination of climate change, increased competition, fishing territory disputes with Mauritania and industrial foreign fleets illegally fishing off the coast have led to the overall decline. Rising sea levels and warmer water temperatures have caused fish to either fall in number or migrate north. As a result, malnutrition is rampant in many parts of the country — the World Food Program estimates 17% of Senegal's population suffers from food insecurity.
Because fresh fish doesn't keep long, processed fish is being consumed more and more — it can keep for up to six months. That's extremely important for interior villages, which are themselves struggling with the effects of climate change on growing crops and raising livestock. Sarr says 70% of the fish processed in Saint-Louis is shipped to landlocked communities.
"If women don't work, people don't eat," Sarr says. "The interior communities and countries rely on the fish that's caught and processed here."
A History of Solidarity
Like most other fish processors, Sarr learned the trade from her mother. She was 7 years old when she started helping around the processing plant. Today, she is the president of the Female Processors Association in Saint-Louis, a position her mother also held.
The women pool their money together to buy fish by the crate, process it together and split the profit — money that, when it doesn't go toward their children's education and healthcare, is used to buy the next load of fish. Sarr says that today, they pay about 15,000 CFA francs ($28) for a crate. A couple of years ago, the same crate cost just $5.
Declining fish stocks in Senegal have led to increased food insecurity, malnutrition and job loss, especially for women —Photo: Ania Freindorf/ZUMA
A visit to the processing plant lays bare the damage done to the women's livelihoods by the declining stocks. What was once a crowded place full of women working side by side now looks more like a graveyard. The outdoor roofed area is full of hollow pots of clay, empty sacks of salt and rusty drying racks. Only one woman is seen rummaging through the pots, looking for processed fish to buy and take back to her hometown. She says she traveled 95 miles this morning and will return in the evening, probably empty-handed.
When Women Are Left Behind
Khady Sané Diouf works with female fish processors through COMFISH (Collaborative Management for a Sustainable Fisheries Future), a project funded by USAID. "Women are very vulnerable because of climate change, and also because of bad living conditions, which all makes them have less revenue than they did before," she says. "If the fishermen bring in less fish, that impacts our food security. That's certain. The women who depended on those fish will sell less, and they'll process less too, or not at all."
COMFISH organizes workshops with women across Senegal to educate them on how to generate the highest profit with the fish they have available. There, the women learn to read and write, integrate technology into their work and find new ways to sell their product. The organization also helps women work on alternative projects to earn money on the side, like gardening and making artisanal jewelry.
I'm very proud of my work.
She says the Senegalese government isn't doing enough to support the women. While COMFISH has built processing plants with modern equipment — their goal is to have more hygienic workspaces — the organization's work isn't enough to sustain the entire population. Among the women's list of needs is increased state funding to put into their workspaces. Diouf says the state sometimes turns to them for guidance on how to better serve the women, but the money coming in isn't nearly enough.
Sarr believes that investing in the women's work will help boost the local economy for everyone, not just those in the fishing industry.
"I'm very proud of my work. If we can add value to it, the men will come back, and we'll bring back the jobs," she says, referring to the large numbers of Senegalese men who have migrated to Europe in search of better job opportunities.
"If we had fish, if we had resources, they would have never left."
DAKAR — A cartoon of an early 20th-century Senegalese Muslim leader has sparked a nationwide uproar, with the vignette criticized by civilians and political leaders alike. The Paris-based African news magazine Jeune Afrique published a cartoon of Sheikh Ahmadou Bamba, founder of the Mouride Brotherhood, last week in which a passing Westerner asks why the traditionally robed leader is "wearing a dress." The magazine formally apologized for the caricature over the weekend and removed it from the website, although it is still visible on the cartoonist's Twitter profile.
The caricature poked fun at ongoing controversy in Senegal over men carrying handbags, a new fashion trend pioneered by the young singer Wally Seck. Religious leaders — including representatives of the Sufi Muslim Mouride Brotherhood, whose adherents make up around 40% of Senegal's population — harshly criticized his fashion choice and called it "effeminate," with newspapers publishing homophobic insults. Homosexuality is outlawed in Senegal and many other African countries.
Parisian newspaper Le Parisien reports that Seck pointed to American artists such as Kanye West wearing similar male handbags as proof that he was not "promoting" homosexuality. The Jeune Afrique cartoon, seeking to show how a traditional Senegalese robe could be caricatured as effeminate by a Westerner, drew fierce criticism from the Mourides and from the Senegalese government itself.
The intense backlash that forced Jeune Afrique to pull the cartoon of Sheikh Ahmadou Bamba, considered a "national symbol" by the current government, also led Seck to apologize to his fans and promise not to wear handbags again. The debacle caught the attention of the international press, with the Turin-based newspaper La Stampa commenting in an analysis piece that the Senegal case presents the expansion of a wave of religiously influenced crackdowns on freedom of expression in Africa and the Middle East.
Unlike Charlie Hebdo's cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad that incensed the Muslim world, the uproar in Senegal was sparked by a drawing of a revered — yet mortal — religious leader. The freedom of satire grows ever more constrained, even in free and democratic Senegal.
