At this beginning of April, 2010, in the context of
the celebrations of the fiftieth anniversary of the “African
independences", the Pan-Africanism extricated itself from intellectual
debates and from political consultations, to impose upon the world, under the
shape of an impressive copper family, set up in the suburb of Dakar, on the
locality « les Mamelles », in an evident symbolism of the damned Triangle of
the Slave Trade.
Raised up at the nose of the African continent, in its
closest point to America, the Monument is turned to Europe. The delegates of
the Diaspora were there particularly sensitive. The event is not commonplace.
It marks for ever the memory of the World. For the people the most offended of
every time, it is a Moment of History.
1. Visibility of an ambition
The
ambition is henceforth visible. The Monument of African Revival (MONAFREV) says
to the World, down from its 152 meters over the sea level, the vision of united
Africa. This monument is, henceforth, the (top) representing of Africa among
the big monumental identifiers of the nations of the world: the Eiffel Tower of
France, the Statue of Liberty of America, the
Corcovado’s Christ of Brazil, the Atomium of Belgium, the Geneva Water
jet of Switzerland, and big ancient that are the Pyramids of Egypt, the Great
Wall of China and the Taj Mahal of India.
These big
identifiers are admired and run for the fact that they represent, their
aesthetics, their dimensions, their enigmae or even their mysteries; but, never
for their cost, short-lived incidental dimension, which does not retain the
History. Expressing the vision of a generation, they arouse the prides and feed
the ambitions as time goes by, contributing to the founding myths of the big
nations. The social cost of some of them was considerable, including of
dramatic violations of the current rights. No human rights activist ever
worried about it in visiting them. Because on the scale of time, the cyclical concerns
are not opposable them. The relativity of the interests is evident.
As any
human work, each of these prestigious identifiers was the initiative of a man,
often misunderstood, before the favorable penalty of time. It is evident that
the modern power of the old Middle Kingdom pulls its energy of the spirit and
the will who allowed the Great Wall of China.
The
Statue of Liberty enlightening the world symbolizes an opened land of liberties
and a nation convinced of a universal mission to defend them. Without this gift
of France in their young Revolution, the United States would not be the first
power of the world, that they are today; attractive of distresses and talents
of the world. Another apologue of this “spirit of monument" is the case of
the Arc de Triomphe de l’Etoile. Born of the "megalomania" of
Napoleon I, it is today the heart of symbol of the French Republic and it more
solemn inciting of performances.
In the
heart of the Tijuca forest, at more than 700 m of height, as well as in sad
plain of Agra, the Muslim whom I am felt the same emotion and the same respect,
as well in front of the impressive Christ 30 meters high and 1,200 tons in this
peak of Corcovado, as in front of the soft marvel of Islamic architecture of
Taj Mahal, quite marble white decorated with Koranic verses in incredible
inlays of goldsmith's trade, and which is, nevertheless, only a simple
mausoleum of love. These two monuments have in common to carry a strong faith
and an ambition of perpetual peculiarity, the stony power of which is not
irrelevant to the performances of today’s Brazil and India.
By its
allegory of Africa coming out bowels of the
Earth towards the light, the MONAFREV also suggests a prodigious collective
adventure for the people of the most oppressed continent in the human history:
1)
reconquest and the protection of the dignity;
2) unity
by renunciation of the colonial division;
3) joint
active participation in the progress of the world.
These
three objectives are strategic and self-sufficient as Charter of Africa, because
they are the substance of the project of the United States of Africa, its ipse,
in a way. The young people are particularly concerned.
It is
happy that a man gave a long-lasting symbolic reality to this project that his
visible abstraction harmed and decreased for a long time. Today, by its
visibility, the ambition arouses the essential questions and favors the
commitments and the action throughout generations.
The
Initiative expresses a sense of history, unfortunately so rare at our
Statesmen, more inclined to block the pothole
that to construct lasting freeways. The sense of history was however the
characteristics of our great ancestors of the African Egypt, which fertilized
universal knowledge. Other things being equal, it is not thus conceited that we
want, we too, to establish our myths, in our time, as make it all people who
print progress in the world. Otherwise, in a consequently standardized
civilization, the vacuity of the African space in lasting physical evidence of
its ambition, of its triumphs and evidence of greatness will continue to
nourish « speeches of Dakar ». Without founder myths, contempt will not cease
being the lot of Africa.
Is it
possible to the single man to conquer whole army with just a hammer? Certainly
that not. And however, the Major Power, France, of which we celebrate the end
of sovereign presence on our soil, has to a lot to exist in the myth of Charles
Martel in Poitiers stopping the Moslem troops with the help of this only tool,
in the VIIIth century.
2. Africanity and utility
The building of this work is remarkable in
dynamic concept of extraction. It well translates the emergency to leave the
state of not enough glory and weak productiveness of Africa. But work is not
unharmed of justified criticisms, notably on an obvious aesthetics of North
Korean "Tcheulima", reducer of africanity.
Indeed,
the feature of this African Black art, peculiar expression of which hard
influenced the modern aesthetics, would have favoured a more unprompted popular
identification and a natural taking over of represented ambition.
Moreover,
the interpretation of the symbolism of this single child family, with a
clothing so different from Senegalese local traditions is a domain of active
pedagogy, on Africa and her teeming ethnic, cultural and religious diversity,
aimed at a local population where the constitutional secularity, general in
sub-Saharan Africa, is sometimes insufficiently taken.
The work
is a symbol, but not only. It is also a place of usefulness social and cultural
activities. It confides, in fact, as an original multipurpose complex,
developed by the architect Goudiaby Atepa, the master conductor of this huge
plan. As much functional structures as it includes (rooms and areas, etc). The
physical characteristics of the work itself, constitutes a sprawling field of
applications, on that dive depend only of the imagination of his managers. It
so has an obvious capacity of generation of incomes and contribution in
development.
3. Priority and opportunity
Reservations and protests are the traditional
and legitimate lot of the great initiatives, which go out of the common place;
the subjectivity of a cost/utility is, in general, disadvantageous to them,
what makes them consider being « not priority impertinence » of their time.
Among famous examples, and of different nature, they can name:
Eiffel Tower: a 7.8
Gold-Franc project, in this France of the end of the XIXth century, when
poverty was the lot of the people largest number. Today, prestige and usefulness
of the work, its signification for France and the Frenchmen and its economic
contributions show the good vision of the government which initiated it.
Lunar space program: his
originator had no idea of the expense of an adventure, provisions of which in
every field of economy and today's human activity are immeasurable. One half a century ago, the ambition of the
president John F. Kennedy was "senseless” for his millions poor
fellow-countrymen, and "incomprehensible" for most of the Americans.
The conference of the African States
of May, 1963: the organization of this event was « a fact of the prince »
costly for the poor majority subjects of the Empire of Ethiopia. By favouring
the creation of the Organization of African Unity (OAU) and the choice of Addis
Abeba as its headquarters, the «
King of kings » speeded up the economic development of his country and the
impressive improvement of the general living conditions. The vision of the
emperor Haile Selassie I, i.e. prestige of its country and ideal of united
Africa, had however appeared an incongruity, without visible link with the
concerns of the majority of the Ethiopians
These
examples show the legitimacy of senegalo-Senegalese debate, but also the nature
of the sanction of time, and a certain number of useful teachings:
• any order of preference is likely of a
delivery in reason, to the advantage of favourable opportunity; here, this one
appears to have been an original barter offer of a package of turnkey
realization for some public landed properties, unprejudiced for the regular
social financing resources;
•
by nature, this type of realization is not opposable to programmed development
actions, which it supports in its timeless functions of rewarding of tourism
and factor of attractiveness. The contributions of the House of Slaves of Gorée
are an example of their economic interest.
Moreover,
jobs were created on the project, as they will be it, for several generations,
in the projets of valorization of transferred land perimeters projects and
activities which they will generate.
The
copyright is also a question of Senegal-Senegalese debate. The president WADE,
who would have fixed it to the third of the operating revenues, without any
personal enrichment objective, would completely have devoted it to the
Foundation of the “Hut of the very young” (Case
des Tout-petits), a program of his initiative, in favour of prescholastic
education. A debate of jurists with the author, who is a distinguished.
4. Prestigious precedent
« We
come, writers, painters, sculptors, architects, passionate amateurs in the
heretofore undamaged beauty of Paris, to protest all our force, all our
indignation, in the name of neglected French taste, in the name of art and in
²History threatened, against erection, right in the center of our capital,
useless and monstrous Eiffel Tower, that the public baseness, often imprinted
by common sense and by mind of justice, has already called of the name of «
Tower of Babel » (Le Temps - 14/02/1887).
Among the lampoonists, Guy de Maupassant, Sully
Prudhomme, Leconte de Lisle, Paul Verlaine, and our relative Alexandre Dumas
Jr.. Brilliant spirits, prestigious feathers and good faith, against the
aesthetics, the symbolism and the opportunity of a novelty.
We know
the penalty of time for what Paul Verlaine called " this skeleton of
belfry ", of 7,500 tons of steel structures and 2,500,000 rivets. We have
difficulty in imagining France without this Tall Lady of “Champs-de-Mars”,
inaugurated in 1889 and which must be dismantled at the end of 20 ( twenty)
years. The Parisians and the world admired and adopted her. We owe her big
progress in meteorology and technologies of communication. Other adventures of
monuments could be quoted.
5. The belief in question.
To his detractors, Jean Eiffel asked: « And why what is marvellous in Egypt become
repugnant and ridiculous in Paris? I search and I confess that I do not find.
» In the same way, we could wonder: « why
what to be the object of our costly and attentive curiosity, in Paris and
elsewhere, should be prohibited with us? »
In
context, and concerning MONAFREV, this question lead to a confessional type debate,
unforeseen and inappropriate in
a secular State and a world secularization of which does not discuss any more.
Picture is there ubiquitous (drawings, painting, photographs, cinema,
television, statues, mausoleums), including in the denominational States. The
daily plastic neighbourhood of works of art, often denuded, which populates the
cities of Europe of America and Asia do not prevent millions of Muslims of all
States of the world, including the most strict, to be permanent residents,
citizens there or not, nor to pass costly stays there. Temperance. The main
thing is in the intention.
« Reward of acts depend on intentions, and
every person will receive the reward
according to its intentions… » Hadith narrated ‘Umar bin Al-Khattab
(Radi-Allahu ' anhu) - Bukhari Vol. 3: N ° 706.
6. Paralyzing miserabilism
It is the responsibility of every African, as
well of the continent as the 6th region, to translate the symbolism of MONAFREV
into concrete achievements. Her worldwide adoption is already acquired, since
he can aspire to an inscription in the Heritage of the humanity, according to
the representative of the UNESCO in his speech in the unveiling.
Of
course, such realization seals in bronze the name of its originator, President
Abdoulaye WADE, in this case. It is a Senegalese and Africain pride for, at
least, the next 50 generations, which will have to hoist Africa to the rank of
superpower of the world. Africa has the potential means for such an objective.
By
suggesting the will of Africa to put down its steps on those of the nations of
progress, symbol would be founding of a new mind and, as a result, instigator
of a new economy, in break with the fifty-year-old miserabilism of low ambition
policies; which have as objective (moreover exogenous) only to reduce extreme
poverty. Ordinary poverty seems so heard as the strategical constant for a
status of passive purveyor of raw materials, forbidden of development and
dedicated in the commiseration of the world.
It is so
any innovative initiative, voluntarist and capable to put Africa on a rising
trajectory, makes fun, before being reduced in dangerous not priority claim. My
personal experience of co-initiator and coordinator of potentially structuring
industrial and technological regional projects allows me to speak about it. Had
missed us an African vision of progress bearer as president Wade, instigator of local
manufacturing industries in his country.
As long
as Africa, the only denuclearized region of the world, will not have the
capacity to rouse itself of heaviness, it will change neither picture nor
status. And, this continent of a billion inhabitants is inexplicably halting in
front of the decisive jumps of takeoff.
In spite of the solemnity of initials at the
bottom of the Lagos Final Act, the Lagos Plan of Action was a resounding
failure. Twenty years later, New Economic Partnership for Africa’s Development
(NEPAD) does not appear to have better fate, because Africa always waited, and
waits, from elsewhere for what it has in its own possession: ideas, competences
and resources.
This
Africa has nevertheless only to become aware that it has friends only itself.
And that its development will be a product, first, only of its political will,
of its sacrifices and self initiatives, in stimulating symbols and in
endogenous lasting investments, generators of local activities and jobs for its
youth. Only Africans steeped in of the realities of their continent, in first
line, will bring the continent, with suitable sustainable commitment,
technically appropriate solutions structurally efficient and permanently
beneficial. Exogenous solutions proved their capacity of local impoverishment,
making our professions of
faith of simple pages of speech. The elders, Kwame Nkrumah, Joseph Ki-Zerbo,
Cheikh Anta Diop, had predicted it. They were right.
7. Incomprehensions and Teranga
Now, Africa is faced with itself. It asserts,
for the first time, in the glittering long-lasting metal in the sun, and faced
with this world which so much exploited it, its strong ambition to rouse itself
of contempt. After celebration, message of the Monument of African Revival is
to translate into proactive will in all the members States of the African Union,
because it is about the fate of the Black Continent, drawn by the Great Makers
of Africa.
Among
them, the parangon of battle for the United States of Africa, Kwame Nkrumah, to
whom refers president Abdoulaye WADE, who must be considered, with good reason,
the heir, is now the pride of its country, a self-defining reference of every
Ghanaian and a source of inspiration of all Africans worried about their future
and about their dignity. He died in banishment. Misunderstood.
The
professor Cheikh Anta Diop, outstanding and scientific iconoclast scholar, also
makes today the pride of the Senegal and Africa and his Diaspora. His life was
a kind of internal banishment, victim of ideological ostracism for its refusal
of falsifiers and degrading conformities. He was a pan-Africanist. Misunderstood.
Hardly
contained, on this April 03rd, 2010, the emotion of the Black dignity Old
fighter, Reverend Jessy JACKSON, disciple of emblematic Martin Luther KING, was
eloquent of the powerful symbolic content that the Historical African Diaspora
(HAD) puts in this Ouakam-located Monument, whose we have to make final stage
of liberation of this slavery, henceforth considered crime against humanity on
initiative, in France, of Christiane Taubira-Delanon, member of the Parliament for French-Guyana, and, in Senegal, Abdoulaye Wade,
Head of the State.
Consequently,
it is all Africa which lives in this village of Africa named Senegal, by this
wonderful Monument, from which imperfections are those of any human works and
affect the greatness neither of work, nor the merit of an African citizen who
gave, in endless spiritual ownership, a so nice visible ambition to a whole
continent.
On behalf
of the country of the Black Pharaoh, which had devoted his life and sacrificed
everything to the cause of free, united and developed Africa, one waits for it
Great Teranga to the Africans of
everywhere, in this noble tradition which ties neither price, nor miserable
opportunity in the greatness of guest's honour, especially that it is the
Outraged of the Earth, which proclaim to the world:
Places entitled in symbols
Of credo and desires,
But also unfortunate witnesses
Of all this ignominy,
Before your eyes presently
The revival of the outraged
In
unworthily labours
And some cotton and some juice of cane.
(extract of “Cicatrices”)
Assane Youssoufi DIALLO
Original ; French
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