Senghor : poésie de la révolution pacifique

Faced with the inevitable enslavement of Africa, Senghor has opted for the cultural battle as a shield against European invaders. In fact, his Poetic masterpiece (1990) was a rebellion against the assimilationist policy of colonialism. This classic of Francophone literature, dense and flavorful, established how Africans see and understand the world. It made Africans culturally unique, but also provided a foundation upon which they can open themselves to the Other. While Frantz Fanon declared that the Black man does not “have to seek the universal” (Fanon, 1959: 132), thus underestimating an upcoming era in which cultural métissage was celebrated, Senghor made of it a global vision, and he used in his “peaceful revolution”, that resulted in this period where everything that Negro-Africans had produced (societies, politics, religions, arts, literatures…) over the centuries was crystallized. So how can the poet take part in politics, but not use his sharpened pens? By situating the Poetic masterpiece in the period of colonial protests, this article seeks to highlight the poet’s capacity to be a supporter of peaceful decolonization of Africa.