Independence for Senegal

French West Africa, which consisted of present-day Senegal, Mali, Mauritania, Burkina Faso, Benin, Guinea, Ivory Coast, and Niger, was firmly established by the turn of the twentieth century. Senegal, “the only place where African people [...] had [...] been assimilated,” was the seat of the French governor-general for the entire region [Wooten, n.d.]. Senegal was the only area wherein Africans had any hand in political affairs, through the four municipalities [Gorée, Saint-Louis, Dakar, and Rufisque] which could obtain French citizenship and thus represent African interests in France [Wooten, n.d.]. The interconnected relationship within bureaucratic spheres between Senegal and France would bleed into the political landscape of an independent Senegal, making its post-colonial relationship with the French language somewhat different than that of other African nations [O’Brien, 1998]. In 1960, French West Africa gained independence, during which time Senegal and Mali (then called French Sudan) joined together in an attempt to form what was then called the Mali Federation. This union of the two newly independent nations was quite short-lived, lasting a mere four months, and followed by Senegal breaking free from the Federation.  

Thus, on August 20, 1960, the independent republic of Senegal came into existence, led by President Léopold Sedar Senghor [McLaughlin, 2008b]. Having been educated in France, Senghor sought to maintain the status-quo in African and European relations, while promoting a philosophy he referred to as “Negritude”: an appeal for universal cooperation, with “blacks and whites living and working in harmony with each other” [Naida, 2016]. Following independence, he reinstated French as the official language of Senegal, despite only eleven percent of the population speaking French [Naida, 2016]. As a concession, six indigenous languages were recognized as “national languages” in 1971: Wolof, Serer, Mandinka, Pulaar, Diola, and Soninke [O’Brien, 1998]. Senghor's adherence to the French language and to pre-independence, French-like power structures, at the expense of developing a stronger national identity tied to Wolof or another of the local cultures, served to diminish his legacy as a Senegalese revolutionary [Naida, 2016].