LETTER FROM DAKAR: Challenging stereotypes
By S. SHANKAR The Hindu Magazine | July 24, 2005 http://www.hindu.com/mag/2005/07/24/stories/2005072400150400.htm (S. Shankar is a cultural critic and novelist. His latest book is the novel, No End To The Journey, forthcoming later this year). Culturally rich, both in the past and today, Dakar is home not only to world-renowned Senegalese cultural and intellectual figures but also to expatriates from other African countries. Cultural eruption: The music scene in Dakar is vibrantly alive with great names like Youssou N'Dour (in picture). Photo: REUTERS DAKAR is today the capital of Senegal. Once it was the administrative centre of all of French colonial West Africa. Downtown Dakar the area around Place de l' Independance, known as Plateau is today a place of nightclubs and restaurants, administrative buildings and commercial offices, fancy hotels and rundown little stores. Once it was the French part of the city. Beyond lay the Medina, where the Africans lived. In the bad old days of colonialism, the entry of Africans into Plateau was restricted. Today, the charm of Plateau HAS faded. The colonial French touch is still visible; but rubbish litters the streets and many buildings are in dire need of repair. It is difficult for a visitor to walk down the street without attracting the relentless attention of touts and hustlers wanting to sell you something, anything a bauble, a sob story, a woman. Morning visions I have always believed that one good way to get to know a foreign city is to explore it at dawn, before it is fully awake and on its guard. These are a few of the things that I see on my early morning saunterings through Plateau: groups of beggars sleeping by their wheelchairs; the hall of a mosque with men bending in prayer; empty blue-coloured Tata buses (yes, the Indian company supplies to Dakar) lumbering through the streets; the Lebanese proprietor of a "superette" chatting in Wolof with his African employees in front of his store; a woman in green uniform and face mask sweeping the side of the street with a long-handled broom. This last sight gives me pause, reminding me of a common scene in Bangalore where I lived not so long ago. In India's city of the future, In the middle of the day on Ring Road, with cars and buses whizzing past in speed, men and women would be moving on their haunches along the side of the highway gathering up dirt and dust with jadoos and brushes. How can it be that a face mask and uniform are beyond Bangalore? Or a long-handled broom? Something to think about the value of human life and human dignity in different places at different times. I am told there is a saying in Wolof, the main African language spoken in Senegal "There is no education greater than travel." * * * I am in Dakar for a month. Late one morning, I take a ferry for the short distance to Goree Island, from where for three centuries slaves were shipped across the Atlantic Ocean to the Americas. On the Island, there is a well-preserved two-storied slave house, now a museum. On the ground floor are cells, separate for men and women and children, in which the slaves were packed like the commodities they truly were. There are narrow, low ceiling punishment cells in which rebellious slaves were confined. A door at the back of the house opens directly onto the ocean. Through this door slaves were taken in boats to the ships waiting to transport them across the world. On the floor above lived the white slave traders. Eating, drinking, sleeping, going through the routine of life perched over their human merchandise, what kind of life did these slave traders lead? The figures for the Atlantic slave trade are mind numbing 20 million is the general figure given for the number of slaves captured in Africa between the 16th and 19th Centuries, but some historians place the figure much higher. Between a quarter and a half of the slaves died soon after capture. In the slave house, as on the ships, disease and rebellion were rampant. When slaves died or were killed, whether on Goree Island or on the ships, they were thrown into the sea. The great slaving powers were the English, the French, the Portuguese and the Dutch. They had slaving stations like Goree Island all along the coast of West Africa. While Europeans conducted the slave trade, Africans too were responsible for it. Many African ethnic groups were tempted into raiding their neighbours for slaves to sell to the Europeans. Other ethnic groups resisted the trade in human beings. The slave trade profoundly altered the history of Africa, introducing a deadly conflict between ethnic groups and severely depriving the continent of men and women of prime age. Some historians trace the continuing crises of contemporary Africa to the dislocations caused by this terrible trade in human beings. * * * The university at Dakar is named after Cheick Antia Diop, the famous Senegalese anthropologist and historian who posited the thesis that ancient Egypt was a Black civilisation. Senegal's first president was Leopold Sedar Senghor, renowned Francophile poet. Dakar is home to Ousmane Sembene, the great filmmaker who is widely regarded as the father of African cinema. To capture the cultural richness of Dakar, both in the past and today, many more names could be added to these. Dakar is home not only to world-renowned Senegalese cultural and intellectual figures but also to expatriates from other African countries. It is a Muslim society that challenges stereotypes of Muslim puritanism, narrowness, and intolerance. Vibrant music Take the music in Dakar for example. It is out of this world. Such giants of contemporary world music as Youssou N'Dour, Baba Maal, Toure Kunda and Ismael Lo have come out of Dakar. The source of most of this cultural eruption is in the traditional music of the area, combined with pop and jazz and other influences. There is a vibrant rap music scene. Most days in Dakar there is live music in a club, or a restaurant, or a cultural centre. In the clubs and restaurants, the music starts around midnight. When you go home at 2.00 or 2.30 a.m., the streets of Plateau have still not quietened for the night. Cars still nose through the streets full of rubbish. Hustlers are still there to sell you something, anything. A beggar or two is still looking for a hand out. You walk on and wonder. A trashed out Third World place? One of the beggarly, half-made societies of the world? Perhaps you could call Dakar that. Or you could listen to the music still ringing in your head and remember that Wolof saying about travel. ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> <font face=arial size=-1><a href="http://us.ard.yahoo.com/SIG=12hvbic9e/M=362335.6886444.7839734.2575449/D=groups/S=1705796846:TM/Y=YAHOO/EXP=1122805621/A=2894362/R=0/SIG=138c78jl6/*http://www.networkforgood.org/topics/arts_culture/?source=YAHOO&cmpgn=GRP&RTP=http://groups.yahoo.com/";>What would our lives be like without music, dance, and theater?Donate or volunteer in the arts today at Network for Good</a>.</font> --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> -- This is ZESTGlobal. Post articles on international affairs to [email protected] If you got this mail as a forward, subscribe to ZESTGlobal by sending a blank mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] OR, if you have a Yahoo! ID, by visiting http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ZESTGlobal/join/ Yahoo! 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