President Senghor of Senegal says Africa's Way is through Democratic Socialism | December 1969

Monday, December 29th 1969.

Footage of President Leopold Sedar Senghor speaking at the Seventh Congress of the Senegalese Progressive Union during which he rejected the division between the West and Eastern Bloc as well as the division between socialism and democracy.

He told the congress that these models were the fruits of developed European countries. Said Senghor:

"One cannot as such transpose them to Africa. The African countries which have done so, or simply tried to, have failed," adding that Senegal's way was that of "democratic, decentralised socialism at a human level."

Senghor said that agriculture remained the top priority of Senegal's third Four Year Economic Plan which had begun in July 1969.

Other objectives included "Senegalisation" of personnel in private enterprises, and further integration between the rural sector and industry.

Source: Reuters News Archive.

Note:

Senghor was a leading figure in the Negritude Movement ("the affirmation or consciousness of the value of black or African culture and identity") and his thinking in politics and economics reflected this. The Latins, Anglo-Saxons, and Slavs had formulated the methods of development which suited them and that it was incumbent on Africans to develop their own formula which could not be simply appropriated from others.