Senegal – national flag
Senegal – national flag, The flag was officially adopted in 1960. The colors are pan-African, but also found in several of the country’s party flags. The vertical stripes are undoubtedly inspired by the French tricolor. The star symbolizes African freedom, and in 1960 it replaced the male figure, kanaga, who sat in the 1959 flag when Senegal was a member of the Mali Federation.
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Senegal – history
According to a2zgov, in the Middle Ages, Senegal was divided into smaller kingdoms. On the Senegal River in the north lay the Tekrurrike, whose tukulor population, under the influence of the Almoravids in North Africa, converted to Islam in the 1100’s. The eastern part of Senegal belonged to the powerful Ghanaian kingdom, then the Mali kingdom. Around the year 1200, the Jolo Empire arose in western Senegal. The kingdom, populated by wolof, was divided in the 1600’s. in four kingdoms: Bawol, Cayor, Waalo and Jolof. In particular, Islamization gained momentum after its formation in approximately 1770 by a theocratic tukulor state in Fouta Toro on the Senegal River.
The Portuguese were the first Europeans in the area. They traded along the Senegal and Gambia rivers and in the 1440’s set up a trading station on the dele de Gorée, from which slaves were shipped in the following centuries as part of the transatlantic slave trade. In 1677, after a period under the Dutch, the island passed to France, which had already in 1659 founded the Saint-Louis trading station as a support point at the mouth of the Senegal River. Against the background of trade in slaves, gold and rubber arabic, Saint-Louis soon developed into the area’s most important city. During the Seven Years War 1756-63, the British conquered the French possessions; until the Congress of Vienna in 1815 recognized the supremacy of France, the area was alternately French and British hands.
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France’s ban on slavery in 1848 hit the economy hard and exports of peanuts now became the main source of income. At the same time, Louis Faidherbe, Governor of 1854, initiated the actual colonization of the country, with a view to making it the center of the French colonial empire in West Africa. The strongest resistance to the French came from al-Hajj Umar, whose Tukulor empire was not finally defeated in the 1890’s. The French, in turn, cooperated with the Muslim Brotherhood Muridiyyah, whose great political influence dates from this time; Muridiyyah is traditionally associated with the Wolof population, which accounted for the bulk of peanut production.
In 1895, Senegal officially became a French colony, and the governor of the capital Saint-Louis (later Dakar) also became the Governor-General of French West Africa. In order to link the colony to the motherland, a conscious assimilation policy was pursued and attempts were made to propagate French language and culture. Already during Faidherbe, schooling and a Senegalese military company had been built, as well as the construction of rail and telegraph lines from Dakar to Saint-Louis and to Bamako in present-day Mali.
The residents of the largest cities were given the right to vote for the French parliament in 1887, and in 1914 Senate Galician Blaise Diagne (1872-1934) was elected as the first black representative of French West Africa. In 1946, French West Africa became part of the French Union, and the same year the two Senegalese Lamine Guèye and Léopold Senghor joined the French Parliament, where they succeeded in securing French citizenship for all Senegalese. However, the post-war period was marked by social and political turmoil as well as by ever stronger demands for national independence. Senegal gained partial independence in 1958 within the framework of the French state society. In June 1960, the country gained membership in the Mali Federation, founded 1959, full independence; a few months later, however, the federation was dissolved and the Republic of Senegal proclaimed with Senghor as president. He led a moderate, socialist policy and maintained both close cooperation with France and the alliance with the Islamic fraternities. Initially, Senghor shared power with Prime Minister Mamadou Dia (1910-2009), but following Dia’s coup attempt in 1962, Senghor changed the constitution and expanded its powers; from 1966, Senghor’s party, the Union progressiste sénégalaise (UPS), was the only one allowed.
The dependence on peanut and phosphate exports has characterized Senegal’s economy since independence; Declining world market prices and a severe drought in the 1970’s led to social and political turmoil, which is why Senghor in 1976 changed the constitution again and allowed a limited multi-party system. On December 31, 1980, he resigned and assigned the office of President to the Socialist Party leader, Abdou Diouf, who introduced a full multi-party system.
The Senegalese forces’ aversion to a coup in The Gambia in 1982 led to the formation of the Senegambia Federation, but due to cooperation problems it dissolved again in 1989. The period after 1980 has been marked by a lack of economic growth. Consequently, population growth and large migration from country to city have become a growing problem. The government’s huge savings on government spending have hit the agriculture and education and health sectors hard. In addition, in 1994 there was a severe devaluation of the CFA franc, which meant that the price of necessary import goods, such as oil, rose sharply. Along with the problems in the Casamance region, where a separatist movement has waged armed struggle since the late 1980’s, has meant that popular dissatisfaction with Diouf’s politics has grown. In the 1998 parliamentary elections, Diouf’s party with 50.2% of the vote got its worst election result so far, but the opposition leader for many years, Abdoulaye Wade, was also weakened.
At the March 2001 presidential election, Abdoulaye Wade won over President Abdou Diouf; The transfer of power took place peacefully and was described as a victory for the country’s democracy. In April 2001, a coalition of parties led by Wade won a major victory in the parliamentary elections.
In 2004, the government and Casamanca Province’s rebel movement, the MFDC, signed an agreement to put an end to the armed struggle. However, parts of the MFDC have continued the struggle for independence and there have been armed struggles between various factions of the MFDC.
At the February 2007 elections, Abdoulaye Wade secured his second term as president. However, in the 2012 election, he lost to Macky Sall, who previously served as Prime Minister under Wade.
Senegal – literature
Senegal – literature, Senegal’s written literature, which is French, begins approximately 1920 and is strongly influenced by classical European genres, especially novel and lyric, and by French literary role models due to the predominantly French influence on the country’s educational system. An idyllic, alienated exoticism aimed at European readers is the pervasive theme, among others. in Ousmane Socés Karim, novel sénégalais (1935). Cultural self-awareness later emerged among Senegalese writers in connection with the Negritude movement, especially the role of Leopold Senghor within it, but also with Cheikh Anta Diop’s controversial historical and anthropological work Nations nègres et culture(1954), arguing that ancient Egyptian high culture was African, a fact that the European colonial powers systematically denied. 1940-60 the lyric was the dominant genre in Senegalese literature with the French-friendly Senghor as a figurehead, among others. with his publication of the Anthologie de la nouvelle poésie nègre et malagache (1948). A protest against colonialism was represented by David Diop (1927-60) with the Coups de Pilon (1956), but also Birago Diop (1906-89) exerted a considerable influence both as a lyricist and with the prose work Les Contes d’Amadou Koumba(1947), combining traditional values of oral poetry with modern literary techniques. In connection with the growing criticism of the colonial system, the novel became the dominant genre, including with Cheikh Hamidou Kanés (b. 1928) formation novel L’Aventure ambiguë (1961) and Ousmane Sembène’s collective novel Les Bouts de bois de Dieu (1960) about a successful railway strike in the colonial era.
After the first euphoria of independence, the protest against the colonial relationship was replaced by a critical stance on the new rulers and the so-called “Africanness” which must legitimize their rule. Ousmane Sembène, one of Senegal’s most important prose writers, was one of the first to address the contradictions of the new system. with Le Mandat (1965) later filmed. His later novels are less one-shot, but lack social indignation and bite. The alienation of African society, which brings about the clash between tradition and modernity, is a pervasive theme after independence and is represented by several women writers. Aminata Sow Fall presents with the disillusioned satire La Grève des battu(1979 when. Beggars strike, 1996). Mariama Bâ goes with the letter novel Une si longue lettre (1980) to attacks on polygamy as an institution and describes in Un Chant écarlate (1981, da. A song in red, 1989) the conflict between African and European norms. Ibrahima Sall’s (b. 1949) Routiers des chimères (1982) and Aïcha Diouris (b. 1974) La Mauvaise passe (1990) make up the social back, including prostitution, in women’s lives.
As a whole, Senegalese literature has a didactic dimension that often places more emphasis on the message than the form in which it is presented; this is especially true of the section published by the Senegalese-Ivorian publisher Nouvelles Éditions Africaines, whose target group is the local population and, to a lesser extent, a European audience. From the 1950’s to the 1970’s, Senegal was a qualitative and quantitative leader in African literature, in line with South Africa and Nigeria.