Ferdinand Oyono

Ferdinand Oyono was a Cameroonian statesman and a Francophone novelist of the first generation of African writers who became active after World War II. He entered the literary scene at a time when writers such as his fellow Cameroonian Mongo Beti and the Senegalese Sembene Ousmane and Leopold Sedar Senghor were at their peak. Oyono and Mongo Beti are known as the forefathers of modern African Identity for their anticolonial novels

Hegel’s Philosophy of History-A Challenge to the African Thinker: The Thought of Leopold Sedar Senghor

Philosophy of History, as an academic discipline, challenges the choices that we make, motivated by our respective historical circumstances. Hegel considers Africa as an unhistorical continent, whose inhabitants can only be equated to animals or worthless article, bound to remain in slavery and in subhuman conditions. On the other hand, Léopold Sedar Senghor, in his Négritude ideology, portrays the values embedded in the African cultural and traditional practices. The intellectual aptness of the Africans, in this work is manifested in the very ideas of Senghor which we are using to contest those of Hegel. Some call Hegel a racist, others say he was driven by ignorance. Amidst such a debate, we call on our readers not to be insensitive to the socio-political and infrastructural deficiencies in Africa, in terms of economic and political instability, corruption, poverty illiteracy and disease. Can the extremes of such deficiencies justify the Hegelian claims concerning Africa? Who may be blamed for the predicaments of Africa; God, as Hegel seems to insinuate or the western world or the Africans themselves? As we endeavor to answer these questions, we are also positing our own solutions that can enable Africa to emerge

Transitions: Decentralization and Senegalese Political Parties

This thesis seeks to examine the role that decentralization and political parties have played in Senegalese democratization from colonial time to present. By examining five influential time periods in modem Senegalese history, this thesis investigates the evolving nature of the Senegalese political system in relation to its current democracy. The first chapter discusses Senegal’s colonial background and the legacy of centralization left by the French. Chapter two explores the decolonization process in Fiench West Africa and its specific impact on Senegal. The remainder of the thesis studies the terms of the three presidents that have led Senegal since its independence from France in 1960, beginning with Leopold Sedar Senghor and tlien his successor, Abdou Diouf. These two men mled Senegal for forty years and consolidated political power in the hands of the Parti Social]ste with only nominal decentralization for m.ost of their time in office. Towards the latter part of Diouf s mle, however, a gradual decentralization process was implemented, loosening the control of the Parti Socialiste and allowing for competition with other political parties, most importantly v/ith the Parti Democratique Senegalais. The final section then considers the impact of Senegal’s first transfer of power from the Parti Socialiste to the PartJ Democratique Senegalais under leader Abdoulaye Wade. As this study reveals, Senegal underwent a gradual democratization process. Increased levels of democracy accompanied decentralization of government powers and increased pally competition. The refomi.s of the current administration point towai\u27ds further democratic consolidation in Senegal

The negritude poets and their critics : a literary assessment and implications for education

This study was designed to define and to analyze the work of four negritude poets, Langston Hughes, Leon Damas, Leopold Senghor and Aime Cesaire, in relation to the literary assessment by their critics and potential implications for education. It proceeded to consider and to develop the interrelation of four broad areas: first, the traditional and changing place and role of literature in the school and college curriculum; second, the ontological and literary qualities of poetic negritude and its relation to the literature curriculum; third, the reaction of African and Western critics to negritude as a literary movement; and fourth, an assessment of negritude poetry and its historical reality and essential realism by responding to the poetry and by reacting to views of its critics