Teilhard de Chardin and Senghor on the civilization of the universal

III.3. THE CIVILIZATION

OF THE UNIVERSAL AND NEGRITUDE

A reflection on the Civilisation of the Universal in the writings of Senghor could not be void of any consideration of what Senghor is mostly associated with: the Négritude movement. In effect, it is this movement that is at the centre of the Civilisation of the Universal because it insists on the values of the negro-African race, values that are supposed to be preserved and to be revalorised in order to have an active contribution in the dialogue of cultures. We thought it important to clarify this movement in the light of the Civilisation of the Universal, in order to bring forth its value.

III.3.1. What is Négritude?

Négritude is a common word and has been used for a long time. It would be difficult to cite all of its meanings. Like many important ideas it has been criticized, often with simplifying arguments. It is necessary to recall once again that schools of thought are never pure mental constructions that soar above realities. Négritude occupies a particular place due to its unusual themes. It would be true to say that it is the product of a given historical context. A philosophical approach to the concept of Négritude implies, therefore, a preliminary explanation of its socio-historical content. From this point of view, we must remember that the term "Négritude" mainly refers to the black race; the concept reflects a more general reality of historical development. The black man could not make a partial, isolated, and closed history in himself, just as universal human history cannot be limited to an arithmetical sum of the history of peoples and races.

As a concept of the authenticity of the Negro-African personality, Négritude was born at the beginning of the 1930s as a direct reflection of the contradictions of the colonial politics instituted by modern powers in the economic, social, and cultural arenas. These seeds, however, get lost in the subsoil of the primitive accumulation of capital, during the era of the slave trade and colonial commerce. Négritude happens, therefore, to be a concept that synthesizes the steps that determined modern economy: the slave trade, marking its beginning, and imperialist colonization being its zenith. On the basis of these key elements, modern economic structures were to shape the great articulations of modern history on a universal scale. The real history of first contacts between Western and African civilizations shows that what people from black Africa collectively experienced was enslavement and colonization by bourgeois European nations, what Aimé CESAIRE would later name as the common destiny of the black race. It is mainly under these circumstances that the mythical conception of the black man as racially inferior and without cultural past developed among Europeans. It is paradoxically in the cultural quarrel that the strength of Negro-African people lies against the European commoner nations which, in order to exploit them, degraded them to subhuman.

Senghor comes back to the definition of what Négritude is several times, not only in Liberté I: Négritude et Humanisme, but also in Liberté III: Négritude et Civilisation de l'Universel. Indeed, he gives several definitions of this concept, depending on what aspect of it he wants to insist on. First, Senghor considers Négritude as the expression of African personality, distinguishing the Negro personality from the white personality. He says:

La Négritude, c'est ce que les Anglophones désignent sous l'expression de «personnalité africaine». Il n'est que de s'entendre sur les mots. Car pourquoi ceux-ci auraient-ils lutté pour l'»indépendance» si ce n'était pour recouvrer, défendre et illustrer leur personnalité africaine? La Négritude est, précisément, le versant noir de cette personnalité, l'autre étant arabo-berbère.^97(*)

Here, Senghor insists on the differences that exist between Africans who are Negro in the sub-Sahara and those that are Arabs in the northern part of Africa. All are Africans, but all did not experience racism at the same level; though they have the same personality. Négritude seems to be the black expression of this personality.

Négritude is also the expression of African cultural identity, as the collection of black cultural values as they are expressed in life, in institutions and in the works of black people. Senghor affirms:

La Négritude, c'est l'ensemble des valeurs culturelles du monde noir, telles qu'elles s'expriment dans la vie, les institutions et les oeuvres des Noirs. Pour nous, notre souci, notre souci unique a été de l'assurer, cette Négritude, en la vivant, et, l'ayant vécue, d'en approfondir le sens. Pour la présenter au monde, comme une pierre d'angle dans l'édification de la Civilisation de l'Universel, qui sera l'oeuvre de toutes les races, de toutes les civilisations différentes- ou ne sera pas.^98(*)

Through the Négritude movement, Africans are called to preserve their cultural identity expressed in the cultural values inherent in their being as Africans in order to present it to the rest of the world as the corner stone of the Civilisation of the Universal which is the work of all races, all civilisations and all cultures. Hence, Négritude is not racism, Négritude is humanism:

La Négritude, c'est donc la personnalité collective négro-africaine. Il est plaisant d'entendre certains nous accuser de racisme, qui prônent, à l'envie, la « civilisation gréco-latine », la « civilisation anglo-saxonne », la « civilisation européenne ». [...]Ne sont-ce pas d'éminents Européens -un Maurice Delafosse, un Léo Frobenius -qui nous ont parlé d'une « civilisation négro-africaine » ? Et ils ont eu raison. Nous nous sommes contentés de l'étudier -en la vivant -et de lui donner le nom de Négritude. [...]La Négritude n'est donc pas racisme. Si elle s'est faite, d'abord raciste, c'était par antiracisme, comme l'a remarqué Jean-Paul Sartre dans Orphée noire. En vérité, la Négritude est un Humanisme. C'est le thème de ce premier tome de liberté. ^99(*)

In fact, Senghor insists on the fact that the movement which had come to be known as Négritude is what some Westerners considered already as negro-African civilization which Senghor studied by experiencing it. SENGHOR then devoted the first volume of his masterpiece to prove that Négritude is not racism and that it is instead a form of humanism which comes to build up the human convergence with the other civilizations. Négritude is neither racialism nor self-negation. Yet it is not just an affirmation; it is rooting oneself in oneself, and self-confirmation: the confirmation of one's being. It is through its moral law and its aesthetics, a response to the modern humanism that TEILHARD DE CHARDIN had already prepared. The negro-African civilization has been enriched by the contributions of western civilization and has also helped in enriching it. As such, Négritude favours the Civilization of the Universal because it is open to other civilizations.

* ⁹⁷ Léopold Sédar Senghor, Liberté I, Négritude et Humanisme, Paris, 1964, p.8.

* ⁹⁸ Léopold Sédar Senghor, Liberté I, Négritude et Humanisme, Paris, 1964, p.9.

* ⁹⁹ Ibid., p.8.