Senghor’s Negritude is a reaction, and an alternative. It is ‘a certain way of conceiving life and of living it’; one that is different from that of Europe. Senghor calls it ‘nothing more or less than…the African personality’, and equates it to mean ‘no different from the black personality’. In doing so, he creates a ‘black world’ which is characterized by ‘the sum of the cultural values’ that are innate to an African-ness or black-ness.

In other words, Senghor essentializes Negritude and compartmentalizes the world. First, he creates a ‘black essence’ due to which his Negritude becomes exclusionary- towards those that don’t have the innate way of being African. Because an innate essence also suggests a fixedness, the exclusion tends to be permanent. Second, he adds to the binaries of black and white, and emotion and reason- the binary of rhythm and order. He places Negritude in stark contrast to Europe’s ‘static, objective, dichotomic, dualistic’ philosophy. In doing so, he does not rid the relationship between the European and the African of existing binaries.

But is it fair to say, that his Negritude is ahistorical? That in creating binaries, Senghor is no different than the whites? That he is repeating the European mistake? I believe, no.

If Negritude is to be understood as ‘the sum of the cultural values of the black world’, then it will be unfair to say that Negritude is ahistorical. Because in saying so, the assumption is that the African culture is static and cannot evolve. To Senghor, African culture is alive, thriving, and moving. An essence is innate and fixed, but a culture is not. In this way, Senghor’s Negritude can be essentialist but historical at the same time. Dismissing it as ahistorical defeats the purpose of Negritude itself, because it feeds back into Europe’s notion of Africa as having no past prior to what Europe saw.

Although Senghor’s framework of Negritude is based on binaries, it is not the same as the binaries that Europe created. The problem lies not in seeing oneself in relation to another. Instead, it lies in the negative connotation. When the West compartmentalized the world into modern and backward, rational and mythical, and subject and object, it placed the black man lower than the white man. It was through the negation of the black man that the white man was born. However, when Senghor compartmentalizes, he does not negate or dehumanize the white man. Rather, he seeks to find a collective conscience of the colonized African in order to use it to challenge West’s value judgement about the non-West.

Since Europe spoke of non-Europe as a homogenous group of people who had a backward essence that was rooted in myth and superstition, Senghor reclaims this essence and inverts it. He uses it to claim that the African rhythm sets into motion a life of ‘pure harmony’ whereby man, God, and nature connect with each other in a manner that European civilization cannot. Although he speaks through the binaries and in relation to the West, it is unfair to say that his use of binaries serve to reaffirm the function of the West’s binaries. Instead, his compartmentalization breaks the old compartmentalization, and allows for a new possibility. It tries to accommodate black skins. He is not repeating the European mistake. He is not dividing through difference. Rather, he finds ‘affirmation’ and ‘self-confirmation’ in uniqueness. Negritude, then can be read as an attempt to find; in the words of Gandhi; ‘unity in diversity’.

However, for me, the important question is not whether Senghor only inverts the roles in otherization while continuing to thrive on a system of negation of the other or not. Instead, what is most important to ask is that who is always on the receiving end of negation and otherization? The women. In creating a black world with a unique black essence, Senghor claims to make space for all blacks that have been marginalized by the whites. But he assumes that every woman from the African and black diaspora will exist within a black essence. If he repeats a European mistake, then it’s this- he excludes and keeps the women on the margins.

Senghor in his article introduces its reader to the concept of negritude which is the “the sum of the cultural values of the black world.” This very definition introduces a universality that encompasses all Africans. However, Senghor adds complexity to this universality that he talks about. In other words, he introduces a process that begins with particularity and ends with universality. It does not end  by clumping  all Africans together but he ensures to bring all men together, possessing the same roots. Hence his argument is much more nuanced than saying whether universality exists or not.

To begin with, Senghor defines Negritude as a “sum of cultural values.” This sum is crucial to cause sir. He appreciates the differences that exist within the Africans because of which he uses the phrase “sum of cultural values”, values with an “s”. These different values makes up the sum, the negritude. It is through the “rich complexity of African culture” that he is able to arrive at a certain universality of Black people. He strives to achieve this universality through particularity: “every being, everything – be it only a grain of sand – radiates a life force, a sort of wave-particle; and sages, priests, kings, doctors, and artists all use it to help bring the universe to its fulfillment.” In other words, the beauty of universality lies in particularity. Each individual contributes to the universalism of the Black race.

Once this stage is achieved, he brings together all individuals, all civilizations together, thus achieving universality in total. Quoting Pierre Tielhard, Senghor brings to our attention how traditional dichotomies were distorted and “a living, throbbing unity of the universe” was established. This entailed “a single reality.” This, however, was not a static and uniform reality but a “network of relations” each possessing its unique characteristic, its own rhythm. All the beautiful differences existing within the universe illustrate nothing but different shades of the “same reality.”. This universality, however, transcends all boundaries, may it be of geography, gender and above all of race. The white man and the black man then are just men part of a single reality; It is a reality where black man is no less than a white man. Both are equal in their experiences-experiences of being human. Romanticizing on the idea of universalism, Senghor, however it appears, falls into making the same mistake as his colonizers: the mistake of calling his people wiser than the “other” for he believed that Africans are more sensitive in foreseeing this reality. While this universalism strives for a utopia, it would be unfair to dismiss the universalities that exist within this overarching universality: the Black world and the white world.  

This process, however, is not as simple as it appears. These multiple universalities are pitted against one another. Even more unfortunate is that this black universality appears to be a necessity to respond to the European humanism. It seems like a mere cry to be recognized. And to achieve this, black universalism is observed- bringing to life a force great enough that cannot be dismissed.  But then is everything done in response to the white man’s activity. The “Man” that Senghor talks about who is composed of matter, spirit, body and soul, is he only a man in relation to the White? Do the coloured have no choice then to continue to prove their existence in relation to the white man, to his universe? Here two universalities come into conflict. This harmonious universalism which never really existed then seems threatened.

All in all, Senghor outlines a universalism that brings the Black race into the limelight. This universalism, which is achieved through particularity, also hopes to unite all men together. However, in reality, this too seems like a tool that is used to help the Black man assert their humanism in relation to the European humanism. Then the question really is if the latter is giving birth to the former? Would Senghor’s negritude cease to exist without European humanism?

When talking about Negritude, Senghor calls it a confirmation of one’s being, the black personality or, the African personality. A being/personality characterized by an ‘African’ way of life, an ‘African’ sense of relating to the world and, by ‘African’ art and aesthetics.
Initially, this idea of negritude may seem to be firmly rooted in the particular as it only refers to the African identity and approach to life. According to Senghor, the African sees the world as a network of integrated life forces. A world devoid of strict binaries, where Man embodies the spirit and matter, body and soul, the masculine and the feminine. A world characterized by a network of seemingly opposing elements/forces all beautifully brought together to compose the painting of Man’s being and the universe. Art too is central to the African identity for Senghor. Art for the African is not divorced from his being. It is not an extra activity but an expression of humanity and human value. It is a social activity and a way of being, woven into the social fabric and fundamentally a part of human experience and existence. African art is rhythmical, ‘for it is rhythm-the main virtue of negritude-in fact, that gives the work of art its beauty’. This sense of rhythm is what balances the life forces (by which the African recognizes and relates to the world) and keeps them running in perfect harmony. Hence, art is the way by which the African, and his world’s, opposing elements come together to form an integrated network of life and of the universe.
However, despite the fact that Senghor seems to solely be interested in the African and his idea of negritude and African aesthetics only seem to accommodate the African world view, to say that he is limited to the particular or unconcerned with the universal would be a rather narrow reading of Senghor’s idea. His theory of negritude and African philosophy of being, that are completely opposite to western notions, are to be seen as a response to modern western humanism. An alternate way of being in a world violently dominated by the concept of western humanism and its superiority. Simply put, it opens up the possibility of having space in the world for a non-western identity. His negritude is not reserved for black Africa, rather, it is what he calls ‘Africa’s contribution to the universal’, a contribution to ‘international cooperation’. Again, the possibility of different, seemingly opposing and contradictory elements/life forces/identities/ideologies coming beautifully together to form a harmonious and balanced whole. Even when talking about African art and aesthetics, which he explains as rhythmic, it can be understood more largely as the idea of an aesthetic which seeks to find harmony and balance in differing forces. That is to say, proposing a universal aesthetic which finds beauty in the complete and harmonious accommodation, coming together and integration of various ways of being.
Hence, Senghor’s negritude or idea of African being can be seen as a way of relating to the world. A way characterized by reciprocity, rhythm, harmony, space for alterity and the integration of various different identities to the formation of a more beautiful, accommodating and holistic universal.

When talking about Negritude, Senghor calls it a confirmation of one’s being, the black personality or, the African personality. A being/personality characterized by an ‘African’ way of life, an ‘African’ sense of relating to the world and, by ‘African’ art and aesthetics.
Initially, this idea of negritude may seem to be firmly rooted in the particular as it only refers to the African identity and approach to life. According to Senghor, the African sees the world as a network of integrated life forces. A world devoid of strict binaries, where Man embodies the spirit and matter, body and soul, the masculine and the feminine. A world characterized by a network of seemingly opposing elements/forces all beautifully brought together to compose the painting of Man’s being and the universe. Art too is central to the African identity for Senghor. Art for the African is not divorced from his being. It is not an extra activity but an expression of humanity and human value. It is a social activity and a way of being, woven into the social fabric and fundamentally a part of human experience and existence. African art is rhythmical, ‘for it is rhythm-the main virtue of negritude-in fact, that gives the work of art its beauty’. This sense of rhythm is what balances the life forces (by which the African recognizes and relates to the world) and keeps them running in perfect harmony. Hence, art is the way by which the African, and his world’s, opposing elements come together to form an integrated network of life and of the universe.
However, despite the fact that Senghor seems to solely be interested in the African and his idea of negritude and African aesthetics only seem to accommodate the African world view, to say that he is limited to the particular or unconcerned with the universal would be a rather narrow reading of Senghor’s idea. His theory of negritude and African philosophy of being, that are completely opposite to western notions, are to be seen as a response to modern western humanism. An alternate way of being in a world violently dominated by the concept of western humanism and its superiority. Simply put, it opens up the possibility of having space in the world for a non-western identity. His negritude is not reserved for black Africa, rather, it is what he calls ‘Africa’s contribution to the universal’, a contribution to ‘international cooperation’. Again, the possibility of different, seemingly opposing and contradictory elements/life forces/identities/ideologies coming beautifully together to form a harmonious and balanced whole. Even when talking about African art and aesthetics, which he explains as rhythmic, it can be understood more largely as the idea of an aesthetic which seeks to find harmony and balance in differing forces. That is to say, proposing a universal aesthetic which finds beauty in the complete and harmonious accommodation, coming together and integration of various ways of being.
Hence, Senghor’s negritude or idea of African being can be seen as a way of relating to the world. A way characterized by reciprocity, rhythm, harmony, space for alterity and the integration of various different identities to the formation of a more beautiful, accommodating and holistic universal.

In “Negritude”, Senghor attempts to surpass traditional notions of Negritude that simply view it as black expressionism. What is more interesting is his understanding of Negritude within a wider conversation with the other ontologies of his time. He sees it as a movement which would not just empower black people, but would ultimately benefit all mankind. Senghor conceptualizes Negritude as a universal spiritual reawakening of the world but the gaps within his argument prevent his interpretation from fully realizing its potential. He does so by deducing the idea of spirituality from within scientific discovery, outlining what this rediscovered spirituality means for humanity but also ignoring some inherent contradictions within his analysis.

In the first half of the text, Senghor uses science to rationalize the existence of an overarching spirit of the world. European modernity failed to explain new scientific phenomena of the 1880s such as relativity and the wave-particle because it saw the world as “static, objective, dichotomic”. Senghor then uses those very same European scientific discoveries of Heisnberg and Bergson to suggest “…that there is not matter and energy, not even matter and spirit, but spirit-matter, just as there is space-time” (479). He sees spirit-matter manifest as a series of networks around a centripetal spirit of the world. These spiritual centres exist in every living and non-living thing; they can be felt and understood indirectly through material sensations like sight, taste and touch. For Senghor, mastery and transcendence of the material world –which is the hope of all scientific breakthrough – requires acute knowledge of the internal, psychic and qualitative world.

Senghor’s Negritude, then, is universal because it seeks to re-enchant world by re-introducing man to the spirit of the world. He seeks to undo divisions between man and nature created by Western Humanism by bringing together contradictory aspects of material and psychic reality. By re-presenting, re-creating and re-storing the harmony of man and nature, heaven and earth, humanity will ultimately find God (the Force that Creates all things) and by virtue of finding God, will find self-confirmation. Senghor believes that Africans hold the key which unravels this path; to him, they have historically been in tune with the external world and its contradictions. What Europeans perceived as passivity is instead seen as a deep respect for nature and all the things which inhabit it. Senghor sees Africans as sensitive to qualities such as touch, sight, taste etc. because these are qualities help mankind find the spirit, and effectively, a profound meaning of life (479). He already saw its effect during his time in art movements like cubism, expressionism etc. These movements, which originated from black art, inspired the likes of Picasso and Braque to depict “the interplay of life forces” in order to showcase a knowledge of Man (not just Man’s knowledge), and to find a human value to artistic expression which was lacking before (481).

But the way in which Senghor conceives the African as exclusively connected to the spirit of the universe creates a self-righteous moral high ground for the African which closely resembles that of the European. He entirely misses the importance of struggle and rebirth to achieve harmony with God and oneself. This is especially problematic when contemporaries like Cesaire and Fanon discuss the importance of struggle and trauma within the black experience (if there is a homogenous black experience). To believe that the African is aware of and moved by the unseen networks a priori would allow them authority to enforce a set of ideals onto non-Africans, but does not give room for diversity. This rigidity prevents the evolution of the Negritude movement itself because it does not allow room for a two-way exchange of ideas and interpretations between Africa and non-Africa. Negritude would then no longer be as universal but just as restrictive as Western Humanism was for Africans.

Senghor offers a unique take on the Negritude movement not just as an expression of the black experience but as a pathway to the spiritual connections of the universe. His harmonious symbioses of the manifest world and latent energy offers a way back to spirituality which otherwise cannot be conceived by Western humanism. It requires an intimate understanding of the relationship and exchange between the living and the non-living. Perhaps he so fervently wants to situate the movement next to scientific discoveries and artistic movements of the time because he wants Negritude to be taken seriously as an original but equally insightful ontology. But if one seriously wishes to consider Senghor’s understanding of Negritude as a way to for humanity to be re-enchanted and reacquainted to the mysteries of the world, it is important to add room for historical change, diversity and exchange between the African and non-African world.

Is Western Feminism Imperialist?

Chandra Mohanty establishes the imperialism of western feminism in a resolutely systematic way in her essay, Under Western Eyes. Imperialism, she asserts, “implies a relation of structural domination and suppression of the heterogeneity of the subjects in question” and western feminism, she accuses, practices a discursive mode of the former. To her, western feminism exercises “a certain mode of appropriation and codification of scholarship and knowledge about women of the third world” through the use of analytic categories specific only to the U.S and Europe, which are then uncritically and indiscriminately applied to the lives and experiences of women all over the world. Her essay surveys multiple feminist texts to explore the mode in which they produce knowledge on women in the third world, and he three analytical categories she unpacks are 1) “Women” as a category for analysis, 2) the uncritical use of particular methodologies that provide proof universality and cross-cultural validity, and 3) the political principle underlying the methodologies and analytic strategies and the model of power and struggle they imply and suggest.

She begins her argument by establishing the difference between the category of women as “a cultural and ideological composite Other,” the symbolic, abstract notion of what a woman is, “constructed through diverse representational discourses”, and individual, embodied women – the real material subjects of their own particular histories. Their relationship is an arbitrary one – she asserts no direct correspondence, identity, or implication between the two. Rather, it is a relationship constructed within culture, specific to its place, time, and history, and should be analyzed with reference to specific cultures. Western feminist discourse discounts the importance of cultural difference in understanding  women’s experiences beyond the west – it’s discourse assumes the reality of a universal, homogeneous group of women with identical interests and desires relative to its own western context. That which unites all women globally is, to western eyes, a universal, shared experience of oppression, and therein, an elision takes place between the symbolic, discursively constituted woman and the individual, diverse women of the world. Woman, worldwide, is characterized by her oppression, and therefore homogenized as a collective, ahistorical entity, objectified and passive. Western feminism’s  focus, analytically, then, centers “not on uncovering the material and ideological specificities that constitute a particular group of women as powerless in a particular context. It is rather on finding a variety of cases of “powerless” groups of women to prove the general point that women as a group are powerless”.

The analytical tools used to establish the universality and cross-cultural validity of women’s oppression emphasize the euro-centrism of their approach. She discusses first the arithmetic method, where one random, ostensibly oppressive practice or characteristic (to western eyes) is singled out – her example being the veil – and is “denied any cultural and historical specificity”. Second is the uncritical usage of western-centric social structures onto those that look and operate entirely differently – she points to how “concepts like reproduction, the sexual division of labor in the family, marriage, the household, patriarchy, etc. are often used without their specification in local and cultural historical contexts”.  Third – the hunt to establish linked binaries, such as those that link the male:female binary to nature:culture, onto local discourses of representation, is also addressed. All three tools fail to capture and appreciate the cultural diversity of value and meaning ascribed to either cultural practice, societal structure, or representational discourse in different localized communities. There is no real appreciation of the reality of women’s experiences, the power they can and perhaps do hold respective to, for example, ethnic, class, or racial difference. The level of oppression is measured with the West as the referent and the yardstick. Only reductive generalizations result from tools such as these, and so, recreate and emphasize the assumption that women, everywhere, and particularly in the third world –  are oppressed. The West becomes the primary referent in theory and praxis – “it defines women as subjects outside of social relations, instead of looking at the way women are constituted as women through these very structures. Legal, economic, religious, and familial structures are treated as phenomena to be judged by western standards”.

The charge of imperialism results in the consequences of such knowledge production. Such an approach organizes the feminist political effort (which is necessarily linked to feminist theory) around priority issues that are inherently western-centric, and Mohanty argues this limits the possibility of coalitions between western feminism and working class and feminists of color around the world, who do not see themselves accurately represented in discourse. And their distortion, their misrepresentation has far deeper political consequences in the context of the West’s established hegemonic position in the world, where it holds “control over the orientation, regulation and decision of the process of world development”. When structures are defined as “underdeveloped” or “developing” in relation to conditions in the West, “an implicit image of the average third world woman is produced” and, simultaneously, the model to aspire towards, the bar to achieve, becomes the women in the West – not perfect, nut much better off. Superiority of the west is affirmed, as it “reinforces the assumption that people in the third world have just not evolved to the extent that the West has”. A paternalistic politics develops in a global arena towards women in the third world – where saving third world women becomes a rallying call for neo-imperialism. “Feminist analysis perpetuate and sustain the hegemony of the idea of the superiority of the West and produce a corresponding set of universal images like the veiled woman, the powerful mother the chaste virgin, the obedient wife. These images exist in universal, ahistorical splendor, setting in motion colonialist discourse which exercises a very specific power in defining, coding, and maintaining existing first/third world connections”. In this way, Mohanty establishes western feminism’s complicity within neo-colonial endeavors, and in this essay, points to their “inadequate self-consciousness” on the political effects of their work in the context of the global hegemony of Western scholarship, beyond the immediate feminist audience. The most striking line, for me, was her exclamation: “Beyond sisterhood there is still racism, colonialism, and imperialism!”

Power is a vicious cycle, not only because it is non-linear but also because it creates perpetual binary groups by infiltrating into all spheres. In Mohanty’s writing, material power of women from the first world grants them discursive power. First world women enjoy the power of representation whereby they self-present themselves, as well as represent an ‘other’ group- the third world women. Through these representations, first world women and third world women are placed in binaries; the former being powerful and the latter being powerless. It would be fair to say then that the issue of power of representation does not conclude at any point, because ‘one enables and sustains the other’.

Why is it that the ‘third world woman’ is constructed in the hands of the Western women, and not vice versa? The answer is similar to the answer of why the West colonized the East. The answer is the ‘white man’s burden’, and in the former context, the ‘white woman’s burden’. Therefore, when first world feminists perceive third world women in negation to themselves, they reduce them to beings that ‘have not evolved to the extent that the West has’. Judged by Western standards, a third world woman is what a first world woman is not. Being religious, family oriented, and veiled is understood as being not progressive, not modern and not emancipated respectively. First world feminists will tell her that she is backward in time, and hence oppressed, underdeveloped and lacking. Therefore, the project of first world feminism runs by the motto of ‘they cannot represent themselves; they must be represented’; ‘they’ being the third world women, and project’s undertones being imperialist.

But is it first world feminism only that is imperialist, ignores intersectionality in women and otherizes them? What about third world feminism itself? Can it not be imperialist as well? Does it not otherize its own women on the basis of class, culture, ethnicity, and geography? Is it free from the process of elitist judgements? The answer is no. Along imperial lines, third world feminism can be understood as a micro reproduction of first world feminism. Similar to how first world feminists deem themselves to be the rightful representors of women across the globe because they belong to the part of the world that has material power; i.e, West; third world feminists are women from upper class who presume to be fit to represent women of all classes because they have an acquired material power by the virtue of being born into a rich family. Whether consciously or not, third world feminists repeat the first world feminists’ mistake of treating women as a homogenous group that is the victim of patriarchy. What this does in the third world is that it diverts attention from differences between women, such as marginalization based on class. As a result, a third world woman who belongs to the lower class faces double marginality- at the hands of men as well as upper class women. A common example is of a maasi and madam in third world countries, the latter of which would engage in feminism in a manner that universalizes the particular, and fails to acknowledge that the maasi does not share common lived experiences with her because they don’t belong to the same class.

It is important to remember that when there is an oppression, there is someone benefitting from the oppression, and in most times, there is more than one beneficiary. When distinction between woman and women is blurred, and women from different countries, or different classes are treated as a monolithic and homogenous group, the fact that oppression is multi-layered and has a number of beneficiaries on different levels is ignored by an oversimplified idea of ‘sisterhood’.