End of French Exclusionism in Senegal

African World Politics has a very interesting story about the rapidly changing face of Senegal. Senegal has begun to trade directly with non-Francophone nations. Senegal being one of the most economically and socially advanced countries of the Francosphere, much of what is going on there is likely to repeat itself in other French-speaking areas of Africa in the future.

Gilbert Khadiagala, in his article on Euro-African relations, asks how much of new African representation is truly substantive and how much of it is tokenism that sustains the “illusion of movement on African questions?” I’m interested in this notion of illusionism in the context of Senegal and its evolving relationships with foreign actors. Has France’s relationship with Senegal really changed? Are other countries such as the US, China, and Middle East now more important?

The legacy of colonial France has critically shaped independent foreign policy in Senegal but today the government lists four sets of countries as cornerstones of foreign policy: (1) immediate neighbors; (2) the remainder of Africa; (3) the Arab world and other Muslim countries; and (4) the Western democracies. Tony Chafer in his article on Franco-African relations states that though the French sphere of influence still exists, especially in continuing emphasis on La Francophonie, the disappearance of the Cooperation Ministry, the move to distribute French bilateral aid, the fragmentation of the réseaux, and other developments have reduced France’s direct political influence over African policy. Asserting its independence from this French influence, Senegal prioritizes regional unity as an effective competition mechanism in the international economic system. President Diouf, less personally connected to France than Senghor, sought closer ties with the US and other democracies, including Japan, thereby taking advantage of growing economic competition among Western democracies to lessen his country’s foreign policy dependence on France. Diouf, in signing contracts with South African and American oil companies in 1995 (despite intense French pressures,) reveals a departure from Senegal’s past tendency to give preferential treatment to French companies.

Senegal is also less dependent on French foreign aid and is looking to other places for aid and investment. Chinese investments in Senegal are increasing, while Senegalese businesses are encouraged to venture into the enormous Chinese market. Senegal’s current President Abdoulaye Wade has criticized the EU’s policies towards Africa and said the continent was now looking towards India and China for its economic needs. He said, “Africa wants to cooperate with Europe,” but “if Europe closes itself off from Africa, we have India, China, Brazil knocking on our doors to offer us the same thing that Europe has been offering at a better price with excellent conditions…”

This movement away from French exclusionary relations is seen not only in the opening up of Senegal to China but also in the country’s increased interaction with the Islamic world. The rising influence of Islam within the Senegalese political system is seen with the increased political stature of the Marabouts. In an earlier post, I mentioned the role of Muslim Marabouts, or religious leaders, in leading French-resistance movements. The leaders of these brotherhoods, especially the Tijaniyya, continue to hold great power in Senegal and look towards the Arab world for support.

Though France’s legacy in Senegalese foreign policy is undeniable and the two countries enjoy friendly diplomatic relations, Senegal is serving its best interest by creating strong relations with other powers.

References:

Chafer, Tony. “Franco-African Relations: No Longer So Exceptional?” African Affairs. 2002, 101, 343-363

Khadiagala, Gilbert M. “Euro-African Relations in the Age of Maturity.” Africa in World Politics: Reforming Political Order.

Schraeder, Peter J. “Senegal’s foreign policy: challenges of democratization and marginalization.” African Affairs 1993 Oxford University Press.

http://www.thaindian.com/newsportal/business/africa-looking-towards-india-china-senegal-president_100209139.html

Africa looking towards India, China: Senegal president http://www.thaindian.com/newsportal/business/africa-looking-towards-india-china-senegal-president_100209139.html#ixzz0ktsEeBYn

The Precarious Status of French in Senegal

The shift away from French in West-African education is, to say the least, a rather under-reported topic. The reason why this trend tends to escape the notice of observers is the slow pace at which it is happening, only Rwanda having enough determination to completely scrap French from primary education. In the introduction to her "Sounding Off: Rhythm, Music, and Identity in West African and Caribbean", Julie Huntington gives an aperçu of the situation of French in Senegal.

Although French is the official language of Senegal, many Senegalese citizens do not speak French, particularly in rural locations like Keur Momar Sarr. In rural areas, people tend to speak their maternal languages at home with their families. Some of these languages, including Mandingué, Bambara, and Balanta, are minority languages that are not represented by the Senegalese government as national languages. For those minority language speakers who do business outside of their villages, a vehicular language is often utilized for the purposes of communication and commerce.
Generally speaking, Wolof is the preferred vehicular language in northern Senegal (the part of Senegal north of the Gambia), and Dioula is the preferred vehicular language in southern Senegal (the part of Senegal south of the Gambia), although other languages like Serer, Pular, Malinké, and Soninké are preferred in specific subregions. Although French remains the official language of secondary and University education, in recent years, the Senegalese government has encouraged a shift away from French to Senegalese languages in elementary education, particularly in rural areas where residents are less likely to speak French. (...) 7. Whereas 80 percent of Senegalese citizens speak Wolof as a maternal or foreign language, about 15 to 20 percent of Senegalese speak French. Although this information is published in book form (see Leclerc 1992), the most up-to-date information is available on Leclerc’s Web site, Aménagement linguistique dans le monde, at http://www.tlfq.ulaval.ca/axl.

The following excerpt (pp. 69-70) from the same book describe the absurdity of the language situation in Senegal. French is an obstacle to the development of the country as most of its inhabitants don't understand it at all. It will not be possible to alphabetize West-Africa as long as primary education remains in French. La Francophonie is chiefly about pressuring third-world governments into ramming the French language down their populace's collective throat even at the cost of development.
Indeed, local language instruction is deemed by many to be a prerequisite to alphabetization and development in Africa. It is, therefore, a promising sign to see primary instruction gradually shifting away from French in countries such as Senegal.

Why is French Declining and Francophonie as a Club Expanding?

Africa Beyond the Post-Colonial by Ola Uduku and Alfred Zack-Williams unmasks the Francophonie masquerade in Africa:











Africa Beyond the Post-Colonial: Political and Socio-Cultural Identities
By Ola Uduku, Alfred Zack-Williams
Contributor Ola Uduku, Alfred Zack-Williams
Published by Ashgate Publishing, Ltd., 2004
ISBN 0754631710, 9780754631712
140 pages

French Fluency a Privilege of the Few in West Africa

Keynote address at the 42nd Regional Meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society:

The maintenance of a highly selective school system with important rates of dropouts, combined with low rates of scholarization, just helped keep the European colonial languages as the privilege of a chosen few. School children developed greater competence in the regional lingua franca than in the European language, which they often do not get to practice outside the school environment until after they graduate from high school, if they go that far. The only exceptions are apparently places such as Libreville (Gabon) and Abidjan (Côte d’Ivoire), where no indigenous language has emerged as the dominant vernacular. According to Van den Avenne (1998), Abidjan breaks down into neighborhoods where Dioula prevails as the vernacular and those where either French or le français populaire ivoirien functions as the vernacular.

In the rest of Black Africa, an indigenous language has typically emerged as the urban vernacular and regional lingua franca for the masses of the population, i.e., the overwhelming majorities of the national populations.

7 April 2006
Language Endangerment: An Embarrassment for Linguistics
Salikoko S. Mufwene
University of Chicago

"Better to use a language that is widely spoken across the globe"

Felly Kimenyi , Gasabo, for The New Times (Kigali)
15 October 2008:

President Paul Kagame yesterday stressed the urgency in the process of using English as a medium of education in all Rwandan schools, saying it is a choice Rwandans have to make if they need development.

He said this while visiting Ecole Primaire d'Application de Kimihurura (EPAK), a primary school located in Kimihurura, Gasabo District.

"The kind of education we want for our children is that which is in line with the vision in place for the development of our country we have to prioritise the language that will make them competent when they get on the labour market after completing school," the President said while meeting the teaching staff of the school.

He said that it is better to use a language that is widely spoken across the globe as Rwanda tries to reach as many countries for business opportunities.

"For example, in our region apart from Burundi and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), a French speaker going to the other countries would have to use the services of an interpreter," he said.

He added that even in Europe, of the more than 20 States that make up the continent, there are not more than three where the French language is spoken.

"In the rest of the countries, no one will have time for you if you speak French," Kagame pointed out.

A cabinet meeting last week directed the Ministry of Education to expedite the programme that will make English the medium of education in all government-funded schools right from primary level to institutions of higher learning.

According to minutes of the meeting, the major reason for this is to make Rwanda more competitive in both the East African Community and the International Community at large.

"We have to make a choice on language depending on which languages the countries we stand to benefit from most use," said Kagame.

The President also emphasized that the major reason is not to just master the English language but the knowledge to be gained in other disciplines like sciences.

Absolute Increase in Numbers of French Speakers? I Don't Think So.

From the desk of Unfrench Frenchman: 

I keep hearing from the French that the global number of French speakers is increasing because of black African demographics. This is a red herring. Here is why:

• Africa accounts only for a part of la francophonie. Everywhere on earth outside of Africa, France, Quebec and France, both knowledge AND use of French are dwindling fast.
• West African countries that have French as an official language have high total fertility rates, but also very high rates of mortality and emigration. Emigrants from French speaking countries tend to move to English speaking countries such as Nigeria and the US. The net gain is therefore less than the french assume to be in terms of total population increase and francophone fertility rates may in the long run even benefit the rival language, English.
• Even second and third-generation African immigrants to France continue to use pidgins and creoles in the ghettoes where most of them live, while most of them cannot speak or write native-level French. Those pidgins and creoles are not understandable by non-African speakers of French. Mainstream French is being quickly Africanized to the point of discouraging non-African foreigners from studying French. Does this benefit French?
• French is a medium of instruction in many black African countries, but African education systems are huge failures. Just because French is taught at schools doesn't mean people are actually learning it. English is taught to virtually every French student at all French schools, but you could hardly say that every Frenchman is an Anglophone. As for West Africans, they have very few incentives to practise French outside of schools, which is why most of them speak or write no French at all.
• Francophones who argue that African demographics automatically strengthens la francophonie never reveal in which African countries an absolute increase of French speakers is supposedly taking place. I have hard evidence that the use of French is actually diminishing in many African countries. This is the case in Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, Mauretania, Senegal and Rwanda. You are invited to click the matching label links on the right-hand side of this blog to learn more on the decline of French in those countries. Even in the Ivory Coast, pidgins are increasingly used where pure French used to be de rigueur. In Subsaharan Africa, studies and reports suggest that the teaching of French at schools has done little to improve either literacy or the knowledge of French. Even if the French can prove using actual studies that a few of a France's not-so-former African colonies have witnessed an absolute increase in numbers of French speakers, and I have yet to see any, the overall picture for Africa will be of an absolute decline, given that Africa's most populous countries are seeing their disenfranchised populations turning their backs on French, and when it comes to global numbers, the decline of French is nothing short of a catastrophe, a huge blow indeed to inflated French egos.

Is Francophone Subsaharan Africa Really Francophone?

In Medium of Instruction Policies by James W. Tollefson, Amy Tsui:



Medium of Instruction Policies: Which Agenda? Whose Agenda?
By James W. Tollefson, Amy Tsui
Published by Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2004
ISBN 0805842780, 9780805842784
306 pages

Decline of French in the UN and precariousness of its status in la Francophonie

In Language and National Identity by Leigh Oakes:

Language and National Identity: Comparing France and Sweden
By Leigh Oakes
Published by John Benjamins Publishing Company, 2001
ISBN 1588111164, 9781588111166
305 pages

The French cultural empire is crumbling in its last stronghold

 From the desk of Unfrench Frenchman:

Most readers of this blog are probably used to the wild statistical claims made by French speakers regarding the global importance of French. 120 million native speakers, 2 or 300 million secondary speakers and 500 million who have been exposed to the language, we hear. They also rarely miss a chance to tell us how the vibrant demographics of West Africa means an absolute increase in global Francophone numbers. How can one speak of a decline of the French language when absolute numbers of French speakers are exploding in Africa, they ask.

Let us forget the exposed-to-the-language category as it is too meaningless to even discuss. Now 120 million native speakers of French worldwide? Well, according to what source one turns to, numbers vary considerably. This is because of the sheer difficulty of making such counts. In France, native speakers of French are concentrated in the mainland and constitute approximately 80-90% of the mainland population, an estimate which can hardly be more accurate because of the many dialects and regional languages and the numerous first, second and third-generation immigrants. Many of those immigrants may use French as their main language, but it is not the first tongue they learned, so that their French, albeit fluent, distinctly lacks native quality in pronunciation, accent, grammar and vocabulary. 80 to 90% of mainland French amounts to a population of 48 to 54 million. French overseas territories comprise a population of native speakers that is no more than one million, the rest of the six million residing in those territories calling local or foreign tongues their native languages. Suisse Romande and the rest of Switzerland ar home to about one million French speakers, Quebec is 80% native French speaking, which amounts to 5.5 m, while up to a million native Francophones are to be found in the rest of Canada. Belgium is home to 4 million at the utmost, the US to 2. Smaller communities of native French speakers are also found in other countries. They cannot comprise more than 3 million, considering that the number of French nationals living outside of France is less than 2 million according to official French sources, ("a population of almost two million, which is the number of French citizens residing outside our frontiers."). Total: 71.5 to 77.5. A far cry from the numbers usually claimed by the priests and fanatics of la Francophonie!

Needless to say, secondary speakers of any language will be still more difficult to count, and most countries that have French as an official language conveniently happen to be among the poorest, unhappiest places on earth, ones fraught with war and hunger and generally devoid of any infrastructure. Government presence in those countries is far less felt than in the first world and limits itself to raw exploitation and repression. The State generally has no means or intention of providing its people with decent education in any language, let alone of conducting language censuses within its borders. 

This is why numbers of French speakers cannot be accurately estimated in most former African colonies of France, which makes it equally impossible to extrapolate from the total population growth experienced by those countries an overall increase of French speakers.

Africa is home to very few native speakers of French, and those native speakers are limited to a small urban population of settlers from France and Belgium that is steadily diminishing because of low total fertility rates and repatriations forced by growing social strife in countries such as the Ivory Coast. The local African population in the so-called pré carré Africain is very loyal to native idioms and has no social incentive for relinquishing their use as many linguas francas other than French compete for speakers (think of Yoruba, Peul, Arabic, Wolof, Bantu to name but a few), nor would there be any advantage for them in adopting French as their everyday language of choice when French control over their economies, by hampering the development of the labor market, has made it near impossible to obtain the kind of employment that requires the knowledge of European languages. Except in Abidjan, French in West Africa is something you learn at school, if you ever went there, and seldom use afterwards.

French in Africa is nothing but a secondary language, a non-native language that, in the everyday life of most Africans, is used as a third or fourth-choice lingua franca, whenever Haoussa, Peul, Lingala or Arabic won't do. Its status is therefore fragile. Is it endangered? 

The dynamism of a lingua franca with such a limited base of native speakers as is French is not so much dependent on absolute numbers of speakers as it is on its geographical spread.French is only useful as a lingua franca inasmuch as it is spoken on a wide territory. If French can be said in decline as an international language, it is because it is used as such in ever fewer countries. French used to have currency among indigenous populations of Laos, Vietnam, Kamputchea, Lebanon, Rwanda. In all of these countries, French now is hardly more of a lingua franca than would be German or Dutch, and much less of one than English is. All of these nations have been lost for la Francophonie in the past decades while no new country has been gained. 

Steep losses for the proud French.

But the hemorrhage is not about to stop. As France becomes unable to afford the military cost of maintaining its African empire, countries like Tchad or Centrafrique are bound to fall sooner or later and go the way of Zaire or Rwanda.
France cannot even rely on more stable parts of West Africa to carry on the colonial heritage. That region has no love lost for France or the culture she peddles. West African nations will not be the cultural youth elixir that Wallonia, France, Suisse Romande and Quebec, all declining, ageing places, desperately need: sick and tired of being the serfs of France, the populations of France's former African colonies are turning more and more to the non-French speaking world for investors or emigration. Thus the Democratic Republic of Congo invites Chinese investors to exploit its riches while young men and women from Senegal or Morocco learn English to move to America and huge numbers of Beninese, Cameroonian, Nigerien and Malian expatriates seek work in Lagos, the English speaking capital of Nigeria.

The French cultural empire is crumbling away in its last stronghold. France is about to lose the last bastion of international Francophonie to the rest of world. 

To English.

The Tide Blowing Against French

http://www.pavefrance.com/blog/archives/001662.html
We only need a language that will help us move with the rest of the world and not one that will enslave us. We need to have our minds decolonised! ... Between English and French (which rank first and second respectively in the UN) the big question should be; which of these is more enslaving and which will keep us in tandem with the rest of the world? The tide, in my opinion, seems to be blowing against French.
Stephen Rwembeho,
lecturer at Kigali Institute of Education
KIGALI, Rwanda January 26, 2007 (The New Times/allAfrica.com)

"France did all it could to suppress native languages in its colonies"

French imperialism

As a French-speaking African I am always mildly amused when I hear France clamoring for "cultural diversity," which to all intents and purposes amounts to mobilizing the world in a fight against Anglo-Saxon cultural and economic "imperialism."

The French seem to suffer from amnesia. France did all it could to suppress native languages in its colonies. I have personally suffered from this. And to this day, France tries to perpetuate the French language in its former colonies while attempting to enlist foot soldiers in the French war on Anglo-Saxon pre- eminence.

Still, and strangely enough, France seems to find it natural that its former colonies should join in the fight to "defend" its language against English.

We connect with each other based on our similarities, and we enrich each other based on our differences

Now, the question is: Why can't the French stop living in the past, come to terms with the reality of globalization and start learning English — and Chinese — like everybody else?

Africans from Former French and Belgian Colonies Sing in English

The French are anxious that their former African colonies, most of which they have managed to keep in a state of subjection, shouldn't open up to the English-speaking world or use English. The fact that many artists from that region choose to express themselves in the tongue of the archrivals, the much-hated "Anglosaxons", is certainly not something that Chirac and his fellow francophone fanatics can approve of.

Here are a few of those liberated francophones:

Angelique Kidjo was born in Benin, West Africa.(...) her (...) husband, Jean Hebrail, (...) collaborates with her. They now live in New York and Paris.(...) Angelique speaks and sings in several languages, including Fon, Yoruba, Mina, French, and English.

Native of Ivory Coast, Angelo Dogba fuses Hip-Hop, Dance Hall, Jungle and traditional African ingredients in Abidjan-Paris-New York.
Hundreds of hard edged performances across Africa, Europe and the US.
Award received in New-York from "African Eye" in 2002

Depipson is an African born artist from the North West Province of Cameroon. Songs are written in 9 different languages:English, French, Spanish,Pinyin,Douala,Pidgin English or creole, Lingala,Nkambe,Bali and more

Fojebais a singer songwriter currently settled in Toronto, Born in Cameroon,Fojeba migrated to Europe in 1996,and used to live in The Hague ,The Netherlands for about 7 years. Lyrics in Bamileke, French, Lingala, English

A first generation Congolese-American, Omékongo writes and performs poetry in English, French and Swahili, and has occasionally used Wolof in his writings.

Congolese musician Samba Ngo sings in French, Lingala and English.(...)Ngo, the son of an herbal doctor, was born in the tiny village of Dibulu, in the center of what is now called the Democratic Republic of Congo.

A most heart-warming trend and a crushing blow to French pretensions: while those artists increasingly use English as a medium, African anglophone singers still almost never sing in French!