Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-dzt6s Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-22T07:34:49.875Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Decolonizing Diplomacy: Senghor, Kennedy, and the Practice of Ideological Resistance

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 January 2021

Yohann C. Ripert Open the ORCID record for Yohann C. Ripert [Opens in a new window]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

At the turn of the 1960s, Léopold Sédar Senghor and John F. Kennedy vowed to radically transform African foreign policy. Through a close reading of a recently declassified correspondence and a historical analysis of two behind-the-scenes negotiations, Senghor’s first state visit to the U.S. and Kennedy’s support for the First World Festival of Negro Arts, Ripert examines the private and public concatenations that lead both statesmen to transform policymaking not by implementing new policies but by challenging inherited ideologies. Though their efforts did not always bring successful change in policymaking, the diplomatic correspondence between the two newly elected leaders reveals a more subtle and sustainable transformation: a decolonization of diplomacy.

Résumé

Résumé

Au tournant des années 1960, Léopold Sédar Senghor et John F. Kennedy se sont engagés dans une transformation radicale de la politique étrangère africaine. Par une lecture minutieuse d’une correspondance récemment déclassifiée et une analyse historique des coulisses de deux négociations, la première visite d’état de Senghor aux États-Unis et la participation de Kennedy à l’élaboration du Premier Festival Mondial des Arts Nègres, Ripert examine les concaténations publiques et privées qui ont amené les deux chefs d’état à transformer la pratique politique non par la mise en place de nouvelles politiques mais en défiant les héritages idéologiques. Si leurs efforts pour un changement de politique n’ont pas toujours été couronné de succès, cette correspondance diplomatique entre les deux chefs d’état nouvellement élus révèle une transformation plus subtile et durable: une décolonisation de la diplomatie.

Resumo

Resumo

No final da década de 1960, Léopold Sédar Senghor e John F. Kennedy prometeram transformar radicalmente a política externa africana. Através da leitura minuciosa de uma correspondência epistolar recentemente desclassificada e aberta ao público e da análise historiográfica de duas negociações de bastidores – a primeira visita de Estado de Senghor aos EUA e o apoio que Kennedy concedeu ao Primeiro Festival Internacional de Arte Negra –, Ripert debruça-se sobre a sequência de eventos públicos e privados que levaram estes dois homens de Estado a transformar a política não através da implementação de novas medidas, mas através do questionamento das ideologias do passado. Ainda que os seus esforços nem sempre se tenham traduzido em mudanças políticas bem-sucedidas, a correspondência entre estes dois líderes recém-eleitos revela uma transformação mais subtil e sustentável: a descolonização da diplomacia.

Keywords

KennedySenghordiplomacydecolonizationideologyforeign policyFirst World Festival of Negro ArtsNegritude
Type
Article
Information
African Studies Review , Volume 64 , Issue 2 , June 2021 , pp. 292 - 314
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the African Studies Association

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Amin, Samir. 1973. Neo-colonialism in West Africa. New York: Monthly Review Press.Google Scholar
Apodaca, Clair. 2017. “Foreign Aid as Foreign Policy Tool.” Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Politics. Accessed August 7, 2019.Google Scholar
Attwood, William H. 1965. Recorded statement. John F. Kennedy Library Oral History Program.Google Scholar
Barkaoui, Miloud. 2012. “Managing the Colonial Status Quo: Eisenhower’s Cold War and the Algerian War of Independence.” The Journal of North African Studies (17) 1: 125–41.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Borstelman, Thomas. 2001. The Cold War and the Color Line: American Race Relations in the Global Arena. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Chakrabarty, Dipesh. 2000. Provincializing Europe. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Cooper, Frederick. 2014. Citizenship between Empire and Nation: Remaking France and French Africa, 1945-1960. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Edwards, Brent H. 2017. Epistrophies: Jazz and the Literary Imagination. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Edwards, Mickey, and Solarz, Stephen J.. 1997. Financing America’s Leadership: Protecting American Interests and Promoting American Values. New York: Council on Foreign Relations.Google Scholar
Ellington, Duke. 1993. The Duke Ellington Reader. Ed. Tucker, Mark. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Ellington, Duke. 1931. “The Duke Steps Out.” Rhythm (1931): 20–22.Google Scholar
Fosler-Lussier, Danielle. 2015. Music in America’s Cold War Diplomacy. Oakland: University of California Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fraiture, Pierre-Philippe, and Orrells, Daniel, eds. 2016. The Mudimbe Reader. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press.Google Scholar
Hasse, John Edward. 1995. Beyond Category: The Life and Genius of Duke Ellington. New York: Da Capo.Google Scholar
Houtondji, Paulin. 1976. Sur la philosophie africaine. Paris: Maspéro. International Olympic Committee website. https://www.olympic.org/tokyo-1964, and https://www.olympic.org/mexico-1968.Google Scholar
Jackson, Jeffrey H. 2003. Making Jazz French. Durham: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Jaji, Tsitsi Ella. 2014. Africa in Stereo: Modernism, Music, and Pan-African Solidarity. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kaiser, Philip. 1966. Recorded interview by Joseph E. O’Connor. John F. Kennedy Library Oral History Program.Google Scholar
Kaiser, Philip. 1992. Journeying Far and Wide: A Political and Diplomatic Memoir. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons.Google Scholar
Kennedy, John. F. 1962. To Turn the Tide. New York: Popular Library.Google Scholar
Mbembe, Achille. 2001. On the Postcolony. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Mennen Williams, Gerhard. 1969. Africa for the Africans. Grand Rapids, Michigan.: Eerdmans.Google Scholar
Miroff, Bruce. 1976. Pragmatic Illusions: The Presidential Politics of John F. Kennedy. New York: David McKay.Google Scholar
Monson, Ingrid. 2007. Freedom Sounds: Civil Rights Call Out to Jazz and Africa. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mudimbe, Valentin Y. 1988. The Invention of Africa: Gnosis, Philosophy and the Order of Knowledge. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Muehlenbeck, Philip. 2004. “John F. Kennedy’s Courting of African Nationalism.” Madison Historical Review 2 (1).Google Scholar
Muehlenbeck, Philip. 2012. Betting on the Africans: John F. Kennedy’s Courting of African Nationalist Leaders. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Murphy, David, ed. 2016. The First World Festival of Negro Arts, Dakar 1966. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press.Google Scholar
New York Times . 1957: “Kennedy Urges U.S. Back Independence for Algeria; Senator Assails Support for France’s Policy.” July 3.Google Scholar
Thiong’o, Ngũgĩ Wa. 1986. Decolonising the Mind. London: Heinemann Educational.Google Scholar
Noer, Thomas J. 1984. “The New Frontier and African Neutralism: Kennedy, Nkrumah, and the Volta River Project.” Diplomatic History 8 (1): 61–80.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Noer, Thomas J. 1985. Cold War and Black Liberation: The United States and White Rule in Africa, 1948–1968. Columbia, Mo.: University of Missouri Press.Google Scholar
Noer, Thomas J.. 1989. “New Frontiers and Old Priorities in Africa.” In Kennedy’s Quest for Victory: American Foreign Policy, 1961–1963, edited by Paterson, Thomas G., 253–83. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Noland, Carrie. 2015. Voices of Negritude in Modernist Print. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Paterson, Thomas G, ed. 1989. Kennedy’s Quest for Victory: American Foreign Policy, 1961-1963. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Rocheteau, Georges. 1982. Pouvoir financier et indépendance économique en Afrique: le cas du Sénégal. Paris: Khartala.Google Scholar
Schlesinger, Arthur Jr.. 1965. A Thousand Days: John F. Kennedy in the White House. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company.Google Scholar
Schraeder, Peter J. 1997. “Senegal’s Foreign Policy: Challenges of Democratization and Marginalization.” African Affairs (96): 485–508.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Senghor, Léopold Sédar. 1960. “Message au Peuple Sénégalais.” Dakar: Services de Presse du Ministère de l’Information.Google Scholar
Senghor, Léopold Sédar. 1961. “Address to U.N. General Assembly.” In United Nations, Sixteenth Sessions, General Records. A/PV.1045: 535–47.Google Scholar
Senghor, Léopold Sédar. 1964. Liberté I. Paris: Seuil.Google Scholar
Senghor, Léopold Sédar. 1983. Liberté IV. Paris: Seuil.Google Scholar
Skurnik, W.A.E. 1972. The Foreign Policy of Senegal. Evanston: Northwestern University Press.Google Scholar
Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty. 1999. Critique of Postcolonial Reason. Cambridge, Ma.: Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty. 2013. An Aesthetic Education in the Era of Globalization. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Von Eschen, Penny M. 2004. Satchmo Blows Up the World: Jazz Ambassadors Play the Cold War. Cambridge, Ma.: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Wilder, Gary. 2015. Freedom Time. Durham, North Carolina.: Duke University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wofford, Tobias. 2009. “Exhibiting a Global Blackness: The First World Festival of Negro Arts.” In New World Coming: The Sixties and the Shaping of Global Consciousness, edited by Dubinsky, Karen et al., 179–86. Toronto: Between the Lines.Google Scholar