Africa by David Diop

David Diop, a Senegalese poet, uses his poem entitled “Africa”, to
lament the state of the African continent and also valorize it despite its
long-suffering experiences with colonialism and neo-colonialism.
Following in the footsteps of the well-known African writer and former
president of Senegal in his first twenty years (Léopold Sédar Senghor),
Diop utilizes the trope of Africa as woman. This poetic male tradition is
upheld through allegorical means where Africa is conceptualized as a
mother to the Black populace born from her landscaped body. Although
the Mother Africa trope has its shortcomings, David Diop’s poetic vision
comes through: He is able to communicate the plight of the
colonized/postcolonial continent through the skillful use of language and
structure. His metaphorical body of work offers a depth of meaning and
concludes with a message of hope, reminding Africans that they can rise
above the colonial system. Within “Africa”, the poet addresses the land
as if it is a real person, and this denotes the use of apostrophe.
Apostrophe allows for an interesting dramatization which holds the
readers’ attention and allows them to identify with Mother Africa’s
human experiences. It almost gives us the sense that the earth itself is
not a lifeless thing but is somehow alive. The representation of Africa as
an animate female is a long standing colonial tradition; however, the
damaging image is subverted (to some extent) in the poem. Africa is
epitomized as a strong and beautiful nurturer who endures and reproves
her ‘impetuous’ children with warm proverbial advice. The poem begins
with the poet’s possession of Africa through the designatory diction of
‘my’. The placing of the word ‘Africa’ at the beginning and end of the
phrase ‘Africa my Africa’ is also repeated in lines 12 and 21, creating
the poem’s refrain which not only emphasizes the persona’s supposed
ownership[1] and control of Africa [2] but balances the rhythm of the
piece. This choral effect is also typical of apostrophic poetry which is
usually a kind of invocation. The musical quality of the poem is
additionally increased through assonance which is essential in a free
verse poem. Within this loose form, similar to “And If You Should
Leave Me” by Ben Okri, an external pattern is imposed and this allows
the poets to appeal to the “human instinct for design [and] our love of
the shapely” (Perrine, 771). For Diop, the repetition of vowel sounds
enable him to make the beginning lines sound hoisted and spiritual. It is
in tune with Africa who has reared ‘proud warriors’ that are a testament
to her pre-colonial glory in the time of ‘ancestral savannahs’ (2). It is an
Africa with a tradition of orality where the praise-singing grandmother
tells the tale of the land’s greatness to her grandson, supposedly the poet.
These lines refute the “assumption underlying the French policy of
‘assimilation’ that Africa was a deprived land possessing neither culture
nor history” (Britannica.com). Perhaps the distant river bank the
grandmother sings on suggests the far-removed location of the African
generation from its hallowed cultural source where it can never go back
to. Or the poet could simply be remembering his dead grandmother who
he believes extols Africa from the distant, mystical land of the ancestors,
only linked to the real world through a river journey. One might even
draw another conclusion by examining the poet’s background: Diop, has
‘never known [Africa]’ and her struggles firsthand in the way that his
predecessors did since he was born in France and lived there for most of
his life. Nonetheless, his father and mother were Africans, their ‘blood
flows in [his] veins’ which is why he spent significant time living and
teaching in Africa. The blood is not only representative of his familial
ties to Africa but the cause of the people which pulses within him. He
then goes on to line 7 which utilizes alliteration to add forcefulness to
his conviction that Mother Africa’s ‘beautiful Black blood…irrigates the
fields’. It is through the struggle and hard work of black people that the
encountering nations like France were able to reap the harvest (financial,
infrastructural profits) and build domains. Thus, Mother Africa is
represented as a slave that was physically abused and exploited
economically. Her oppression is continuous and exemplified through
parallelism with the run-on lines from 8-11 which keeps the reader
anticipating what comes next:
…The blood of your sweat
The sweat of your work
The work of your slavery
The slavery of your children…
The lines become memorable and emphatic as they give off a sonic
effect and signify the buildup of colonialism in African history. Even the
organization of speech sounds reinforce meaning as the lines move from
monosyllables (sweat, work) to trisyllables (slavery) and disyllables
(children). The tempo of the lines eventually become slower as
articulation becomes as leaden as the colonial transition of the African
people.
The poem shifts from a praise and observation of Africa’s situation to a

questioning of her decision to yield to colonialism. The speaker demands
that Africa tell him if this is her, ‘…this back that is bent/ This back that
breaks under the weight of humiliation…(13,14). These lines utilize
alliteration which conveys the enquirer’s forceful presumptuousness.
This interrogation is additionally buttressed by the insistent repetition of
‘this back’ and the internal rhyming of ‘break’ and ‘weight’ which calls
our attention to Africa’s subjugation. Here, Diop’s anthropomorphic
inclination is greatly expressed when Mother Africa’s back is ‘trembling
with red scars [as she says] yes to the whip under the midday sun’ (15,
16). The personal suffering of the mother is symbolic of the trepidation
of the African continent, traumatized by colonial experiences. The lines
could even foretell the disastrous and exploitative consequences which
arose from the 1958 Referendum when Senegal became a neo-colonial
territory, that is, maintained cultural and economic ties with France,
under the leadership of the nation’s first president, Léopold Senghor.
Some may argue that the persona addressing Mother Africa is displeased
with her character which was once proud and resistant to western
culture. Many feminists might argue that through his male gaze, she
embodies the speaker’s “honour and glory or his degradation as a
citizen” (Stratton, 51). Even more unfortunate is that women’s
persecution becomes a metaphorical medium through which poets cast
their vision. This adversely gives license to the stereotype of women as
compliant towards domination. However, in a similar reading, I could
add that Diop does not romanticize Mother Africa which would
contradict the actual struggling, marginalized position of women in
Africa. Also, Africa’s true condition may not have been distorted as she
corrects the male’s assumptions about her experience. She replies in a
‘grave voice’ which could be the feminized conscience of the poet
himself. Regardless, the speaker is labeled as ‘impetuous’, he makes
rash assumptions without thought or care. She additionally alters the
way he envisions her, she assigns the image of redemption to a
pomological entity where Africans are symbolic fruits that develop,
adapt, diversify and evolve even while faced with threats to their
ecosystem:

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David Diop, a Senegalese poet, uses his poem entitled “Africa”, to

The sweat of your work

The work of your slavery

The slavery of your children…

The poem shifts from a praise and observation of Africa’s situation to a

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