Three famous ginants of the intellectual world, WOLE SOYINKA, NGŨGĨ WA THIONG'O and NOAM CHOMSKY have added their names to the petition calling on Senegal's president Macky Sall to "return to reason" and retore human rights in addition to increasing number worlkdwide.
WOLE SOYINKA JOINS THE MOVEMENT WARNING MACKY SALL
The famous Nigerian writer and director, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1986, has asked the initiators of the petition to be added to the list of signatories of the tribune published by SenePlus
EMEDIA | Publication 26/03/2023
Wole Soyinka has signed the petition and shares the platform of the 100 African intellectuals who are warning Macky Sall. According to our information, the famous Nigerian writer and director, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1986, has asked the initiators of the petition to be added among the signatories of the tribune published on March 21 by SenePlus.
Concerned about the situation in Senegal between "violation of rights and instrumentalization of justice", more than 100 intellectuals from Senegal and elsewhere have shared a petition with a common appeal to the President of the Republic, Macky Sall. They are teachers, journalists, stylists, sociologists, members of the sports association movement, among others. These intellectuals have taken up the cause, asking the Senegalese Head of State to come to his senses.
The winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1986, the first black author to be honoured, the Nigerian Wole Soyinka, confirmed to the initiators his wish to sign the declaration. "As he was travelling, he had not received the request for signature in time and it was only yesterday that he was able to read it and immediately asked to be added among the signatories of this tribune", says one of the initiators.
Kenyan writer, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o, one of the most celebrated intellectuals on the African continent and in the world expressed his desire to be added to the list of signatories of the tribune of 104 who denounce the vehement and brutal instrumentalisation of Justice in Senegal by the current President of the Republic Macky Sall.
Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o is a Kikuyu and English writer and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in the United States. He is currently a professor and director of the International Center for Writing and Translation at the University of California at Irvine.
Regularly mentioned in recent years as one of the favourites to win the Nobel Prize for Literature, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o joins Nigerian Wole Soyinka in the list of signatories, who announced on 23 March 2023 that he too was deeply concerned about the situation in Senegal due to the constant undermining of citizens' fundamental rights by Macky Sall's administration.
At a time when arrests of all kinds are continuing in Senegal and when several credible sources indicate that there are more than 520 political prisoners, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o's commitment is a strong signal from the international intellectual community.
Much more than a renowned intellectual, Ngũgĩ is a freedom fighter and anti-neocolonial activist. Arrested in December 1977, his struggles for social justice led him to a Kenyan high-security prison for over a year. Locked up for 23 hours a day, he wrote his first novel in Kikuyu, "Devil on the Cross", on toilet paper. In the wake of this, he made the important decision to write mainly in his mother tongue, Kikuyu.
In 1962 he published his first novel in English, Weep not Child, which became a reference work. A playwright, essayist, novelist and short story writer, in 1986 he published a resounding collection of essays: Decolonising the Mind: The Politics of Language in African Literature, published in French under the title Décoloniser l'esprit. This was the last book he wrote in English.
James Gũgĩ at birth, he changed his name in 1977 and presented himself in public as an Afro-Saxon writer. His plays banned, his family harassed, himself threatened and hounded by the Kenyan authorities, he went into exile in London before settling in the United States where he taught at Yale Unviersity for 3 years, but also at Northwestern University and New York University (NYU).
Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o joins a significant number of African and diaspora personalities who warn Macky Sall against his excesses and brutality. In addition to Wole Soyinka, Cornel West, Anthony Appiah, Sophie Bessis or Aminata Dramane Traoré, this tribune has been signed by professors from the diaspora, Sada Niang, University of Victoria, British Columbia and Samba Gadjigo, Mount Holyoke University, Massachusets.
NOAM CHOMSKY IN TURN CALLS OUT TO MACKY SALL
"The greatest living intellectual", the famous American philosopher has just added his signature to those of Makhily Gassama, Kader Boye, Pierre Sané and Didier Awadi to denounce the instrumentalization of Justice in Senegal.
While the "Return to Reason" tribune has resonance in the four corners of the planet, a new major signature has been added to the list of those who denounce "a flagrant, repeated and disproportionate violation of citizens' rights but also the perpetuation of a constant effort to politically instrumentalise the judicial system by the administration of President Macky Sall".
On 5 April 2023, the great thinker Noam Chomsky expressed his willingness to sign this tribune published on SenePlus on 21 March 2023. This gesture clearly highlights the universality of the call to reason for the respect of human rights and dignity, including that of all Senegalese, at a time when the country is beating historical records of political imprisonment.
Noam Chomsky is a philosopher considered one of the greatest American thinkers of the 20th century. He is a professor emeritus at M.I.T. (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), founder of generative linguistics, considered the most important theory in theoretical linguistics in recent centuries. Father of the "Chomskyan Revolution", his work has significantly influenced all the world's research in the field of psychology. He worked in particular on children's language learning and on language learning tools.
Of the fifty or so books he has written, let us recall that it was in 1967, during the Vietnam War, that he published "Responsibilities of Intellectuals" to attack the intellectual class which, for the most part, remained attached to the cause of the American state in an unjust war of terror against civilians. He considers that intellectuals, because of their privileged access to knowledge, cannot but become involved in all battles in all countries of the world. Noam Chomsky advocates resistance to illegitimate forms of authority.
Chomsky has been prosecuted several times for his activism and is considered the "greatest living intellectual" according to a survey organised and published in 2005 by the British magazine Prospect and the American journal Foreign Policy. A member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, he is also a fellow of the American National Academy of Sciences and the American Philosophical Society.
The 104 appeal continues to grow. More than a hundred new signatures have been added to those of Wole Soyinka, Cornel West, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o and Anthony Appiah, not to mention the important new signatures of literary critic Makhily Gassama, former UCAD rector Kader Boye, former Amnesty International secretary general Pierre Sané and musician and artist Didier Awadi.
Read the full text of the Petition and all the 104 signatories (including additional ones in the comments here
Other additional signatories since the above publication:
- Franck Hermann Ekra, art critic, Abidjan
- Falilou Ndiaye, Former Secretary General SAES", Dakar
- Ka Mamadou Mourtalla . University Professor, Senegal
- Makhtar Diouf, economist, former professor at UCAD, Dakar
- Doudou Sidibé, teacher-researcher at Gustave Eiffel University, Paris
- Lionel Legros, historian, professor, New York
- Moussa SAGNA, teacher-researcher, Faculty of Letters and Human Sciences
- Pierre Sané, former Secretary General of Amnesty International
- Makhily Gassama, former Cultural Advisor to President L. Sédar Senghor
- Khodja Sy- Filmmaker, artist, digital creator, New York
- Cheickh Badiane, senior United Nations official, Geneva
- Hermann-Habib Kibangou, sociologist, doctoral student, writer, Laval University, Quebec
- M. Mourtala T. Mboup, Expert in Public Policy Evaluation, Geneva, Switzerland.
- Ousmane N. Nathaniel Niang (designer of the clothing brand Nittu Dëgg and founding member of the citizen movement of the same name)
- Ms. Aminata Kassambara, Socio-Educ at the EPI, State of Geneva
- Professor Samba Gadjigo, Mount Holyoke University, Massachussets
- Professor Sada Niang, University of Victoria, British Columbia.
- Bara Ndiaye, Lecturer and researcher at the Warmie and Mazury University in Olsztyn, Poland
- Pape Bakary Cissoko Philosopher and trainer Paris
- Mariame Dia Economist Dakar
- Amadou Dia, P.Eng. Director Project Office, Canada
- Alioune Sall, University Professor, Lawyer.
- Dr Moustapha Kamal Gueye, former Prytanée Militaire de Saint-Louis, senior UN official in Geneva
- Dr hab. Bara Ndiaye UWM Olsztyn Poland, I join this Appeal
- Macodou Ndiaye historian, philosopher, journalist, Paris
- Didier Awadi, musician, artist, Dakar
- Marc Alexandre Oho Bambe, poet, writer, Lille
- Souhayr Belhassen, Honorary President of the International Federation for Human Rights
- André Ribeiro, designer
- Khalil BOYE, community development actor and member of the political dialogue commission (experts' pole)
- Rabaa Abdelkefi, university professor, Tunisia
- Sana Ben Achour professor at the Faculty of Legal Sciences and feminist activist, Tunisia
- Lotfi Madani consultant Algeria,
- Prof. Alassane DIEDHIOU, vice-rector, Assane Seck University of Ziguinchor
- Serigne Touba Mbacké Gueye, Associate Professor, Université du Québec en Abitibi-Témiscamingue (UQAT)
- Thierno Diouf, Geographer, Belgium
- Cheikh Anta Babou, Professor of History, University of Pennsylvania
- NenéLou - Sociologist, Writer, Social Development Expert
- Tony Cisse - Trade Unionist (UNISON) and Youth Worker - London UK
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