Writing Poetry Can Endanger Your Health - Chapter Nineteen, Section Two.

    The Poet as Liberator by Dave Jaffe


         David Diop, the poet born in Senegal was an optimist and a visionary. He saw an Africa liberated from white people's rule and a continent prosperous and free. Unfortunately he died in a plane crash at the age of 33 in 1960.
     "Hope was preserved in us as a fortress," he wrote in his poem 'The Vultures'.
     "Spring will be reborn under our bright step."
   
     To-day most countries in sub-Saharan Africa are ruled by black people. Yet this part of a massive continent is still beset by many problems. Its population has boomed as never before. Much of its soil is eroded and many African governments have pursued terrible farm policies. At a conference at the University of British Columbia in 1968, the French agronomist Rene Dumont told the people there in effect, "African governments are going down the wrong road in developing their countries."
     In 1970 Africa fed itself. In 1984 it had to import its food.  Transnational or multinational mining firms have opened up mines across the continent. They take home the minerals and leave behind few royalties and often massive pollution. European and American ruled government banks have often imposed terrible austerity programs on indebted African countries. Close to half of  Africa's near one billion people live on $1.25 a day or less.
     Yet Diop's optimism wasn't all wrong. In 1970 most people died in Senegal before the age of 45. To-day most Senegalese live well into their 60's. This is true for most of the African lands. Of course this massive increase in life expectancy has often outstripped many countries' abiltity to feed themselves.
      Some African rulers have led competent, honest governments . Others have lined their pockets and their bank accounts a mile wide and a kilometre deep, while their citizens die from hunger ansd poverty.
    "Do you see that house over there?" a Swiss citizen asked this blogger in Geneva in 1971. "It's the home of Mobutu." The mansion Joseph Mobutu owned, impressed many people. Mobutu was the ruler at that time of the vast interior country of the Congo. He became immensely rich while his country descended into civil war and was ravaged by AIDS. In a recent civil war in the Congo, over five million people were killed. AIDA and civil wars have taken a terrible toll on other African lands.
     David Diop dreamed of a rich, peaceful Africa. Hopefully one day his dreams will come true. In the meantime his poetry stands out as a powerful vision of a future that hasn't yet been fulfilled. Still,  he and his poetry were liberating forces.