The Great War and Senegalese memory: the veterans’ legacy

Abstract

ABSTRACTThe era of the Senegalese veteran was bookended by two public events: the elaborate celebrations in Paris and Dakar on July14, 1919 commemorating the soldiers’ contribution to Allied victory, and the death of Abdoylaye Ndiaye, the last surviving soldier, on 10 November 1998. During these eight decades, the French colonial state, its nationalist opponents, and its Senegalese neo-colonial successor sought through a variety of means – including carefully manicured battlefield cemeteries, larger than life statues of heroic soldiers, manifestos calling for civic equality in the colonies in exchange for the performance of military duty, and annual public parades on Armistice and later Senegalese Independence Day – to appropriate, transmit and transmute the image of the veteran across multiplegenerations for their own ends. On a personal level, the Senegalese combatants’ postwar experience was highlighted by three moments: their joyous return home and reunion with their loved ones; their gradual reintegration into Senegalese society – forever separated from others by the lingering trauma of their war-time experiences and the gulf everlastingly differentiating combatants from civilians; and the ongoing insult of receiving an unequal combatants’ pension in old age, which made a mockery of their personal sacrifices. Drawing on the oral histories of more than 80 Senegalese veterans, 60 of their descendants, and extensive archival collections, this piece explores the tensions during their lifetimes between the public representations of the soldiers and the reality of their private lives. Itconcludes that even though the veterans have physically passed from the scene, they have entered into collective mythology, and the memory of their war-time service, as well as its appropriation by others for their own ends, continues to endure.