In September 1956, from the 19th to the 22nd, Black writers and artists from Africa, the Caribbean and the Americas gathered at the Sorbonne in Paris for the First Congress of Black Writers and Artists. Organised by Présence Africaine under the leadership of Alioune Diop, the meeting became a foundational moment in the affirmation of Black cultures, the struggle against colonialism, and the quest for a more inclusive universalism. Seventy years later, the questions raised during those four days continue to resonate. On the occasion of this anniversary, DakArtNews sat down with Ibou Coulibaly Diop, Senegalese literary scholar and curator based between Dakar and Berlin. A specialist in African literatures and the politics of memory, Diop has been closely involved in developing Berlin’s concept for a new culture of remembrance around its colonial history. In this wide-ranging conversation, he reflects on the legacy of 1956, the meaning of universality today, the evolving role of the African artist, the challenges of decolonising memory, and the place of restitution and reparation in our shared future.
In 1956, Black writers and artists gathered at the Sorbonne to reclaim the right to speak about their own culture. Seventy years later, have we truly resolved the questions they raised?
Naturally, no. If we recall the interventions we can still hear today in the sound archives, as well as the texts and letters that accompanied the organisation of this Congress, it is clear that the ideal defended by these intellectuals and artists remains highly relevant. In the aftermath of the Second World War, and one year after Bandung, the struggles surrounding this Congress aimed, as Césaire put it, to “let the Black peoples enter the great stage of history” and to liberate them. These struggles continue. The exploitation and discrimination of Black bodies, the non-recognition of the Black subject, remain on the agenda today.
More broadly, all those struggles that also sought to restore a rightful place to African art and the art of its diaspora on the African continent are still struggles we are waging today. Of course, we must acknowledge the progress that has been made. One of the major demands of the Congress was the independence of African countries: there have therefore been concrete achievements. Yet the struggles that accompanied this Congress still accompany us. The questions were posed; the answers have not been found. We are still searching for those answers. Many of these questions remain open, and we continue to seek our place in the world. The road is still long.
There is, however, one question to which answers have been provided: that of the independence of African countries. But we must also remember that Western powers still exercise colonial domination over other territories today. As long as there are countries that can occupy or colonise others, we will not have fully answered this question. One of the major struggles of the Congress was decolonisation. And today, the question of colonisation remains unresolved. So yes, we can say that we have not yet answered all the questions that were raised in 1956.
What would it take to provide answers to these questions?
We must first recognise that what made colonisation possible was not simply the occupation of non-European territories. It was also the fabrication of a consciousness of domination. And this fabrication of a consciousness of domination continues to operate on minds today. Quite simply because we go to school, we learn languages, and we use tools that derive, in part, from this history of the colonisation of the mind. Fanon’s speech at the First Congress of Black Writers and Artists illuminated, with extraordinary lucidity, the close links between domination, dehumanisation and racism. When he declares that “one cannot enslave men without inferiorising them,” he invites us to understand racism as a system of power before it is a mere question of prejudice.
Seventy years after this historic congress, we remain confronted with this legacy. The forms of domination have evolved, but the issues of recognition, equality and justice remain at the heart of our contemporary debates. This is also what makes the intellectual and political legacy of this congress of capital importance for the challenges of our time.Even though considerable progress has been made in these struggles, it is difficult to say exactly what causes this situation to persist and how we can truly answer the questions that were already posed in 1956.
The work being done on the European continent or in the diaspora is by no means to be neglected. But the harm runs so deep that, to be truly radical — and I speak here as an activist — we would need to reverse the situation.
We need to create tools that, drawing on the heritage that is ours, allow us to build pathways out and to respond to this question of alienation that continues to prevail in our consciousness. Even if there exists an intellectual elite for whom this observation cannot be entirely validated, we truly need to rethink, or even overturn, our tools for the making of the human being.
You have acknowledged that there have been certain advances. In your view, in which areas have these advances been most significant?
I am always wary of the idea of linear progress. I do not know whether one can speak of “advances” in a definitive way, but it is undeniable that important developments have taken place. Today, many intellectual, cultural and political gatherings devoted to the African continent take place on the continent itself. This is a significant change. We also observe the emergence and strengthening of a civil society that is not solely driven by intellectuals, but also by citizens who are aware of relations of domination and who wish to build, despite the difficulties, spaces of life, creation and reflection rooted in their own realities.
At the same time, the limits of certain Western models of development have become more visible. The human being, who should be at the heart of any development project, is sometimes relegated to second place. Advances may also be found in the reaffirmation of values such as solidarity, in a better knowledge of the self, and in the search for alternatives that are not systematically conceived on the basis of French, German or, more broadly, Western models.
However, one of the most striking developments undoubtedly concerns the way Black cultures themselves are viewed. When the Congress was held in Paris in 1956, some observers still questioned the very existence of a Black culture or civilisation. Today, this debate no longer takes place in the same terms. There has been, in this respect, a considerable transformation of consciousness and intellectual frameworks.We must also maintain a sense of historical perspective. Seventy years may seem long on the scale of a human life, but it is relatively short on the scale of history.
It is important to remember where we come from. The 1956 Congress constituted one of the first major meetings between Black intellectuals from Africa, the Americas and elsewhere to reflect together on racism, slavery, colonisation and their respective experiences. There have therefore been real developments. But human history unfolds over a long period of time. That is why I prefer to regard these seventy years as an important stage in an ongoing process, rather than as a definitive conclusion.
In 1956, it was not only a matter of affirming the existence of Black cultures, but also of raising the question of their place in what is called “the universal.” Seventy years later, who still defines what can be considered universal?
It seems to me that the West continues, to a large extent, to want to define what the universal is and to set its contours. Yet we know today that what is often presented as a universal universalism is in reality the product of a particular history, of a specific historical and cultural experience. When it presents itself as the only possible reference, this universalism can have the effect of excluding or marginalising other traditions of thought, particularly African ones.
In my view, the universal belongs to no one in particular, because it belongs to all of us. Every human being, every society, every culture participates in its definition. This does not mean, of course, that we exist outside history. We are all shaped by legacies, languages, narratives and experiences that influence the way we see the world. That is why I am sometimes tempted to speak not of the universal in the singular, but of universalities.
For every culture produces values, knowledge and experiences that can claim universal scope. The universal is not a starting point defined once and for all; it is the result of an ongoing dialogue between different human experiences. The universal is born precisely from this plurality. It is constructed in encounter, in exchange and in mutual recognition. No civilisation, no culture, no continent can claim a monopoly over it.
And fundamentally, the recognition of this plurality does not depend on the gaze that Europe casts upon it. Whether or not a part of Europe accepts it changes nothing about its existence. The peoples of the world have always contributed to producing knowledge, worldviews and forms of civilisation. We all participate, each in our own way, in defining what can and must be universal. It is precisely in this assumed diversity that the universal finds its true strength and its true legitimacy.
So, according to you, it is ultimately more important to contribute to redefining the universal than to enter into a universal already thought elsewhere?
Above all, I consider that the project of universalities must remain a horizon, an aspiration, something deeply desirable. It can never be thought of as a definitive achievement. Universalities are, in this sense, of the order of utopia: not an illusion, but a direction, a promise, a movement towards which we collectively tend. They are never completed. They are constructed in dialogue, in encounter and in the capacity of human societies to recognise the legitimacy of the experiences of others. That is why I would say that universalities belong less to being than to becoming. Universals are not; they are always in the process of being made and of becoming.
This perspective invites us to humility. No culture, no civilisation, no people can claim to embody the universal on its own. It is nourished by the plurality of gazes, languages, memories and imaginaries.And to return to Senghor, universality needs everyone. It can only exist as a collective work, always unfinished, enriched by the contributions of each person. It is precisely in this shared diversity that its strength and its promise for the future reside.
Édouard Glissant invites us to think the world in terms of Relation, encounter and creolisation. How can his thought help us rethink African identity today?
Édouard Glissant developed two notions that seem essential to me: transversality and enlargement. In another way, Amin Maalouf addressed the same question when he warned against “murderous identities.” This invites us to move beyond closed identities in order to think becoming. African cultures are both one and multiple. There is not one African culture, but a plurality of cultures, histories, languages and sensibilities.
Their richness lies precisely in their capacity to meet, to transform and to cross epochs while integrating diverse influences without losing their deep coherence. This is where the notion of enlargement becomes fundamental. To live this transversality fully, we must be capable of enlarging our identities. For identity, like universality, is never a fixed reality. It is always in becoming. We continually construct ourselves through the encounters, experiences and legacies that we receive and reinvent.In this sense, we rediscover one of the most fruitful intuitions of Léopold Sédar Senghor’s thought.
Contrary to what has often been claimed, his conception of Négritude was not essentialist. It rested, on the contrary, on a dynamic vision of identity, open to encounter and exchange. For Senghor, it was not a matter of closing oneself off from the other, but of being capable of welcoming the other without ceasing to be oneself. A living identity is an identity solid enough to open itself, to dialogue, to transform and sometimes to fold back upon its roots, without ever losing itself. It seems to me that it is necessary today to return to these concepts that have nourished our ways of thinking the world, of making society and of imagining common futures.
This reflection is all the more important because we live in an era marked by withdrawal, identity-based tension and the temptation, for many nations, to close in upon themselves. The historical experiences of colonisation, slavery and domination led African and Afro-descendant thinkers to elaborate concepts that go far beyond their own history. I believe that these concepts can today help us reflect on the becoming of humanity as a whole.
They invite us to imagine a world in which identity is not a border but a relation, and in which diversity is not a threat but a condition of our common future. Even in the most tragic moments of history, this capacity to think becoming remains an essential resource and a source of hope.
Today there is much talk of decolonisation and coloniality when thinking about contemporary African societies. But Islamisation and Christianisation, for example, also profoundly transformed African societies, their languages, their systems of thought, their practices and even the ways in which individuals name and define themselves. Do you sometimes feel that the contemporary debate on decolonisation focuses too exclusively on the European colonial legacy, at the risk of leaving aside other historical transformations that have also shaped African societies?
I would not frame the question in terms of repentance or a return to the past. Every society has the responsibility to revisit the major historical sequences that have shaped it. Yet it seems to me that we have not yet fully measured what European colonisations, in Africa as in Asia, profoundly transformed in the societies concerned and continue, in some cases, to transform today. We often speak of colonisation as a phenomenon that is over, belonging exclusively to the past. Yet certain contemporary situations remind us that colonial legacies remain very much present, and that some territories still maintain relationships of dependence inherited from this history. This is a reality we must look at with lucidity.
But it is equally important not to reduce our reflection to a single form of domination. Human history is traversed by multiple experiences of conquest, expansion, domination and encounter. To understand the world in which we live, we must be capable of analysing the whole of these phenomena, without diverting our attention from what is essential: understanding the moments of contact, confrontation and transformation between human societies.
I would moreover like to avoid any simplistic opposition between Western colonisation, Christianity, Islam or other forms of historical expansion. These are different phenomena, which took diverse forms according to contexts and periods, but which all contributed to shaping African and Asian societies. They deserve to be studied with rigour, in their historical complexity.
What seems to me still lacking today is a shared understanding of the profound effects of these different colonisations on our ways of thinking, of living together, of organising our societies and of projecting ourselves into the future. We have not always taken the full measure of what they produced, both in the societies that suffered them and in those that exercised them.I do not wish thereby to minimise the considerable work that has already been accomplished. Generations of researchers, intellectuals and artists have produced remarkable analyses of these questions.
But this knowledge often remains confined to academic or specialised spaces. One of the challenges of our time is precisely to make this knowledge circulate more widely so that it can nourish a broader collective reflection.For it is not only a matter of understanding the past. It is also a matter of understanding the present and imagining the future. To reflect on colonisations, in the plural, is to reflect on the conditions that have shaped our contemporary world and to give ourselves the means to think what we want to make of it tomorrow.
You work between Dakar and Berlin. When you look at the African art scene today, do you feel that artists are freer to define their own narratives?
I dare to hope that the African arts are today in a position to develop their own narratives. Many artists are already doing so with great creativity and freedom. But we must also recognise that they operate in an environment marked by the expectations of the international art market. Major galleries, institutions and collectors sometimes contribute to defining what is considered visible, desirable or commercially viable.
This reality can give the impression that there exists a certain way of producing African art in order to respond to external expectations. And, to a large extent, we still continue to look at African art through categories inherited from Western art history. This inevitably influences the works that are valued, the narratives that are foregrounded and the way African art is exhibited and interpreted. This phenomenon is not surprising. Histories of art have been constructed within relations of power that continue to have effects today.
But the essential question seems to me to lie elsewhere. It is a matter of strengthening our capacity to think and present our creations on the basis of our own references, our own aesthetic traditions and our own ways of seeing the world. African cultures already possess an extraordinary wealth of forms, symbols, narratives and artistic languages.
The issue is therefore not to invent new codes from scratch, but to continue their development, transmission and renewal, so that they can dialogue with the rest of the world on an equal footing. I deeply believe that one can only contribute to the universal from what one is.
Seeking to see the world through the eyes of others can be enriching, but it can never replace one’s own gaze. One does not astonish with the eye of the other. One astonishes only with one’s own eye. It is in this fidelity to oneself, open to encounter and exchange, that the African arts can make their most original and fruitful contribution to the world.
Must African artists negotiate between what they want to say and what the art world expects of them?
I would not put it that way. Every creation is a dialogue: a dialogue between the artist and their environment, whether that environment is the art market, their society or their own biography. It is always important to negotiate with this environment, but in such a way that one does not pervert one’s own vocation.
In 1956, the role of the artist seemed relatively clear, particularly in Senghor’s cultural policies: art could be directly engaged in a societal project. Seventy years later, after independence, how do you think of the role of the artist today? What can one still expect of them?
This sometimes amounts to expecting from artists a task that is not necessarily theirs. The artist’s primary responsibility is to create, to open horizons, to move, to astonish and to propose new ways of looking at the world. Their role is not to respond to a predefined programme or to embody a societal project on their own. The artist thinks the world in its becoming. They explore possibilities, formulate intuitions, and sometimes reveal what escapes political, scientific or institutional discourses. That is why I am always wary of the idea that art should necessarily serve a determined social or political function. One cannot impose on the artist a pre-established conception of what society should be.
For me, art sets knowledge in motion. Art is a reservoir of knowledge. It does not only say what is, but also what could be, as Roland Barthes so finely wrote. Literature and art open spaces where other possibles can be thought. It is this conception of art that particularly interests me: the artist’s capacity to situate themselves beyond immediate realities, to take distance from their time and to sketch futures that are still invisible.
This freedom of creation is precious because it allows us to think otherwise and sometimes to glimpse what does not yet exist. Must art therefore be engaged? Must it necessarily transform society? I do not believe there is a single answer to these questions. Some works choose explicit engagement; others act more discreetly, simply by modifying our gaze on the world. In both cases, they can have a profound influence.
The 1956 Congress responded to a particular historical context. Faced with colonialism, racism and the struggles for emancipation, the writers and artists who took part were aware of carrying a voice that went far beyond the artistic field alone. The Congress succeeded in playing this role with remarkable force. But its most precious legacy perhaps lies in the conviction that art is never confined to a single function: it can be at once memory, critique, creation, imagination and a promise of the future.
You are also a curator. This means that through your choices you also defend a certain gaze on art and on the conversations it can carry.
If there is one thing I have learned through my work as a curator and my reflections on art, it is that my greatest wish is to be able to create spaces where the artist and their work can be seen, without the curator influencing the artist’s creative process. Because once again, I remain convinced that art can show us ways out. Artists set knowledge in motion: they create it, transform it and make it circulate differently. My role is therefore to allow the artist and their work to exist and to create within a framework that truly honours the artist and their work.
In 2022, you were commissioned to develop for the city of Berlin a concept for a new culture of memory around its colonial history, including the proposal of a central site of memory and learning dedicated to colonialism. What has concretely been done since the submission of the concept, and what are the next steps?
The concept we developed aimed above all to outline the broad lines of what is necessary to commemorate the history of colonialism in a lasting way and to create a space allowing a deeper understanding of it. But such a project cannot be thought in an abstract or purely institutional manner. That is why we are today engaged in a broad process of reflection around this future site of memory.We are working with representatives of civil society, architects, researchers and many other actors in order to imagine concretely what this place could be. If we were to build it today, what would its functions be? What should it look like?
How can we ensure that it is at once a place of learning, exhibition and research, but also an open, welcoming space in which residents can simply meet, exchange and spend time? These questions are at the heart of our approach. It is not only a matter of designing a building, but of reflecting on the way a society relates to its history and transmits it to future generations. We are currently in a phase of consultation and definition.
With the various partners involved, we are working to clarify the contents, uses, dimensions and concrete needs of such a place, while assessing the resources necessary for its realisation.At the end of this process, we will draw up a roadmap that will be presented to the Berlin Senate. If it is approved, we will then be able to enter the implementation phase. As with any memorial project of this scale, the timetable remains open: its realisation may take several years. But what matters above all is to build a place worthy of the historical, civic and human stakes it carries.
You have also criticised the fact that the new German federal framework for sites of memory (Gedenkstättenkonzept) no longer makes colonialism one of its main axes, unlike the project presented in 2024 by Claudia Roth. Why, in your view, was it important that colonialism form part of this federal framework of memory?
It is important to distinguish the different levels of political responsibility. For my part, I work at the level of the Land of Berlin, within the framework of the project for a site of memory dedicated to the history of colonialism. The debates concerning federal memory policy belong to another institutional level. At the federal level, a debate has opened around the place that the history of colonialism should occupy in German memory policy.
In recent years, the idea had been advanced of integrating this history more explicitly into the general framework of public memory. Today, other choices have been made, which naturally give rise to discussions and questions.I had the opportunity to be invited to the Bundestag as an expert in order to share my analysis of the importance of commemorating and transmitting the history of colonialism. On that occasion, I expressed my view very clearly: it seems to me that there is still a significant gap in the way this history is taken into account at the national level.
This gap is all the more significant because colonialism does not belong solely to the past. Its effects continue to mark our societies, our institutions, our representations of the world and sometimes even our international relations. Understanding this history does not consist in distributing moral responsibilities between generations; it is above all a matter of better understanding the historical processes that have contributed to shaping the world in which we live today.In my view, an ambitious memory policy must be capable of addressing the full range of historical experiences that have marked a society, including those that remain difficult or controversial.
That is why I consider it necessary to continue the work of research, transmission and dialogue around the history of colonialism. The stake is not only to look at the past. The stake is also to understand the present and to give future generations the tools necessary to reflect critically on history, its legacies and the responsibilities that flow from them for our contemporary societies.
“Decolonising memory also means creating places capable of making this history visible in all its complexity.”
Ibou Diop
The 1956 Congress was also, in a certain sense, a moment of decolonisation of knowledge and narratives: what does the work you have carried out in Berlin teach us, seventy years later, about what it can concretely mean to decolonise the memory of a society?
To decolonise the memory of a society, for Western societies, would perhaps begin with a critical examination of their own narratives. This means questioning their national libraries, the knowledge they transmit and that which continues to be absent from them. What are the works, the thinkers and the intellectual traditions that have contributed to the history of humanity without having truly found their place in national narratives?
This reflection must also concern education. It seems to me difficult to fully understand contemporary societies without taking into account the history of slavery and colonialism, as well as the legacies they have left behind. This is all the more important because relations between Africa, Asia and Europe cannot be reduced to a history of domination. Women and men from the colonies also contributed, at different moments of history, to the defence and liberation of Europe.
These histories are also part of our common memory. Decolonising memory also means creating places capable of making this history visible in all its complexity. Places where one can understand colonial violence, its human, economic and cultural consequences, but also the traces it continues to leave in the contemporary world. Another fundamental question is that of the restitution of African and Asian heritages. When one speaks of colonialism, one rightly insists on conquests, violence and spoliation. But one sometimes forgets that with the objects also departed knowledge, techniques, narratives and forms of knowing that belonged to these societies.
It is therefore essential to tell this history as well: that of the inventions, intellectual traditions, artistic creations and know-how developed by colonised peoples. For their history is not limited to what they suffered; it also includes what they created, transmitted and contributed to the history of humanity.Part of this heritage is today found in Western museums. Behind the objects conserved in these collections sometimes lie knowledge, practices and memories that have been separated from their societies of origin. Restitution is therefore far more than a question of ownership.
It also concerns the possibility for these societies to reconnect with a part of their history and their cultural heritage. In my view, this restitution should not be perceived as a gesture of generosity or benevolence. It stems from a historical responsibility and a demand for justice. And it is precisely from this demand that it also becomes possible to open a broader reflection on the question of reparations, on their meaning, their possible forms and their place in the construction of more equitable relations between societies.
You insist on restitution, but also on the question of reparation. What do these two notions imply, in your view, today?
I remain convinced that no reparation will be able to erase or fully compensate for what slavery, colonisation and the violence that accompanied them produced in history. The lives destroyed, the societies disrupted, the knowledge lost or displaced, as well as the borders imposed, have profoundly transformed the destiny of entire peoples.
Some of these consequences continue even today to structure our political, economic and social realities. This does not mean, however, that the question of reparations should be set aside. On the contrary. It seems to me indispensable that there be at least a symbolic reparation, that is to say a clear and assumed recognition of historical responsibilities and of the suffering that was inflicted.
Without recognition, there can be neither shared memory nor true historical justice. But reparation cannot be only symbolic. It must also be accompanied by a reflection on its material and financial dimensions. For centuries, considerable wealth was extracted from the African continent and contributed to the economic development of many Western powers.
Recognising this reality implies opening a serious debate on the concrete forms of reparation that could help reduce the inequalities inherited from this history.For me, it is neither a matter of making present generations feel guilty nor of rewriting the past. It is a matter of taking note of a shared history and of reflecting on the conditions of a more just future.
The question of reparations concerns memory as much as becoming. It interrogates the type of relations we wish to build between Africa, Europe and the rest of the world in the twenty-first century. Ultimately, reparation only makes sense if it opens perspectives. It must contribute to strengthening the capacities of the societies concerned to write their own narratives, to develop their institutions, to transmit their knowledge and to build their future according to their own priorities. It is in this perspective that it seems to me to be not only a question of historical justice, but also a question of responsibility towards future generations.
To conclude, how can we think the future of African societies, and what can art do in this becoming?
In 1956, the women and men gathered at the Congress were fighting for something fundamental: the right to be fully recognised in their humanity. They lived in a world marked by colonisation, segregation and racism, a world that still contested their place in universal history. This experience led them to develop a political, cultural and social consciousness turned towards the future.
They were not reflecting only on the becoming of Africa, but on the becoming of the world as a whole, on the possibility of a world capable of fully welcoming their existence as Black people. Perhaps that is where the greatest relevance of their legacy lies. They invite us to think beyond what already exists, beyond the limits that our societies often consider natural or inevitable. For my part, I measure the value of an artist by their capacity to go beyond the present. The artist does not merely describe the world as it is; they interrogate what it could become. They open horizons that society is not yet capable of seeing. They make thinkable what was not yet thinkable.
How can we claim to reflect on the future of humanity if we continue to live in societies where women, people with disabilities or minorities are still marginalised or excluded? How can we imagine a common future if we accept that certain human beings are considered less worthy than others because of their differences? The stake of art seems to me to lie precisely there: to help us move beyond the contradictions of our time. Not by providing ready-made answers, but by enlarging our moral and political imagination. The artist has the capacity to think a world that does not yet exist, a world that has not yet fully become aware of what it could be.
Ultimately, great works always remind us that humanity is larger than the borders we impose upon it. They invite us to imagine societies capable of recognising each of their members in their dignity. For our world remains unfinished. And as long as it is not capable of embracing all its children, it will remain a world in becoming. Senghor, in his thought of Négritude, wanted a world that embraces all its children, that is capable of seeing them and allowing them to flourish. And when he spoke of “all,” he truly meant everyone. It is this political and cultural consciousness that animated Senghor, Césaire, Richard Wright, James Baldwin and so many other intellectuals and artists of that era.
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