Kaddu—that was Pathé Diagne who taught us to write in Wolof

A conversation between Ibrahima Wane and Ben Diogoye Béye

scroll down for french version / version française en bas

Ibrahima Wane: How did you come to join Kàddu? How did you get in touch? How did you find yourself on the Kàddu team?

Ben Diogoye Béye: It's a long story. When I was a teenager, at the age of seventeen-eighteen, we used to hang around the place where the mosque on Malick Sy Avenue is today, in front of Cité Police and the Seydou Nourou Tall mausoleum.

Ben Diogoye Bèye is a filmmaker and writer. At the time, when he was a young poet and journaliste, he published several texts in the columns of Kaddu. Before devoting himself entirely to his career as a filmmaker in 1972, he also served as one of Kaddu's secretaries.

We were a group of young Medinans among whom were four of my brothers as well as Boubacar Boris Diop who, for me, was to become the greatest Senegalese writer. We had begun to campaign and our activism was oriented toward disengagement, for it was the time when Senghor wanted to impose his will on us, to make us believe that French was the language of the gods.

At the time, there was a movie theatre, we had a film club, and I was one of the film club’s organizers. And of course we would invite our great filmmakers. The finest at the time were Sembène, Paulin Soumanou Vieyra, Ababacar Samb-Makharam, Momar Thiam. Whenever Sembène came by, he would say, I'm a novelist, but I wanted to make films because people do not read and I wanted to communicate with them in a language they understand.

That struck me as somewhat curious, for his debut and second films are in French. But, in the end, does it matter? In any case, that was what he wanted to do, his intention. And so, the 1970s were years of great militancy. 1968 was just behind us. We wanted to change society. We wanted to be present. I’ve always thought that you could not make headway in a foreign language. I went to school for seven years. After all I'm old now! At that time, the French students with whom I shared the same class entered class in 5^thgrade. That means they had already mastered their native language while I was speaking Wolof at home. So, it was through the film club and activism that I met ––and take note of that for you may know her name– a girl ... One day I went to Bopp, where now there is the Amadou Malick Gaye Centre. I met a girl who was much younger than me through the film club. She said to me, Monsieur, I would like to invite you to our cultural club. At that time there were cultural clubs. Your brother was with me at that club.

She then said to me, I would like you to help us because we’re doing theatre and so on. And so I went there. And we decided that if we were going to do theatre, then we would speak in our national language so that the public understands. That’s how it came about that I ended up staying with my brother during that period at Liberté 5 or Liberté 6. I was writing poems in Wolof. But after writing them I would show them to this girl and to other people and ask them what they thought about them. I was told: you have to change this and that, and so on. So, in the end they became collective poems. They were also very revolutionary poems. We never put our names to them. For example, I wrote this poem “Di liggèey ...” (You work like a beast / You’re paid with monkey money ...).

That's what I wrote, but I never signed it because we were in hiding at the time. The first time I met Sembène was after an article I wrote for Bingo magazine about his film Mandabi (1968, The Mandate). I came to show him the article. He was very happy with it. He said to me, I hope you'll be back so that we can see each other again at the filmmakers’ association office. I saw Ababacar Samb-Makharam’s film There was no longer snow / Et la neige n'etait plus (1966) a few weeks later at our film club about which I wrote an article. Ababacar Samb-Makharam taught me many things; not technically, but above all in terms of behaviour, morals, and so forth.

After that, they invited me to join their association, of which Sembène was president. I started to see Sembène regularly. But I already knew Pathé Diagne through the sister of his wife Fatou Sow. And I then realized that every time we presented Sembène’s films he would say, I started with the novel only to come to film because we have to jettison the French language to embrace our languages, and our images. At that moment I was very, very engaged in the struggle. I was on the left and I still am. But I was more ferociously so, for I was younger. And I would go to Sembène’s house every day. He lived not far away from Pathé Diagne in Yoff. He then proposed to me to come and talk with them. Pathé, as a linguist, had a methodology for transcribing Wolof. I said, “Pathé, I have a problem. I have ideas in my head, but if I express them through French, they will not be as forceful as I think they are. And Pathé held us back at his place, Sembène and I. Every day we would come and he taught us the alphabet. There was also the late Oumar Guèye, the “Parisian,” the lawyer Wagane Faye ... They’re the two that I recall ... I think it was Sembène who was the director of publication and Pathé Diagne the editor-in-chief. I was the manager. Given they both travelled a lot, I was in charge of expenses and such.

At one point, I wrote an article ... It was when President Senghor had recognized that one could write in the Wolof language, but he added that one should write it in a particular way, although he himself was not a Wolof, but rather a Serer. He would say, “Kadu,” while we Wolofs would write it “Kàddu” with two “d’s. He had a similar issue with Cheikh Anta Diop about “Siggi,” and then “Ceddo” (with Sembène). Although people are unwilling to face the fact, I say loud and clear is that Senghor held us back a lot. Because he wanted that we be French. If you read over Senghor's poem about the Guelowar, you can see that he only speaks of De Gaulle, even though being a Guelowar is a Serer value. So that was what Kàddu was about. It was Pathé Diagne who taught Sembène, Wagane, Guèye, I and the others to write in Wolof.

Wane: On the team, didn’t you also held the position of research officer?

Ben Diogoye Béye: In Kàddu, I was mostly the little brother, that is say that I was the manager, for Sembène was travelling a lot due to his filmmaking. After all, at that time it was he who financed the newspaper a little. And he provided the money to pay for postage, telephone costs, and so on. I sort of took care of management.

Wane: Were you also writing from time to time?

Ben Diogoye Béye: I was writing all the time. That said, I can no longer remember the articles I wrote. I just remember that I published the poem I already told you about in Kàddu, that you surely know.

Wane: I ask this question because there was really a lot of room for poetry in Kàddu and many articles on the arts.

Ben Diogoye Béye: I wrote many of them, but at the time we didn’t put our names to them, for we were in hiding.

Wane: And yet, Kàddu was still an accepted newspaper, sold publicly ...

Ben Diogoye Béye: Yes, Kàddu was an accepted newspaper, but as far we were concerned, we still knew that Senghor did not really accept it. And he forced the door on us in fact. At one point, he banned us because of the two “d’s. I don’t recall how it ended. After all it’s been quite some time ... But what was interesting about Kàddu was that Senghor wanted to impose Frenchness upon us, and we, for our part, imposed a Senegaleseness on him, if I can use such terms.

Wane: How was the newspaper distributed?

Ben Diogoye Béye: Here again, I’ll have to think back over things. I think that we each took a bunch of copies that we were trying to sell around us. That’s how it happened. Kàddu was a militant newspaper. We took it and distributed it among our friends and so on.

Wane: Those running the newspaper were of different political and ideological sensitivities. How could they jointly create and manage the newspaper?

Ben Diogoye Béye: No, no. At that time we were not of different political persuasions. We were all people who wanted to change Senegalese society, irrespective of whether we were Maoist, Marxist or otherwise.

Wane: That’s what I mean: but there were still different tendencies ...

Ben Diogoye Béye: Yes, but the essential thing for us was to change society. But that had started back in 1968. After 1968, we wanted to change society and it has changed in the meantime. I’m proud to have belonged to this movement. For example, I had problems with Sembène afterwards. But that has no bearing to that moment. Because that was back in 1973-74 (the Kàddu experience).

What I want in any case is that we acknowledge that Pathé Diagne deserves all the credit he received. He taught us to write in Wolof. There is now a film about Cheikh Anta Diop that is in French. The director hired two staffers to do the sub-titling in Wolof. That in itself is a great plus. Pathé Diagne achieved great things. Sembène, too, did great things. We were all little brothers, we were young militants on the left ...

Wane: How did you leave Kàddu? Had you to leave for reasons related to your professional career, for we don’t see you on the team during the second phase of the newspaper’s development?

Ben Diogoye Béye: Yes, it occurs to me that this is when I had to leave for Europe. I went to Sweden, and then to Paris where I made a film. And that is how is my career moved toward cinema.

Wane: After Kàddu, there were many newspapers published in national languages. If you recap on the situation, what, for you, was Kàddu’s affect on young people?

Ben Diogoye Béye: That’s difficult for me to answer, for I don’t know. Perhaps it’s my fault. Or maybe it's a problem of distribution. Because I’ve never read those newspapers in question. What I did see, however, was the brochure from the Senegalese Cultural Front in which my poem was published. We have got to persist. And you know why? Because it is necessary to prevent these advertisements in the streets that are written in Wolof and that are written by deliberately putting bullshit (errors) in them This is the case on those billboards that are to seen on the road to the airport. We ought to write respecting the rules of transcription in our national languages.

Wane: So as far as you are concerned, even though Kàddu was accepted and appeared regularly, Senghor did not really want it. Because at the time, all the opposition parties were in hiding. So, there was no other newspaper. Even Cheikh Anta Diop’s political party had not yet been officially recognized. Káddu was the only newspaper in the national language.

Ben Diogoye Béye: We were distributing it on the streets, but we ourselves were clandestine (individually) ... As soon as Senghor realized that the newspaper was starting to gain traction, he started harassing us with his fussing about one “d” or two “d’s. That’s how the altercation with Sembène came about. Sembène wrote Ceddo with two “d’s, something which Senghor wouldn’t accept. Senghor wanted to prevent us from speaking our languages. That's what people do not understand. He's the one who held us back. And, I have the courage to say so.

Dakar, 2017

Translated from French by John Barrett

"Consider Les tamboursde la memoire [The drums of memory], the 1990 novel from which Diop's story "Dakar Noir" is adapted. Drums tells the story of Fadel Sarr, the unruly scion of a powerful Senegalese family, who turns up dead one afternoon after a seven-year sojourn in the beautiful, archaic Kingdom of Wissombo. Sarr had been in Wissombo in hopes of finding a mystical heroine named Queen Johanna Simentho-a shadowy figure who bears a striking resemblance to Aliin Sitooye Diatta, a real-life hero from the I920s. Diatta was a kind of Senegalese Joan of Arc, exiled at the age of twenty-five for her anti-colonial activism against the French. " (Charles J. Sugnet, "Dances with Wolofs" in: Transition, Issue 87)

"The idea that one could hate a human language, even that of the former coloniser, was foreign to Diop. He readily concedes that philosophers, who are supposed to handle universal concepts, can dress their thoughts in the raiment of a foreign language. On the other hand, he is adamant that it is an altogether different matter for poets and novelists, owing to their complex approach to reality. Every writer of fiction knows that there is always a moment when the invisible company he keeps (the words of the tribe) vanish into the night, a moment when he feels lost and adrift in a sea of silences, where the sound of his own voice doesn’t register a single echo. The greater the gap between native and adopted cultures, the harder it is to jump this great fence wired with eerie silences. For Diop, African creative writers find themselves in such a labile situation that it dooms them to a perpetual artfulness." Boubacar Boris Diop, "What African Writers can learn from Cheickh Anta Diop" in: Chronic in Arts & Pedagogy, Faith & Ideology

"We have become so used to talking about Africa's countless languages that we have lost sight of the fact that Africa is, after all, a whole continent. A more than cursory examination of the languages of this continent reveals first, that the number has been vastly exaggerated, and second, that the situation is hardly different elsewhere. Europe posseses dozens of languages and dialects; and 'Standard African' is as much of a misnomer as 'Universal European' would be. French and Italian exist as separate languages, so why not Swahili, Hausa and Yoruba?Despite the existence of local variations, the number of linguistic zones in Africa is really quite small. Within each zone there is a linguistic unity which is not only historical but also a living fact." Pathé Diagne, "Vernacular Languages in a Changing Society", in: The Unesco Courier, June 1967.

"A third reproach was made concerning the Festival of Dakar. It personified in an excessive manner a tendency which, even though it referred to the black and African presence in the world, appeared above all to seek to debate minor themes. The colloquy about art had to do with art. Some believed a meeting of that nature should go beyond and focus the responsibility of the intellectuals and those in power with respect to national culture and to building free and democratic nations in Africa. The patronage of the European cultural empire in whose eyes the festival of negritude seemed to seek evidence of its legitimacy, was equally shocking. It was a founder of negritude who lightly affirmed——to the astonishment of the men of African culture—— that there were only two cultures in Africa: Francophonic and Anglophonic and he went into eulogies over their respective merits. Two days later, the same writer returned to the theme to confess that black art was a major art because Malraux, in the name of France of General de Gaulle, 'had solemnly recognized it.'" (Pathé Diagne in tricontinental, no 27-28, Nov 1971-Feb 1972, page 156.)

"The Maghreb’s participation in the Tricontinental Movement can be seen to be at its tightest during the 1969 Pan-African festival in Algiers. Yet this was also the moment when Souffles changed tack quite radically. Indeed, in reproducing Pathe ́ Diagne’s important critique of Negritude in Algiers, ‘Neither Apollo nor Oduduwa’, Tricontinental insisted that Algiers 1969 was a ‘counter-festival’ to the ‘Negritude’ congress held in Dakar in 1965." (Andy Stafford, "Tricontinentalism in recent Moroccan intellectual history: the case of Souffles", in: Journal of Transatlantic Studies, Vol. 7, No. 3, September 2009.)

Kàddu, c’était Pathé Diagne qui nous appris à écrire le wolof

Ben Diogoye Bèye et Ibrahima Wane parle du journal Kaddu

Ibrahima Wane : Comment es-tu venu à Kàddu ? Comment s’est fait le contact ? Comment t’es-tu retrouvé dans l’équipe de Kàddu ?

Ben Diogoye Bèye: C’est une longue histoire. Quand j’étais adolescent, à l’âge de 17-18 ans, on fréquentait l’endroit où se trouvent aujourd’hui la mosquée de l’avenue Malick Sy, en face de la cité Police, et le mausolée Seydou Nourou Tall. Nous étions là-bas une bande de jeunes Médinois parmi lesquels se trouvaient quatre de mes frères et Boubacar Boris Diop qui est devenu pour moi le plus grand écrivain sénégalais. Nous avions commencé à militer, et notre militantisme était orienté vers la désaliénation parce que c’était l’époque où Senghor voulait nous imposer, nous faire croire que la langue française était la langue des dieux.

A l’époque, il y avait une salle de cinéma, nous avions un ciné-club, et moi je faisais partie des animateurs du ciné-club. Et évidemment nous invitions nos grands cinéastes. Les premiers à l’époque, c’étaient Sembène, Paulin Soumanou Vieyra, Ababacar Samb-Makharam, Momar Thiam. Quand Sembène venait, il disait : Je suis romancier, mais j’ai voulu faire des films parce que les gens ne lisent pas et moi je voulais communiquer avec eux dans une langue qu’ils comprennent. Ca me paraît un peu bizarre parce que ses premier et deuxième films sont en français. Mais enfin quelle importance? En tout cas, c’était sa volonté, son intention. Et donc c’étaient des années de grand militantisme, les années 1970. Nous sortions de 1968. Nous voulions changer la société. Nous voulions être présents. Moi, j’ai toujours pensé qu’on ne pouvait pas avancer dans une langue étrangère. Moi, je suis allé à l’école sept ans. Je suis quand même vieux maintenant! A l’époque, les Français avec qui je partageais la même classe étaient entrés en classe en 5^eme. Cela veut dire qu’ils avaient déjà maîtrisé leur langue alors que moi, à la maison, je parlais wolof.

Donc, à travers le ciné-club et le militantisme, j’ai rencontré (et ça il faut le marquer parce que tu connais peut-être son nom) une jeune fille… Je suis allé un jour à Bopp, là où il y a actuellement le centre Amadou Malick Gaye de Bopp. Je rencontre une jeune fille qui était beaucoup moins âgée que moi ; c’était dans le cadre du ciné-club. Elle me dit: Monsieur, j’aimerais bien vous inviter dans notre club culturel. A l’époque il y avait des clubs culturels. Ton frère même était avec moi dans ce club. Elle me dit donc: J’aimerais bien que vous veniez nous aider, parce que nous faisons du théâtre et autres. Donc j’y vais. Et nous avons décidé que si nous faisons du théâtre, nous allons parler en langue nationale pour que le public comprenne. C’est ainsi que j’ai habité chez mon frère à l’époque à Liberté 5 ou Liberté 6. J’écrivais des poèmes en langue wolof. Mais quand je les écrivais, je les montrais à cette jeune fille et à d’autres personnes et leur demandais ce qu’elles en pensaient. On me disait: il faut changer ça et ça, etc. Donc c’étaient finalement des poèmes collectifs. C’étaient aussi des poèmes trop révolutionnaires. On ne les a jamais signés. Par exemple c’est moi qui ai écrit ce poème Di liggèey… [TRADUCTION : Tu travailles comme une bête / Tu es rétribué avec de la monnaie de singe]. Ça c’est moi qui l’ai écrit, mais je ne l’ai jamais signé parce qu’à l’époque on était dans la clandestinité.

La première fois que j’ai rencontré Sembène, c’était à la suite d’un article que j’avais écrit pour le magazine Bingo sur son film Le Mandat. Je suis venu pour lui montrer l’article. Il était très content. Il m’a dit: J’espère que tu vas revenir, pour qu’on se revoit, au bureau de l’association des cinéastes. Quelques semaines après, à notre ciné-club, je vois le film d’Ababacar Samb-Makharam, Et la neige n’était plus (1966). Je fais un article. Ababacar Samb-Makharam m’a appris beaucoup de choses; pas sur le plan technique, mais surtout sur le plan comportement, moral, etc. Après cela donc, ils m’ont invité dans leur association dont Sembène était le président. J’ai commencé à fréquenter Sembène. Mais je connaissais déjà Pathé Diagne, à travers la sœur de son épouse Fatou Sow. Et je me suis rendu compte que chaque fois qu’on présentait les films de Sembène, il disait : Moi, je suis parti du roman venu au film parce qu’il faut qu’on quitte la langue française pour venir à nos langues, à l’image. Et moi, en ce moment, j’étais très, très engagé dans la lutte. J’étais un gauchiste. Je le suis encore. Mais je l’étais plus férocement parce que j’étais plus jeune. Et Sembène, j’allais chez lui tous les jours. Il n’habitait pas loin de chez Pathé Diagne, à Yoff. Il me propose alors de venir discuter avec eux. Pathé, en tant que linguiste, avait une méthodologie pour transcrire le wolof. J’ai dit : Pathé, moi, j’ai un problème. J’ai des idées dans ma tête, mais si je les exprime en français, ce ne sera pas aussi fort que je le pense. Et Pathé nous retenait chez lui, Sembène et moi. Tous les jours on venait et il nous apprenait l’alphabet. Il y a avait aussi feu Oumar Guèye « Parisien », l’avocat Wagane Faye… C’est de ceux-là que je me souviens… Je crois que c’est Sembène qui était le directeur de publication et Pathé Diagne le rédacteur en chef. Moi, j’étais le gérant. Comme ils voyageaient beaucoup tous les deux, c’est moi qui m’occupais des dépenses, etc.

A un moment donné, j’avais fait un article… C’est quand le Président Senghor avait reconnu qu’on pouvait écrire la langue wolof mais en précisant qu’on devait l’écrire de telle manière, alors que lui, il n’est pas Wolof mais Sérère. Lui, il dit : « Kadu », alors nous Wolof, on dit : « Kàddu », donc avec deux « d ». C’est le même problème qu’il a eu avec Cheikh Anta Diop à propos de Siggi, et Ceddo (avec Sembène). Donc ce que les gens ne veulent pas accepter et que je dis haut et fort, c’est que Senghor nous a beaucoup retardés. Parce qu’il voulait que nous soyions des Français. Quand tu relis le poème de Senghor sur les Guélewar, tu vois qu’il ne parle que de De Gaule, alors que le Guélewar est une valeur sérère.

Donc Kàddu, c’était ça. C’était Pathé Diagne qui nous appris à écrire le wolof, Sembène, Wagane, Guèye, moi et les autres.

Wane: Dans l’équipe de Kàddu, tu occupais aussi les fonctions de chargé de la recherche, non ?

Ben Diogoye Bèye: Dans Kàddu, j’étais surtout le petit frère, c’est-à-dire que j’étais le gérant, parce que Sembène voyageait beaucoup en tant que cinéaste. Et à ce moment-là, c’est quand même lui qui finançait un peu le journal. Et c’est à moi qu’il remettait l’argent pour payer les frais d’envoi par la poste, le téléphone, etc. J’assurais en quelque sorte l’intendance.

Wane: Tu écrivais aussi de temps en temps ?

Ben Diogoye Bèye: J’écrivais tout le temps. Cela dit, je ne me souviens plus des articles que j’ai écrits. Je me souviens simplement que j’ai publié dans Kàddu le poème dont je t’ai déjà parlé, que tu dois connaître d’ailleurs.

Wane: Je te pose la question parce qu’il y avait justement beaucoup de place pour la poésie dans Kàddu et beaucoup d’articles sur les arts.

Ben Diogoye Bèye : J’en ai beaucoup écrit, mais à l’époque on ne signait pas parce qu’on était dans la clandestinité.

Wane: Mais Kàddu était quand même un journal accepté, vendu publiquement...

Ben Diogoye Bèye: Oui, Kàddu était un journal accepté, mais nous, nous savions que Senghor ne l’acceptait pas réellement. Nous forcions la porte en fait. Et à un moment donné, il nous a interdit à cause des deux « d ». Je ne sais plus comment ça c’était terminé. Ca fait très longtemps quand même… Mais ce qui est intéressant avec Kàddu, c’est que Senghor voulait nous imposer la Francitude, et nous, nous lui avons imposé la Sénégalitude, si je peux me permettre d’utiliser ces termes.

Wane: Comment le journal était-il distribué ?

Ben Diogoye Bèye: Là aussi, il faut que je me souvienne un peu. Je pense que nous prenions chacun un lot d’exemplaires que nous essayions de vendre autour de nous. C’est comme ça que ça se passait. Kàddu,c’était un journal de militants. On prenait, on distribuait aux copains, etc.

Wane: Les animateurs du journal étaient de sensibilités politiques et idéologiques différentes. Comment ont-ils pu créer et diriger ensemble le journal?

Ben Diogoye Bèye: Non, non. A l’époque on n’était pas d’obédiences politiques différentes. A l’époque nous étions tous des gens qui voulions changer la société sénégalaise, qu’on soit maoïste, marxiste, etc.

Wane: C’est ça que je veux dire : il y avait quand même des chapelles différentes…

Ben Diogoye Bèye: Oui, mais l’essentiel pour nous était de changer la société. Mais cela avait commencé depuis 1968. Depuis 1968, nous voulions changer la société. Elle a changé d’ailleurs. Je suis fier d’avoir appartenu à ce courant. Moi, par exemple, j’ai eu des problèmes avec Sembène par la suite. Mais ça, ça n’a aucune importance par rapport à ce moment-là. Parce que ça c’était en 1973-74 (l’expérience Kàddu).

Ce que je veux en tout cas, c’est qu’on reconnaisse à Pathé Diagne tout le mérite qu’il a eu. C’est lui qui nous a appris à écrire en wolof. Aujourd’hui par exemple il y a un film sur Cheikh Anta Diop qui est en français. Le réalisateur a engagé deux personnes pour faire le sous-titrage en wolof. Ça c’est déjà un avantage très fort. Pathé Diagne a fait de grandes choses. Sembène aussi a fait de grandes choses. Nous, nous étions les petits frères, nous étions de jeunes militants de gauche…

Wane: Comment es-tu parti de Kàddu ? Tu as dû quitter pour des raisons liées à ta carrière professionnelle parce qu’on te voit pas dans l’équipe pendant la seconde phase d’évolution du journal ?

Ben Diogoye Bèye: Oui, il me semble que c’est à ce moment-là que j’ai dû aller en Europe. Je suis en Suède, ensuite à Paris où j’ai fait un film. Et voilà ma carrière a balancé vers le cinéma.

Wane: Après Kàddu, il y a eu beaucoup de journaux en langues nationales. Si on résume, quelle a été pour vous l’influence de Kàddu sur la jeunesse ?

Ben Diogoye Bèye: Ça c’est un problème pour moi. Ça je ne le sais pas. C’est peut-être de ma faute. Ou bien c’est peut-être un problème de diffusion. Parce que je n’ai jamais lu ces journaux en question. Ce que j’ai vu par contre c’est la brochure du Front Culturel Sénégalais dans laquelle a été publié mon poème. Il faut qu’on continue. Tu sais pourquoi ? Parce qu’il faut qu’on empêche ces publicités dans la rue qu’on écrit en wolof et qu’on écrit en mettant sciemment des conneries (des fautes). C’est le cas sur les panneaux publicitaires qu’ont voir sur la route de l’aéroport. On doit écrire en respectant les règles de transcription des langues nationales.

Wane: Donc pour toi, même si Kàddu était accepté et paraissait régulièrement, Senghor n’en voulait pas en réalité. Parce qu’à l’époque tous les partis d’opposition étaient dans la clandestinité. Donc il n’y avait pas d’autre journal. Même le parti de Cheikh Anta Diop n’était pas encore reconnu officiellement. Kàddu était donc le seul journal en langue nationale.

Ben Diogoye Bèye: On le distribuait dans la rue, mais nous on était clandestins nous-mêmes (individuellement). Quand Senghor a su que le journal commençait à prendre de l’envergure, il a commencé à nous emmerder avec ses histoires de un « d » ou deux « d ». C’est de là qu’est partie la querelle avec Sembène. Sembène a écrit « Ceddo » avec deux « d », ce que Senghor refusait. Senghor voulait nous empêcher de parler nos langues. C’est ce que les gens ne comprennent pas. C’est lui qui nous a retardés. Moi, j’ai le courage de le dire.

Dakar, 2017

Ben Diogoye Bèye est cinéaste et romancier. En tant que jeune poète et journaliste, il a publié plusieurs textes dans les colonnes du journal Kàddu dont il l a été aussi l’un des gérants en 1972 avant de se consacrer entièrement à sa carrière cinématographique.

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