Sights and Insights

Just before I came to Dakar, Senegal celebrated the 50^th anniversary of its independence from France. To mark the occasion, President Abdoulaye Wade unveiled the Monument de la Renaissance Africaine, which in the minds of many is the Monument de la Abdoulaye Wade, who is preparing to leave office.

The monument is a representation of a couple, both of incredible physical attributes….he, robustly male with the best chest in Dakar and she with best breasts in all of Africa. In his arms, the man holds a child pointing to the west. Why? No one is sure.

Started in 2002, the 53-meter statue appears suddenly from the hills overlooking the Atlantic Ocean. Completed with the assistance and underwriting of the Korean government, the monument cost about $27 million and is built on the highest point of land in Senegal, which is probably only a few hundred meters high rising from the coast. This large hill has a twin about a kilometer away, where the only lighthouse in Senegal is located.

The flags of all Africa fly proudly on the landscaped and well-tended hillside. At the street and parking level—180 steps lower than the monument’s entrance—are the theater and Jumbo-tron where it is expected crowds will gather for cultural, sports and political events.

Much bally-hooed, the monument is intended to be a Statue of Liberty-style attraction, nationalistic in its spirit, drawing tourists from all over the world, and especially Africans and Senegalese. The price tag doesn’t begin to cover the additional investment in infrastructure to support the monument…the highway, parking, ancillary buildings, programming and security that are required to keep the site open, organized, clean and safe.

We’ve laughed about it, marveled at the cost (which could have financed 120 dispensaries) and then we went to visit on Saturday. I stopped laughing. The site, the scale, the sentiment are inspiring and ennobling. Artistically, the monument’s strengths are that it is heroic and African.

Within the historical context of Senegal’s role in the Atlantic slave trade, the monument dignifies that scarred past, suggesting a people with determination and hope. Within the context of the current global economy, it towers, seeming to remind that Africa is thriving, a continent where there is driving energy and optimism that the developed markets seem to have lost.